I understand that this island has its own distinctive dialect of Irish.

Can anyone explain how it differs from other dialects? (ie Ulster Irish?)

To clarify...

I'm guessing Tory is included under 'Ulster Irish' but how does it differ from the rest???

There are certainly differences between Tory and the mainland, but that is of course also true for the Aran Islands and it was true for the Blasket to some extent. I'm no expert at Ulster Irish, so I hope someone else is able to answer. If not, I do have a book on Tory Irish that I could look into.

I've heard Tory Irish. There's been a book written by Hamilton about Tory Island Irish. It's very good. There are specific features in morphology (verbal conjugations).
They use "mórsheisear" instead of "seachtar" (= 7 persons).

They speak fast and they have a special accent, quite difficult to understand. There's a special melody in their sentences when they speak.

Except for that, their dialect isn't terribly different from Gweedore Irish (the closest dialect on the mainland).

I've been once on Tory Isle, and i've heard some people from there speaking Irish.

I can tell you that i've not heard any word of English on Tory Isle (I think that people know it, but they don't use it when speaking with the other people of the island). Even teenagers speak Irish together.



What else? Well, just have a look at Hamilton's book :)

Thanks for the responses.

Sounds great! I've seen so much anti-Irish language talk on various travel forums recently (it's a dead language, almost no one speaks it etc etc.)...so it's nice to hear of places where Irish is still the first language.

Could Tory be one of the LAST remaining places in the gaeltacht where Irish is spoken by the majority of people?

Sounds like for most places in the Gaeltacht, only 25% speak it as their first language.

One of the last places, yes. Together with most villages on the Aran Islands, many villages in Conamara (Especially the area around Ros Muc and Ceantar na n-Oileán) and some villages in Corca Dhuibhne in County Kerry as well as (I think) the area opposite Tory Island in Donegal. Those areas are all places in which most people speak Irish all the time.

How is Corca Dhuibhne pronounced ? With a G or a Y sound
on Dhuibhne ?

http://homepage.eircom.net/~theislandtrust/islands.htm

From this and by looking on the net, it seems only 7 islands are irish speaking.

I ahve discounted Mayo islands. I'm told my someone I know who works there that only the older people speak it.

A Mháirín, a chara,

Corca Dhuibhne = KOR-kuh GHWEEN-yuh

more or less.

Máirín, it's [kork@ yi:n´@] with the [y] standing for a broad "gh" sound. Pronouncing it with a g-sound would be totally wrong.

>Could Tory be one of the LAST remaining places in the >gaeltacht where Irish is spoken by the majority of >people?

>Sounds like for most places in the Gaeltacht, only 25% >speak it as their first language.

The majority of people speaks Irish as well in NW Donegal: Rannafast, Gweedore, Cloich Cheannaola.

Jonas > i think they say [korkэ ghi:nэ] (the single slender n is not much palatalized, you don't hear any y-sound). Heard people from there pronouncing it with a gh-sound, not y- (why would they do, since a 'u' follows...

I meant to discount Achill Island, the east part of which is included in the gaeltacht as someone I went to school with is a techer in a post primary there, and accoring to him, Irish is not predominantly spoken by the young.

[kork@ yi:n´@]

[korkэ ghi:nэ]

Jonas is saying that 'y' will stand for the voiced velar fricative, and you 'gh' so there is no disagreement between both codes...

Thank you all for your help. I think I will try both,

kork@ yin@a and kork@ ghin@. I will see which pronunciation has the least corrections from my teachers.

Máirín, Lughaigh and I agree on the pronunction of the "dh" in Dhuibhne, we just used different ways to represent it. In my case, because I'm not good at computers :-) The only thing you should remember is that there is no "g" sound. Unfortunately, some English learners may think that "gh" stand for something like a "g" just as some think that "ch" stand for something like a "c".

>>"gh" stand for something like a "g" just as some think that "ch" stand for something like a "c".

well, it's not completely entirely untrue.... i mean in the way that [s] is not so far from [t]...

And what would Freud say about all this Oral talk? Libedo investment in the oral cavity? Mmmmmm?

And anyway, why will that bloody symbol for 'gh' not work in this dialogue box even tho it is programmed on my keyboard.

Small tip: to get to be able to type IPA on machine
a) get font
b) go to insert:symbol in Word
c) see 'shortcut key' icon.
d) choose symbol from smorgasbord
e) program a key sequence.

Linux users: I ahve gone for the LCD

Now you can type in the caracters of IPA.

As if anyone is going to do that tho....