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Podcast: Poetry Unbound
Episode: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill — Ceist na Teangan (The Language Issue)
Description: Are there languages that once were spoken in your family that are not anymore? What caused those changes? This poem considers the plight of a language, how it — like the child Moses in the biblical story of the Exodus — is vulnerable, and might be in need of someone like the Pharaoh’s daughter to nurture it. In considering the precarious situation of many lesser-spoken languages, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill casts a story of language preservation through the archetype of women helping women in ancient texts. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill – is one of the most prominent poets writing in the Irish...