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Cake day: August 20th, 2023

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  • Ireland has been independent for about a century and outside the Gaeltacht, everybody speaks English, and yet Irish (i.e. Gaelic) is still taught to all pupils and used on official documents. In Wales (which, for most administrative purposes, is a part of an entity known as England-and-Wales), signage has to be in both English and Welsh, and official agencies have to provide services in Welsh; there are few monolingual Welsh speakers and anecdotally the popularity of Welsh of said to alternate generationally (i.e., if your parents don’t speak it, it’s cool).

    Representation is important in a pluralist democracy, and the people who want to eliminate minority language support to “better fund schools and hospitals” or whatever generally aren’t in favour of funding public services either (much in the same way that those who want to kick foreigners out to “help our own” overwhelmingly tend to be against actually helping our own), but “let’s get rid of te reo to fund tax cuts for the rich” doesn’t sound as compelling