As I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed this morning, I noticed that someone had posted a link to a video. Generally I don't click on links, mostly because I'm too lazy to commit to watching or reading anything beyond the standard drivel that makes Facebook what it is. Nevertheless, this one caught my eye.
It's 600 or so students and educators from the Coláiste Lurgan, an Irish Language immersion school in Connemara, singing the Anna Kendrick hit, 'Cups,' from the movie Pitch Perfect. Spoiler, this one is in Gaelic - and it's amazing.
I think the reason it resonated so much with me is because I take my heritage pretty seriously and I embrace where my family came from. Yea, I'm an American (cue Lee Greenwood), and while I'm equally proud of that, I sometimes feel like the legacy of the Irish is acutely underrepresented or, at the very least, a little misunderstood.Regardless, I probably shouldn't read too much into the fact that most Americans don't know about the terrible things that happened in Ireland; basically because, beyond what I was taught in school, I am not up to par with what went anywhere else in the world.
To my point, which has obviously taken me a while to make - seeing these kids sing in Gaelic meant a lot to me. It's a sign that Ireland is taking the steps to regain the identity that was ripped away from them 500 years ago. I remember when I was last there, it was nice to hear the announcements on the Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) in both English and Irish, but seeing it become more of a 'thing' is rather uplifting. Okay, I say nice, but let's be honest, Gaelic is not always the prettiest sounding language, but it's their language.
After watching the video, I decided I needed to learn a language. Five years of spanish and two years of Italian and I can remember about three sentences (useful ones of course, such as, 'why do we swim in the beans,' and, 'did you know spiderman is my boyfriend?') So after taking a hard look at my heritage, it should come as no surprise that I chose to learn...spanish.
While I initially thought learning Gaelic would be awesome, it would serve me little purpose in my everyday life (less a few witty phrases and the funny looks from passersby). Mandarin
seemed like a terrific option, until I remembered that I work in the hollows of state government and not at an international conglomerate. After Googling the most spoken languages within Massachusetts, my options dwindled to Spanish or Portuguese, both stellar choices. I opted for Spanish because, from what I recall, it's a great foundation language. When I did transition from Spanish to Italian, I remember it going rather smoothly. So, after some scouring, I found a great deal on the Rosetta Stone Spanish package, and so began the creation of a New Year's goal (I loathe the word resolution, I resolve to never use the word in relation to myself and my intentions. Never using it means I can never fall short after January 1st!)
The package should be here tomorrow or Friday. What that basically means it, I'll be fluent in time for the weekend.
Adios!
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