While searching for teaching aids for Irish, I came across this site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Gaelic

When you scroll down the page you can click to go directly to main articles on Irish Syntax, Irish morphology, Irish phonology, etc. I thought there were some really good desriptions there for us beginners (okay, so grammatically speaking it should probably have been "we beginners").

That is good!

Good find, a chara.

http://borel.slu.edu/nlp.html

Tá sé go maith sin freisin.

Good as well

Wikipedia is very depressing. Nice overview of the language, but reading the "Irish language today" section sucked all the joy out of me.

> okay, so grammatically speaking it should probably have been "we beginners"

So grammatically speaking it should probably not, if you ask I.

> reading the "Irish language today" section sucked all the joy out of me.

If most Irish language "enthusiasts" can't tell the difference between "a reasonable command" and "no clue," we might as well forget it — especially if they don't even want to know the difference. Lots of people say they really, really want to learn this language or that language, but they don't want to, and they never will. What they mean is that they wish they knew it, but they don't have the time or the zeal even to learn how to go about learning it.

Wikipedia is not an authoritative source. Since it can be edited by almost anyone the "administrators" allow, and there is no recognition for people who actually know what they are talking about, as opposed to people who have strong opinions on a topic, it should be treated with great care.

One of the founders of the project has abandoned it, for that very reason.

A Aonghus, a chara,

I didn't know that about Wikipedia, thanks for the information. I sometimes use it for school work, so it's really important to know that the information may not be accurate. In this case, I hope it that it's gloomy tone concerning the Irish Language is inaccurate. :)

For an eloquent assessment by one who knows quite well what he's talking about, see:

http://www.geocities.com/faolchu.geo/socioling1.html

http://borel.slu.edu/gramadoir/form.html

iarracht a haon/first try:
Cuireann tú na focáíl agus abairtaí isteach sa mbosca agus nuair a buaileann (tú) 'clic!' (ar an cnaipe) tabharfaidh sé do fhreagra

iarracht a dó...a trí...

Léim amach sin/ this is the result:

Cuireann tú an focal agus/nó abairtí isteach sa bhosca agus nuair buaileann tú 'clic!' an cnaipe, tabharfaidh sé do fhreagra.

In English:
'You put in the word and/or sentance into the box and when you hit click (on) the button, it will give you your anwer.'

Bhuel feedback (aiseolas) is more correct than 'answer'.

Do 'fhreagra' beidh sé scríofa le dearg.
Your 'feedback' will be written in red, and you can change it.

Nuair a rinne scáileán bán, tá sé go maith.
When it goes white, it is deemed ok.

Níl a fhios agam nach bhfuil sé ceart, mar níl mé líofa. I dunno if it be all good, as I'm not fluent.

Ba mhaith liom aiseolas as daoine eile.
I'd like feedback from people (on its worth).

The section in Wikipedia is not exactly focusing on the positive parts (and there are such) but there is not any factual error in it. I have to admit that I don't quite understand one statement in it, though "levels of fluency among families is 'very low', from 1% in Galway suburbs to a maximum of 8% parts of west Donegal". What on earth is "level of fluency" and how is that measured. As someone who is working fulltime with research and how measurable versus non-measurable factors, I would regard any measure of fluency as nonsense if it were not presented with some firm evidences. Of course there are areas in which the population is fluent in Irish.

How nice of you to post that link, Haughty Stickler. Reading about myself is always such great fun :-)
(In the last section on the first page, the author presents some of my objections to Hindley).

"…from 1% in Galway suburbs to a maximum of 8% parts of west Donegal"

I don't know what it's supposed to mean either. If the author understood what he read, he obviously failed to convey it clearly and completely to his own readers.

Donncha Ó hEallaithe regularly analyses census figures and the figures from "Scéim Labhairt na Gaeilge" which is a grant to gaeltacht families based on an oral test of schoolgoing children. An he is usually pessimistic - his particular view is that the Gaeltacht boundaries should be drawn ever more tightly.


I assume that is where the (highly selective) figures are coming from.
Percentages presented on their own are nonsense anyway. Particularly the ones for Galway suburbs - what has happened there is that small Irish speaking communities (who were already threatened in 1926 when the Gaeltacht boundaries were drawn) have been swamped by english speakers moving in, and by Ieish speakers emigrating.

One of the purposes of the language clause limiting ownership in housing estates to a minimum percentage of Irish speakers is to stop the development of Galway City swamping the rest of the Gaeltacht in the same way.

Jonas a chara that was you in that article cool but just how does one figure out just who does and does not have Irish... go door to door? or send out forms in the mail (yes I am serious) how is it possible to get a grasp of the "real" total of speakers? when the studies give many different totals on the number of speakers sorry about the tangent folks I just need to know this information

In the census, form are sent to every household. I've never conducted any census-like research on the use of Irish myself, but neither has Hindley - and as opposed to Hindley I can even speak the language... :-)

What I've done is to read books from Gaeltacht areas (they often mention how much Irish is spoken in their own areas at a certain time) and to talk with native speakers who know how the language situation has changed. To take but one example. Dingle and the villages to the east of the town are all parts of the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht. Someone who visit Dingle will hear that English is used almost everywhere in the town and if they go to the Gaeltacht-villages to the east of Dingle they will hear only English. A logical assumption would then be that Englisg has overtaken Irish in these areas quite recently, since they are after all a part of the Gaeltacht. Nothing could be further from the truth - those areas were speaking English 100 years ago as well. There is probably more English in the town of Dingle today than at any time during the last 130 years or so. The fact that only the western half of the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht is Irish speaking is not the result of some recent change to English in the eastern half. That part was not Irish speaking even when it was included in the Gaeltacht. The language border has remained very stable in Corca Dhuibhne for quite some time, but someone (Hindley) who thinks that all Gaeltacht areas were Irish speaking when they were included in the Gaeltacht will draw the wrong conclusions. The same is true for most other Gaeltacht areas, English speaking areas were included in every Gaeltacht when the borders where drawn up in 1926. The fact that English is spoken there now is in no way the result of any recent change away from Irish.

(I might add that Hindley's book also contains a general overview of other European minority languages. Read it if you want a good laugh, but don't think he knows what he's talking about...)

Dóibh siúd a bhfuil Gaeilge acu, mholfainn

Pobal na Gaeltachta – A Scéal agus a Dhán
http://www.cic.ie/cgi-bin/product.asp?idproduct=263

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The Gaeltacht areas as set up in 1926 are almost the same as the "Congested Districts" which were set up under British Rule since those areas were particularly economically deprived.

This is something which distorts the picture of the efforts the government puts into "saving Irish" since most of the money spent in the Gaeltacht is spent on roads, industrial development, infrastructure etc. This money ought to be being spent anyway, regardless of the language.

Now at last, we are beginning to see some deabte on how to develop the Gaeltacht in a way that benefits the language.

The reason I disagree with "throwing areas out of the Gaeltacht" is that I think the breac Gaeltachtaí (areas where little Irish is spoken) are needed as buffer zones to protect key Gaeltacht areas.

Also, especially in Galway and Achill, there are signs now that local groups are organising to improve the use of Irish and facilities for Irish speaking; I think they should be given every encouragement.

Éamon Ó Cuív seems to be planning a scheme of giving weak areas (in terms of Irish as a community language) time to either come up with a scheme and improve matters, or to effectively withdraw themselves from the Gaeltacht. This will be based on sociolinguistic studies of those areas. I think that is better than shallow census analyses.

(Message edited by aonghus on March 16, 2005)