67. How Do I Keep a Minority Language Playgroup in the Minority Language?

It, it was amazing.

And so I'll just say, this is our, this is my third time going there.

So this time we just, we were going there for a wedding, um, at the end of the week that, that we were there.

And so we kind of parked ourselves in one location, which we hadn't done the previous trips.

We'd kind of like toured around a lot more.

So this time we were just in West Cork, um, Cork being the southernmost county in Ireland, and we were staying about 10 minutes outside of the town of Skibbereen.

We were staying in a little town on the coast called Castletownsend.

Um, and it was so amazing, and while I was there, I was also really cognizant of like, um, taking note of all the Irish language things so I could report back.

And I might, we might have mentioned this on a previous podcast, but the f- the, one of the things that I think is so amazing about Ireland is the very dedicated, like, resurgence of the language, and, um, folks trying to bring back their heritage language and it being taught in schools in a different way than it has been in the last couple decades.

And it's of course, one, Irish is like one of the two official languages in Ireland, along with English, so every single public sign is in Irish as well as English.

Like every, um, when you're on the highway, it, every single town is written in both Irish and in English, um, which of course, like, has a really interesting and dark history to it because it was the Engl- when the English, um...

In the 1800s is when the town names were mostly anglicized.

Um, and so there's like a, a real poignant history behind that.

And so, and, um, one of my favorite...

So just like I- you just see Irish everywhere, which is amazing, and also helpful because it does have, like, such a different pronunciation schema, um, from English, so it's helpful to see it so often, 'cause it's hard to pronounce.

But, um, one of my favorite things that I saw when I was over there, I saw this last time and didn't realize it was a, a thing.

Um, but at all of the playgrounds there, 'cause I had just seen it at one particular playground last time we were in Ireland, so I thought maybe it was just this one playground, but it turns out it is all of the playgrounds.

They have these huge boards, um, on the fence that are visual communication boards, and so they'll have a little picture of like, you know, like my turn or share, you know, let's share, or you go next, or all, or like stop that, or this or that.

Like probably, gosh, 50 or 100 little pictographs of things that kids might need to help them communicate.

Um, and so they have the little picture, and then they also have what the thing is in both Irish and in English for this huge amount of communication, um, things.

And I'll have to send you some photos of it, 'cause I took some photos, and I just thought that was amazing.

I, and I had seen it last time in Galway, and then we went to a bunch more playgrounds this time, and I realized it's actually at every single playground.

Um-

Wow

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