John Cleese clearly never spent any time in the Gaeltacht.
Comedian John Cleese, famous as a founding member of the Monty Python sketch comedy troupe, faced a major backlash this weekend following remarks made about the Irish language.
Englishman Cleese was pulled up on his remarks after tweeting: “I love your use of words ! But, seriously, if an Irish ‘bh’ is a ‘v’ sound, why don’t you write it with a ‘v’? Of course, Bernard Shaw pointed out that in English, the word ‘Fish’ could be spelled G-H-O-T-I.”
Dozens, if not hundreds, of social media users were on hand to inform Cleese that Irish is a different language to English, using a different alphabet — one that does not include the letter v.
Others noted that there are multiple instances of English words which make use of two letters to achieve a sound that could easily be achieved by another, single letter.
An bhfuil "Monty Python and the Monolingual Cultural Imperialists" feicthe agaibh? https://t.co/hhf3zLF4eG
— Osgur Ó Ciardha (@OsgurOCiardha) June 23, 2019
If an english KN is pronounced like an N, why do you write KN?
English pronunciations are absolutely inconsistent. Unlike Irish. Also, why are English speakers constantly mocking/giving their hot takes about Irish, often with zero knowledge of the language? You've done enough. https://t.co/ezUTtSPRsK
— Dr Luís Costa 🐈⬛ (@captainiberia) June 23, 2019
Go back to doing silly walks.
I liked you better. https://t.co/dKQBjadAiG— Luke 'Ming' Flanagan (@lukeming) June 23, 2019
Cleese also reiterated a previous claim that Irish names “look like deliberate attempts to mislead innocent people”.
It’s not the first time Cleese has been in trouble over his Twitter account in recent months.
In May, he tweeted: “Some years ago I opined that London was not really an English city any more. Since then, virtually all my friends from abroad have confirmed my observation. So there must be some truth in it… I note also that London was the UK city that voted most strongly to remain in the EU.”
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