Translations

I thought that reading Translations was a nice close to the semester.  I had read a similar story in my English class here freshmen year and I enjoyed Translations just as much as I had enjoyed that story.  I find the name of a place fascinating.  A name can tell you so much about a place and what it  means to the people who live there.  Doing what the British did - taking the Gaellic names of all the Irish cities and towns and hills and mountains and Anglicizing them - I think helped take away part of the charm of Ireland.  Gaellic is a unique language and the English showed little respect for it by just barging in and manipulating the people into changing the name of the place in which they live.  Did they not realize that they were taking away the identity of the Irish people?  Did they know and just not care?  Should the Irish people have tried to do more to stop it?