Good evening. Our interview guest this evening is Thark, an asylum-seeker from the planet Drong. Good evening, Mr Thark, and a céad míle fáilte to Planet Earth.
Thark: Mgkjlr qvxjugf.
Myself: I beg pardon?
Thark: Oh, sorry, I mean good evening. Occasionally we from Drong slip inadvertently into the first official language, Dronga, because most of us had to learn it compulsorily at school and pass the Dronga paper in our final exam, known as the Departing Cert.
Tens of thousands of Drongans sweated purple blood to pass that exam and as a result developed a deep and abiding loathing of Dronga. So as a vernacular it's as dead as a doornail. It's just that our leaders, the Great Piety in the Sky, won't let it lie down.
Myself: But doesn't that mean that the great works of literature in Dronga - if there are such things - are dead, too?
Thark: Certainly not. There are indeed such things, and anybody who wants to read them in the original is perfectly free to learn Dronga. The point is that, as a Drongan taxpayer, I'm not paying for them to do so. Just as anybody on Planet Earth is perfectly free to learn Latin or classical Greek at their own expense in order to read Ovid or Aristophanes in the original. Our real vernacular is English, of course, because of inter-planetary air-traffic control, the BBC World Service, the lyrics of Elton John songs and that sort of thing.
Myself: We have a first official language, too.
Cultural tourist
Thark: I'm well aware of that. I'm not an asylum-seeker, by the way; I'm a cultural tourist. I have been watching your primitive "television" device and I have picked up a smattering of your first official language. Auto emoción. Vorsprung durch Technik. Créateur d'automobiles. See? But here's a thing that puzzles me. Why is it that the commercials on TG4 are not, like the programming, in your first official language?
Myself: I'm afraid I'm too uncynical to know things like that.
Thark: In fact, I have observed a number of such baffling phenomena on my regular visits to this cosy corner of your planet and I would be obliged if you would explain them to me.
Myself: Shoot, but I can't promise anything.
Thark: For example, once I happened to be near a building at the corner of Merrion and Anglesea Roads in your salubrious Dublin 4, only a short stroll from St Stephen's Green, as your estate agents like to say. At the time this building was occupied by an official body - something to do with education, I seem to recall. A painter was repainting the white railings in front of the building. Here and there he had tied little printed cards - obviously official issue, probably Board of Works - which said "Wet paint" in English. . .and Irish. Who, pray, was the Irish aimed at?
Myself: I can only assume they were afraid that an aged native speaker from Dun Chaoin in Co Kerry was going to come to Ballsbridge and, not understanding "Wet paint" in English, place his hand on the railings.
Thark: On my planet that kind of thing is called Witless Tokenism, and it is punishable by death.
Here's another thing. The national policy on Irish, if that is the apposite term, can be positively anti-green. I don't mean green as in your catchy ditty, Wrap the Green Flag Round Me, Boys, nor as in the colour of my skin, but in the environmental sense.
Passport application
Do you know that if you apply for a new passport these days, you will be sent a double-sheet application form, one half the English version, the other half the Irish? Also a double sheet of instructions (yes, you guessed it). This means that every passport applicant, be they Gaeilgeoir or Language Freedom Movement - does that still exist? - will immediately throw away 50 per cent of that paper. On my planet, this is called Environmental Vandalism and, coming on top of the other crime of Tokenism, it is punishable by double death.
Furthermore, taking an interest as I do in your system of parliamentary democracy, I can't help but notice that, if ever there's a debate in the Dáil about the Irish language or the Gaeltachtaí or something similar, the Minister will couch the first paragraph of his speech in Irish, then lapse into English, as will other speakers. Why is this?
Myself: As a hardened old journalist, I can exclusively reveal that it is because they know that if they don't they won't be reported in the media.
Thark: I thought as much. On my planet this is called Hypocrisy and, as it is deemed to be Official Hypocrisy, coming on top of Tokenism, it is punishable by triple death. Same thing with those tributes to the distinguished deceased, spoken in English by the good and the great for the benefit of the media, but tailed with a blast of the Erse. Rank linguistic piety, surely? Can you explain all these phenomena to me?
Myself: Ní feidir liom. Dammit, I mean No.
Founding fathers
Thark: As an outside observer may I proffer the tentative suggestion that your founding fathers - I mention no names - may inadvertently have killed the Irish language for political reasons? "Language is the badge of nationhood," and all that?
Myself: You can suggest anything you like. I couldn't possibly comment. I have to live here. You can scarper off back to Dronga any time you want.
Thark: It looks like I am going to have to report back to the Great Piety that this society of yours will be dead by the year of your Lord 2100, suffocated in hypocrisy and tokenism and self-delusion and paper. Mark my words.
Zfxvbgnyt fgkitgjm. That's Dronga for "Goodbye for ever".