Would you find this comment offensive? Irish

[erpali]

Started a new job. At the team meeting I was asked to introduce myself and tell the team about my story on how I got here.

I grew up in the far west of Ireland. We spoke Irish Gaelic at home and I went to a Gaelic school. Moved to the UK for university, which was the first time I'd actually studied through the medium of English.

I mentioned that I grew up in a bilingual household in Ireland.

My boss comments in front of the team that "I'm sure your language skills will be very useful to us when dealing with our clients in Latin America". Clearly an attempt at a joke, and others in the meeting guffawed.

Obviously it's not going to be useful to be bilingual in Irish if clients speak Spanish. But I've got to admit that it gave off the typical looking down your nose sort of attitude that I have heard about. It's like he was saying my culture was pointless.

Urgh failed at quoting another reply.

Look up BBC Alba on the iPlayer. The programmes are all in Scottish gaelic, usually with English subtitles. There's a programme to teach you how to speak the language too.

I've a colleague who has Welsh as a first language, English as second. I'm in absolute awe of anyone that can master another language fluently to the point they can actually work in it. It's so impressive.

He's an absolute arsehole OP.

Just what I was thinking. It's the only phrase in Irish I know.

That's the kind of snotty remark that earns men and Englishmen a bad name. There's a particular sneery breed. On the plus side you're now aware.

I would have loved for Gaelic to have been spoken and popular when I was wee (not where we lived).

He's an arse. Probably has zero language skills himself so was negging you to make himself look superior.

Incredibly rude.

My children went to Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic) school and are bilingual. Although they're all way beyond school now (in fact I'm going to my younger daughter's graduation today!) they talk it amongst themselves and with friends all the time and my older daughter has done some bits of design worth for the Gaelic community here.

A relative at one point laughed and said "that'll be useful" and smirked. There are a lot of proven advantages to being bilingual that don't involve chit-chat - easier to learn a 3 rd language, improves music skills and maths skills for example - and I think personally it helps with being accepting and inclusive.

Your boss is an idiot, and I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be racist too. Be proud of your identity and language (I know I don't have to tell you that!)

Yes. Your boss is an ignorant arse.

Racism. Start a work diary noticing theses incidents

It was extremely rude, and yes, he was trying to take you down a peg or two.

Having said that, my friends have made similar comments about our kids, about how they'd actually prefer they learned a different language at school instead of being forced to learn Irish. For me, I think learning more languages can only be good - but I can also see that if your child is struggling, it could certainly feel like a punishment to be battling to do the kids Irish homework with them when you don't see the point.

That makes it even worse. He's one to be wary of. Keep a written record, it's unlikely to be an isolated incident.

I've never heard anyone give an account of how they grew up during their intro to a team. They just talk about the last couple of places they worked. He was rude, but maybe it just reflected that your potted history was a bit irrelevant.

I'm bilingual as well, in a niche language only spoke by a small population. I get comments about how it's not that useful while I live in England, which I agree with. It's not racist.

Just shows how little he knows. Well documented fact is that if you are already bilingual in two languages, the others come so easily as the infrastructure is already there.

He sounds like David Brent.

I ‘m imagining - and failing to see - him saying the same to someone who was a fluent French speaker. He wouldn’t. So it definitely has racist overtones.
Unless he is one of those wankers who thinks learning a language is a waste of time because you have an I-phone. Have met a fair few of those in my time.

It was a dick remark but at least you now know he’s a dick and can manage accordingly.

If you mean was it offensive as in intend to insult you as an Irish person then there’s no evidence of that. I’d assume he’d have made the same twat remark if you were Finnish.

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Oh my gosh. That’s incredibly rude and borderline racist.

It’s a pretty shitty way to belittle someone’s background and culture, and says a great deal about him.

Welcome to my world. Im welsh and we live with it. Its not offensive but bloody rude.

Glad I wasn't being overly sensitive. To the previous poster who mentioned that it's a small number of white English people who harbour opinions like this.

My manager is English but of Indian heritage, but I suppose grew up in that kind of environment as he likes people to know he went to private school.

He is a walker OP. I'd say take note carefully what kind of walker. It does sound like an anti Irish attitude but it's interesting that native Welsh speakers have encountered similar comments. Maybe he is a xenophobe, or a misogynistic prick, or maybe he is just like that to everyone regardless?

Wanker not walker!!!

Me too.

Try going to Cardiff, Belfast and Glasgow - whilst most people are great there will be plenty of disparaging comments about the English

Lol that's going to tie people up in all kinds of knots on here.

It's not only the white english men who don't like the irish. I lived there for a while, it's evenly distributed among all the ethnic groups. Everyone likes to have someone to look down on.