"FAILTE"!!!
Julgo por bem deixar aqui esta transcrição, que nos deverá causar bastante contentamento.
GAELIC LANGUAGE GETS OFFICIAL EU STATUS
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
The Associated Press
Monday, June 13, 2005; 7:11 PM
"The European Union is saying «Failte!» - Welcome! - to Gaelic, Ireland's little-used native tongue. But while official status is a boost to those campaigning to save the language from extinction, the move comes with a price: It will require the hiring of an estimated 30 Gaelic speakers at a cost to EU taxpayers of about $4.15 million annually.
Translation costs for the EU's 20 official languages had already been spiraling out of control. In January, officials said the amount was set to pass $1 billion following the entry in 2004 of 10 new EU members chiefly from Eastern Europe.
Critics also say the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, Belgium, has become a Tower of Babel that bogs down decision-making, leading to calls for a drastic reduction in the number of languages used officially.
Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said the Irish language's new EU status would require legislation to be translated into Gaelic, while live translations in Gaelic would be provided at EU meetings if the Irish speaker requested it in advance.
Ahern said the move would go into effect Jan. 1, 2007, after which any Irish representative could be free to speak Gaelic, rather than Ireland's universally spoken English, at EU ministerial meetings or in the European Parliament.
«It's a real psychological boost for the Irish language» Ahern said in a telephone interview from an EU meeting in Luxembourg.
Ireland had been campaigning for official EU recognition of Gaelic since the first half of 2004, when the Irish held the rotating presidency of the bloc as it expanded from 15 to 25 members and introduced new official languages ranging from Polish to Maltese.
The promotion of Gaelic is widely viewed as a political sacred cow in Ireland, even though elected representatives and officials - like the population at large - almost exclusively use English. In Ireland's own parliament, less than 2 percent of business is conducted in Gaelic.
About 40 percent of Ireland's 3.9 million residents identify themselves as fluent in Gaelic on census forms, but it's rare to hear the language spoken outside of a few language preserves on Ireland's western fringe. There, about 55,000 people identify themselves as native Gaelic speakers.
An increasing number of students are opting out of taking high school exams in Gaelic, which remains a required course from kindergarten onwards.
But Ahern said gaining EU recognition of Gaelic, besides creating jobs for Gaelic speakers, would boost pride and interest in what remains the Irish state's official language.
Political parties across Ireland united in praise of the EU move. Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party whose name roughly translates as «ourselves alone» was particularly effusive.
«While recognition of the language in an international context is symbolic, it is also much more than that» said Bairbre de Brun, one of Sinn Fein's two European Parliament members, who speaks fluent Gaelic and French. «The positive impact of this decision will be hugely influential for the 1 million-plus Irish speakers and learners in this country.»
The European Union also granted semiofficial status Monday to three other regional languages: Basque, Catalan and Galician.
Residents of Galicia in northwestern Spain, Catalonia in eastern Spain and the Basque region straddling the Spanish-French border will all be able to receive EU documents in their home tongues - but only because the Spanish government agreed to pay for the costs of translation.
Last year's expansion created some unexpected bureaucratic hiccups.
Malta, the smallest member with a population of 400,000, held a competition for Maltese interpreters, but none was found up to EU standards. The EU sufficed with freelancers while it set up training courses on Malta".
GAELIC LANGUAGE GETS OFFICIAL EU STATUS
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
The Associated Press
Monday, June 13, 2005; 7:11 PM
"The European Union is saying «Failte!» - Welcome! - to Gaelic, Ireland's little-used native tongue. But while official status is a boost to those campaigning to save the language from extinction, the move comes with a price: It will require the hiring of an estimated 30 Gaelic speakers at a cost to EU taxpayers of about $4.15 million annually.
Translation costs for the EU's 20 official languages had already been spiraling out of control. In January, officials said the amount was set to pass $1 billion following the entry in 2004 of 10 new EU members chiefly from Eastern Europe.
Critics also say the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, Belgium, has become a Tower of Babel that bogs down decision-making, leading to calls for a drastic reduction in the number of languages used officially.
Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said the Irish language's new EU status would require legislation to be translated into Gaelic, while live translations in Gaelic would be provided at EU meetings if the Irish speaker requested it in advance.
Ahern said the move would go into effect Jan. 1, 2007, after which any Irish representative could be free to speak Gaelic, rather than Ireland's universally spoken English, at EU ministerial meetings or in the European Parliament.
«It's a real psychological boost for the Irish language» Ahern said in a telephone interview from an EU meeting in Luxembourg.
Ireland had been campaigning for official EU recognition of Gaelic since the first half of 2004, when the Irish held the rotating presidency of the bloc as it expanded from 15 to 25 members and introduced new official languages ranging from Polish to Maltese.
The promotion of Gaelic is widely viewed as a political sacred cow in Ireland, even though elected representatives and officials - like the population at large - almost exclusively use English. In Ireland's own parliament, less than 2 percent of business is conducted in Gaelic.
About 40 percent of Ireland's 3.9 million residents identify themselves as fluent in Gaelic on census forms, but it's rare to hear the language spoken outside of a few language preserves on Ireland's western fringe. There, about 55,000 people identify themselves as native Gaelic speakers.
An increasing number of students are opting out of taking high school exams in Gaelic, which remains a required course from kindergarten onwards.
But Ahern said gaining EU recognition of Gaelic, besides creating jobs for Gaelic speakers, would boost pride and interest in what remains the Irish state's official language.
Political parties across Ireland united in praise of the EU move. Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party whose name roughly translates as «ourselves alone» was particularly effusive.
«While recognition of the language in an international context is symbolic, it is also much more than that» said Bairbre de Brun, one of Sinn Fein's two European Parliament members, who speaks fluent Gaelic and French. «The positive impact of this decision will be hugely influential for the 1 million-plus Irish speakers and learners in this country.»
The European Union also granted semiofficial status Monday to three other regional languages: Basque, Catalan and Galician.
Residents of Galicia in northwestern Spain, Catalonia in eastern Spain and the Basque region straddling the Spanish-French border will all be able to receive EU documents in their home tongues - but only because the Spanish government agreed to pay for the costs of translation.
Last year's expansion created some unexpected bureaucratic hiccups.
Malta, the smallest member with a population of 400,000, held a competition for Maltese interpreters, but none was found up to EU standards. The EU sufficed with freelancers while it set up training courses on Malta".
Comentários
FAITE mas é fecundar com um parelha de bois, é o que é!!!