My beloved wife has recently purchased a 3 tape series done by the BBC on the Celts. To me, it seemed very informative from an archeological perspective.

One tape is devoted entirely to the languages of the Celtic nations. I found it very interesting but was quite disappointed in the lack of representation the Irish were afforded. (Probably shouldn't be that suprised--it is the "british" Broadcasting Company after all).
There was a great section on Welsh (in fact, Welsh was the primary focus of this tape) and the language preservation efforts undertaken there. The main effort of the language preservationsits seemed to target the children rather heavily with Welsh speaking cartoons, etc. I was wondering if ITE had a similar approach to Irish. It has been stated a number of times, after all, that the future of this language is to be found in the children. It just seemed to make such perfectly simple sense.

Secondly, this same tape spent a precious few minutes highlighting Cape Breton in Canada. I was under the impression that Scots Gaelic (gaidhlig??--probably butchered that spelling)was spoken there but I found a significant bit of the spoken language very recognizable. As was alluded on another thread, would it be better to consider Scots Gaelic a dialect or another language altogether?

Interested in the feedback--

Le meas,

James

dia Dhuit James;
I cannot speak on Scots Gaelic and I did not see the BBC Celts documentary, but I have the soundtrack. It was one of the last vinyl LPs I purchased. It contains pieces by The Chieftans and Enya.
Slan
Michil

TG4 does cartoons in Irish. I remember watching a friend's wife work on the Irish language version of a French cartoon. It was being dubbed into Irish and she was working on the timing, prompts, etc.

A couple of cartoons in Irish are availbable on video. Quite a few people love the Bouli tapes produced a number of years ago. They are also dubbed from French iinto Irish. The various characters have differeent Irish dialects.

Is breá le mo leanaí iad!
Tá sár obair a dhéanamh ag TG4 agus na comhluchtaí a dheanainn obair dóibh.

TG4 broadcasts several hours a day of childrens cartoons. Some of them are excellent. They are dubbed from English, French and even Czech!

See www.tg4.ie and look for Cúla4 which is their kids section.

That's GREAT!! I was just a bit disconcerted to see such a poor respresentation of Irish on this particular series. Based upon the quality of the film, the style of clothing etc, I would say it was produced during the height of "The Troubles" which may have had not a small influence on the paucity of Irish representation.

That's GREAT!! I was just a bit disconcerted to see such a poor respresentation of Irish on this particular series. Based upon the quality of the film, the style of clothing etc, I would say it was produced during the height of "The Troubles" which may have had not a small influence on the paucity of Irish representation.

Could these cartoons be purchased? I'd love to get my daughter watching them. Heck, I could probably learn from them as well, given my current level of competency. (That's linguistic competency, not intelectual--although, my ex-wife would probably argue that it is both!)

Bouli and Bouli arís were available from the RTE website.

http://www.rte.ie/about/cel/merchandise/products/childrens.html

But I'm not sure if you can get them in NTSC format.

Comhluadar, the organisation for parents trying to bring up their children speaking Irish is in touch with TG4 about producing more tapes, but sorting out broadcasting rights is tricky.

If you can view PAL tapes contact me at and we might be able to sort something out.

James

Má bhíonn siad le fáil i Meireacá, beidh sé níos éasca duit. Bain triail ar dtús as Irish Books & Media in St. Paul, MN. Tá siad ar an Idirlíon.

Is cuimhneach liom bheith ag amharc ar an tsraith sin ón BBC tamall maith siar. Bhíodh rang Gaidhlig againn achan Domhnach. I ndiaidh an ranga, bhíodh rud éigin Ceilteach ar siúl againn -- Bhreathnaigh muid ar na fístéipeanna úd go minic. Once as a change of pace, we watched a funny Welsh-language movie we got from Blockbuster -- Coming Up Roses. Bhí sé greannmhar ar fad.

(I ndiaidh an rang Ghaidhlig agus téip Cheilteach a bheith curtha taobh thiar againn, amach linn go dtí an pub Kinsale i Manhattan le haghaidh deochanna agus greim le hithe (déanta ag cócaire agus cara maith linn arbh as Carna di).

Slán, a chairde. Bíodh deireadh seachtaine maith agaibh, na nócha "Daltaí" ag an Deireadh Seachtaine Gaeltachta in Esopus san áireamh. Go mbaine sibh leas agus sult as. Bígí cinnte gurb' fhiú d'Eamonn O D an turas ó Éirinn a dhéanamh!