A chairde.
Dia duit. Cáit is ainm dom. Cad is ainm duit?
Tá mé i mo chónaí i Meiricéa. Tá sé te amuigh anois.
Go raibh maith agaibh.
Slan agaibh,
Cáit.

PS: Sorry if my Gaeilge is so bad. I'm unsure of what to write to start out the conversation. So I hope you'll bare with me.I would greatly appreciate the help.
Go raibh maith agaibh.

Cé chomh bhfuil tú a Cháit? D'fhoghlaim mé na habairtí siúd ar mo chéad lá de scoil :). Ach nílim ag magadh, togha mná duit. Cén chabhair í atá uait? Níl aon mhoille orm cabhair a thabhairt do dhuine eile, go háirithe duine ag iarraidh Gaeilge a fhoghlaim.

Tá mé go maith. Cad fútsa?
I have a poem that I would like to put here as another form of practicing. Feel free to help out this verb forms and things like that.

Bearla:
Concieved in silence/born in fury/I hear the angels cry/wishing for wings/falling through the air/my prayers allow them to fly.

Gaeilge:
Ghiniúint i gciúnas/saolaíodh i buile/cloisim na aingeail a caoin/ag teastaigh de sciatháin/ag teip ar an t-aer/cead mo phaidira iad a eitleán.

Go raibh maith agaibh.
Cáit.

Freisan, bhí mé ag cuimhneamh an bhféadfá cabhrú liom le, "Níl aon mhoille orm...".
Cad ciall ann?
Go raibh maith agat.
Tóg bog é,
Cáit.

Ginte i gciúnas,
saolaithe i racht,
Cloisim caoineadh na nAingil,
Ag lorg sciatháin,
ag titim tríd an aeir,
Tugann m'urnaí cumas eitilte dóibh

---

moille [ainmfhocal baininscneach den cheathrú díochlaonadh]
righneas, fadáil; déanaí; mall.


Is dóigh liom gurbh "I'm not late/delayed" atá i gceist

What about...

Ginte i gcunas
I mbuile
shaolú
Cloisim caoineadh na nAingeal
Is mian liom eiteoga
Ag titim tríd an aeir
Cuireann m'urnaí
chuici
foluain

Rats, I spelled gciúnas wrong. And I think "m'urnaí curtha" might be better in line seven. And a bhfoluain' in line nine.
Ginte i gciúnas - I mbuile - saolú - Cloisim caoineadh na nAingeal - Is mian liom eiteoga - Ag titim tríd an aeir - m'urnaí curtha - chuici - a bhfoluain.

Slightly adventurous Maidhc. Also, I think it is the angels rather than the speaker who are wishing for wings.

foluain needs more context. it is usually "ar ..."

Yes. Perhaps this is better.

Ginte i gciúnas
I mbuile
Saolú
Cloisim caoineadh na nAingeal
Is mian leo eiteoga
Ag titim tríd an aeir
M'urnaí curtha
Chucu {*Chuici }
A bhfoluain. { Bhfoluain }

This, I think solves the angels' problem. But here's a thought. *Leave line nine simply as 'bhfoluain'. I think the prepositional pronoun in line eight addresses who is receiving their wings. If we leave line eight to remain as 'chuici', this could give an image of one praying for wings to be placed on the angels - and being rewarded a pair for himself as well.

I don't think I'd be able to follow your version, Maidhc.
And modifying a word while leaving out the word causing the modification takes poetic license too far, I think.

Slight modification of my suggestion
Ginte i gciúnas,
saolaithe i racht,
Cloisim caoineadh na nAingil,
iad ag lorg sciatháin,
ag titim tríd an aeir,
Bronnann m'urnaí cumas eitilte orthu

>Cloisim caoineadh na nAingeal (Gpl...),
>Ag lorg sciathán (Gpl...)
>ag titim tríd an aer (Dsg after tríd...)

Be careful with grammar and pronounciation (aingil and aingeal, sciatháin and sciathán, aeir and aer aren’t pronounced the same way...)

Go raibh maith agaibh...
I see that I was somewhat on the mark. THankyou for clearing it up for me.
A Aonghus, I believe your version stays as close to my original (though flawed) version. :) I think that one will be best.
A Lughaidh, if you know a bit about phonetics, just what is the difference in those pronunciations. I have an idea, but I would like to be sure.
Anyone else with any knowledge of phonetics, feel free to help out.
Arís, go raibh maith agaibh.
Cáit.

Dia is mhuire dhuit a Cháit! Tar chuig an nGaeltacht in Eirinn agus beidh Gaeilge líofa agat tar éis seachtaine ;)

Céard is DSG ann, a Lughaidh? Tabharthach uatha?

(Message edited by aonghus on August 27, 2005)

DSG = Dative SinGular, nó as Gaeilge, Tabharthach Uatha

Just a thought: See how you's are using the verbal adjective for "conceived in blah, born in blah"; well I remember a while back I was filling out a Government form that had a multiple choice checkbox answer of:

Born in Ireland
Born abroad

Half expecting to see it rendered in Irish as "Beirthe in Éirinn", I was (pleasantly) surprised to see that it was "Rugadh in Éirinn", which sort of makes sense if you think that "born in Ireland" is really just an abbreviation of "I was born in Ireland". "born in Ireland" is just a sentence fragment (as Lisa's robot from the Simpson's would say!), the actual sentence would have used the verb, ie. "I was born", or, as Gaeilge, "Rugadh mé".

Just a thought.

>A Lughaidh, if you know a bit about phonetics,

more than a bit :-)

>just what is the difference in those pronunciations. I >have an idea, but I would like to be sure.

It will be hard to explain without jargon: these sounds don't exist in English.

>Cloisim caoineadh na nAingeal (Gpl...),
>Ag lorg sciathán (Gpl...)
>ag titim tríd an aer (Dsg after tríd...)

aingil [aŋ'g'il'] [i~:l'] normal alveolar l
aingeal [aŋ'g'əl] [i~:əl] velarized alveolar l (this one is like LL in English "will"


sciatháin [s'k'i.əhan'] normal alveolar n
sciathán [s'k'i.əhan] velarized alveolar n

aeir [e:r'] palatalized r; in Gweedore [e:j]
aer [e:r] normal r, with one tap with the tip of the tongue on the alveols (=just behind upper teeth)

A Lughaidh,
The differences are hard for me now...I really wish this forum had a way for you to record something and place it as a link, so that people could hear the sounds, or at least some verbal converstion.
I'm sure that with some practice I will be able to reproduce those pronunciations.
I wish I could go to one of the weekend workshop things that this site does up north, but I'm in the south and can hardly get away for that long to go that far.
I wish they could come to Greenville SC. That would be wonderful...there is even an Irish organization there too.
Go raibh maith agat...for the phonetics. :)
Slán,
Cáit.

>A Lughaidh,
>The differences are hard for me now...I really wish >this forum had a way for you to record something and >place it as a link, so that people could hear the >sounds, or at least some verbal converstion.

I hope the sound would be good enough so that you can hear the difference.
But maybe there is some website (in know one on Scottish Gaelic that has very good recordings for specific sounds) where you can hear these sounds very clearly.

A Lughaidh,
Tá "CDs" ag mo leabhar Ghaeilge. (I think I got that sentence right). I bought "Teach Yourself Irish" w/ CD from "siopa Dhaltai". Tá é maith liom. I recommend it very strongly.
Even though the recording is medium-fast, I have been able (through repition) to pick up on the sounds and pronunciation much more quickly with the help of the CDs.
Does anyone know of another book or books that teach Gaeilge well?
Slán,
Cáit.

TY Irish isn't the best book, but I think it's good enough - I don't know it. I heard it was really standard Irish, even in pronounciation, so for me it's bad: Standard Irish isn't spoken anywhere. They should have chosen a dialect. I don't know if the people who did the recordings are native speakers or not (and if they are, they obviously don’t speak in their natural way on the recordings, since nobody can have Standard Irish as natural mothertongue).

The best book for to learn Irish is Learning Irish, by Mícheál Ó Siadhail. It's Connemara dialect, but it is very useful and comprehensive. Recordings by native speakers.

There is another one, Now You're Talking (the US title is Irish On Your Own), in Donegal Irish. It is good but you won't learn as much as with Learning Irish (for grammar and vocabulary. Recordings by native speakers (I know some of them - people from Gweedore).

"I like it" is "Is maith liom é", or better "tá dúil agam ann". Your sentence "tá sé (go) maith liom" means "it loves me". ;-) But maybe your new book loves you as well :-)

A Cháit, just to qualify what Lughaidh said, no one in the Gaeltacht speaks Standard Irish, but it's used almost exclusively outside the Gaeltacht, whenever Irish is used(which is rare). And is always used in official documents. It's also what Irish schoolchildren learn and there's nothing wrong with it as an Irish varient. Personally I much prefer it to the various dialects because it gives uniformity and makes it easier for everyone to speak together and harder for offshoot languages to form.

If you loose the dialects, the Irish language will die as a natural language, you know.

Standard Irish is a language of learners, it's a constructed kind of Irish. It is fine for official texts and speeches. But there are problems with Standard Irish: if Standard Irish is the only kind of Irish that is taught in schools native speaking pupils will think that their own Gaeltacht dialect is wrong because what is taught at school (Standard) is different. And I'd say that the truth is the contrary, the real Irish is the Gaeltacht one; the Standard is just a (recent) construction.

I don't like uniformity. Anyway, thanks to Raidió na Gaeltachta, now native speakers understand each other whatever dialect they speak - they have got used to hear the other dialects and to understand them.

I don't like the Standard because it can make you ignore the richness of Gaeltacht dialects. These may die, one day, if everybody only learns the Standard and if native speaker believe that the Standard is better.

I more or less agree with you, Lughaidh...

except with: "If you loose the dialects, the Irish language will die as a natural language."

Either you mean that, if the dialects disappear, no one will ever have "Irish" as a mother tongue, which is nothing but an assumption;

Or you mean that only dialectical Irish is "natural", in wich case you should define "natural".

As a reminder for both points:
it only takes one generation to transform a pseudo-language into a real one. That is: a pseudo-language is a constructed (be it conscious or not) language that serves as a lingua franca... it is only a "pseudo-language" because it lacks grammar and such (which are essential for a language to work efficently). But if you speak this pseudo-language to your children, then they won't just pick it up: they will add (creating from scratch - how marvellous the human mind is) all that is necessary for a language to work correctly and efficently (such as grammar), at which point it becomes a "real" (or "natural" as I would put it) language.

Scríobh Lughaidh:

quote:

These may die, one day, if everybody only learns the Standard and if native speaker believe that the Standard is better.

Tubaist a bheadh ansin. Ach a mhalairt atá ag tarlú - tá níos mó leabhair a fhoilsiú sna canúintí. Litríocht de chinéal amháin nó chinéal eile. Níl an marbhfháisc ar foilsitheoreacht a bhí ag an nGúm tráth ann níos mó.

Cabhraíonn na leabhara seo chomh maith le RnaG chun tuiscint ar chanúintí a scaipeadh.

Ceist eile muinteoirí scoile. Tá géarghá oiliúnt cheart a chuir orthu! Tá CnaG ag moladh gur cheart dóibh tréimhse a chaitheamh ag cuir snas ar a gcuid Gaeilge i nGaeltacht. Bheinn go láidir ar a shon sin.

Níor cheart go gceapadh aon ghasúr gaeltachta gur gaeilge a chodail amuigh atá acu aige baile.

FRC- Fáilte roimh cheartúcháin! A scrí seo faoi dheifir.

I agree with much of you there Lughaidh and I think the dialects should be taught in school, but only in as much as teach students to recognise them and that there's nothing wrong with them. But a standard makes everything easier. In a few centuries(if Irish is still alive) and Ulster people can't understand Munster people, the government who'll have to translate everything twice will be dying for a standard.

>Tubaist a bheadh ansin. Ach a mhalairt atá ag tarlú - >tá níos mó leabhair a fhoilsiú sna canúintí.

ní chiallaíonn sé gur Gaeilg chanúnach a fhoghlaimíthear.

>Litríocht >de chinéal amháin nó chinéal eile. Níl an marbhfháisc >ar foilsitheoreacht a bhí ag an nGúm tráth ann níos mó.

tá ’s agam ach tá caint na bhfoghlaimeoirí bunaithe ar a bhfoghlaimíonn siad lena múinteoirí i dtús báire. Agus an síleann sibh go léann na foghlaimeoirí cuid mhór leabharthaí i nGaeilg?


As I said, people understand each other thanx to RnaG etc: if there is a contact between speakers, the intercomprehension will remain.

Nothing wrong with the standard for official stuff. I just wanted to say that the standard should not replace every other kind of Irish.

>except with: "If you loose the dialects, the Irish >language will die as a natural language."
>Or you mean that only dialectical Irish is "natural", >in wich case you should define "natural".

natural language = language that has been transmitted from generation to generation by parents to their children, native speaker to native speaker. Standard Irish isn’t natural: it has been created in the 1950s by Irish linguists. Gaeltacht irish is natural: it hasn’t been "created", it is just an evolution of classical irish, and before it, middle irish, and before, old irish, etc. In the Gaeltachtaí, Irish has been transmitted from generation to generation for centuries,... for more that 2000 years now.

But my point is:

Standard Irish, though created, is not a pseudo-language as I defined it above.

So, if the only thing a baby hears is standard Irish, it will become its mother tongue (meaning the entire system will be imprinted on his mind). And this is what he will pass on to his children. At which point a natural process is at work.

I'd say Cait is real glad she started this thread now... It seems that there is no end to the above debate which has become quite the weekly occurence.

Fáilte roimh an forum a Cháit, táimíd go léir thar a bheith sásta go bfhuil tú ag déanamh iarracht an teanga a fhoglaim. Is teanga álainn í gan dabht agus tá súil agam go mbainfidh tú taitneamh agus sult as agus í a fhoghlaim.

A Mhacs,
"At which point a natural process is at work".

Why are languages becoming so simplified worldwide? I read that Afrikkans is compleatly analitical with no inflections at all (can't find the reference).