Just want to clear something up. I know a few people who think they're "patriotic", they've got IRA tattoos and the like, but I often take the piss out of them as they've barely a word of Irish. They think they're conveying their "patriotism" by addressing each other as "mo chara", and saying "slán" before hanging up the phone.

Well... anyway, I always get irritated when I hear someone address someone else as "mo chara", 'cause, from what I know, the vocative case would be "a chara".

But I hear the phrase "mo chara" so much as an address that I would just like to clarify if it is in fact actually valid Irish?

quote:

But I hear the phrase "mo chara" so much as an address that I would just like to clarify if it is in fact actually valid Irish?

Ba mhaith liom cloisteáil ó dhaoine eile anseo (Aonghus, Lughaidh, Mickrua -- liostáilte in ord aibítre!), ach maidir liomsa de, tá mé ar aon intinn leat. Ní déarfainn "mo chara" sa ghairmeach. Bhí sé le fáil sa tSean-Ghaeilge (agus ba bhreá liom samplaí de a thabhairt daoibh) ach sin scéal eile.

Tá mé ’meas nach bhfuil sé ceart "a mo chara" a ráidht sa tuiseal ghairmeach. Faightear "a chara", "a rún" srl in achan amhrán, agus char chuala mé "a mo chara" ariamh. Is minic a tchímse "mo chara" ar fud fad an idirlín, ach dar liom féin, ní scríobhfadh ach foghlaimeoirí a leithéid.

Samplaí do theidil nó do chodannaí amhrán:

A chara dhílis
A mháithrín dhílis
A rún
A stór, a stór, a ghrá

srl. Ní cuimhin liom gur chuala mé "mo" i bhfrása sa tuiseal ghairmeach ariamh.

Lom-aistriú ar "My friend" atá ann, dar liom.

Táim amhrasach faoi "a chara" pé scéal é; is minic nach cairdeas a bhíonn i gceist i sliocht a thosnaíonn leis an nath!

Bhí píosa greannmhar ag Myles na gCopaleen i gceann dá altanna faoi.

Déarfainn " a chara liom"

Ach tá an ceart ag Aonghus, ní dhéarfainn é ach le duine nach raibh ina chara liom.

Is aisteach an cine daonna.

A chara an leagan a ba cheart a úsáid nuair atá duine ag labhairt leis an gcara.Mo chara a úsáidtear nuair dhéanann duine tagairt dá chara

Mickrua, that's what we're getting at.

"mo chara" is the nominative case, the accusative and the dative case... but not the vocative case!

When addressing someone, you use the vocative case.

The vocative case is "a chara".

I saw my friend.
Chonaic mé mo chara. (accusative)

My friend saw me.
Chonaic mo chara mé. (nominative)

That's my friend's coat.
Sin cóta mo charad. (genitive)

I was talking to my friend.
Bhí mé ag caint le mo chara. (dative)

My friend, where are you going?
A chara, cá bhfuil tú ag dul? (vocative)

I didn't get your differentiation until this last post, FnamB. But...I now see what you're saying. It is common (I stand guilty) on this site to begin with:

Mo Chairde....

As you illustrated above, that is most likely incorrect. My guess is that this is yet another case of trying to do a word-for-word translation of english to Irish and losing the Irish syntax in the process.

Well stated and well observed.

Not just most likely. Certainly!

And another one for the FAQ!
http://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/12465/12416.html

(Message edited by aonghus on September 09, 2005)

Okay, so the next time I hear patriot wannabees address each other as "mo chara", they're getting an awful amount of abuse!

An fear mór téagartha thusa, a FnaB? ;-)

I'd stop and give them a pat on the back - It's one more piece of Irish.. We're all trying to get people no matter what their political beliefs to speak Gaeilge so I say fair play and maybe they should change their tattoo's to An t-IRA. Lol

A FnB - Is fearr Geailge briste na Bearla cliste. Are you trying to become a grammar cop? A round of abuse might get you a good belt in the mouth. If you value your teeth, keep your advice to yourself.

A Phax,

Cloisimis do chuid Gaeilge mar sin. :-) Bhí formhór mór an rachta sin i nglan-Bhéarla. Ditto duitse, a Fhir. Tá tú in ann "an awful amount of abuse" a rá i nGaeilge, nach bhfuil?

Thug sí íde na muc is na madraí dó.

quote:

A round of abuse might get you a good belt in the mouth. If you value your teeth, keep your advice to yourself.

Ná nocht d'fhiacla go bhféadair an greim do bhreith. ; )

As for broken Irish being better than clever English, I wholeheartedly disagree -- I'd rather people not open their mouth than propogate the down right wrong address of "mo chara". One person says it, five repeat it, twenty five hear it, one hundred and twenty five repeat it. Nip it in the bud.

Funny story!:

I drove through a town in Dublin there a while ago, past a school called "Scoil Íde". The only conculsion I could draw is that "Íde" is a name in Irish... it's priceless nonetheless! I go to "Abuse School".

A FnB - There's a way to teach people or to correct them and it doesn't include abuse or ridicule. And all beginners make mistakes as do even those proficient in Irish. You'll out lughaidh Lughaidh. If only those who are perfect are allowed to speak the language will die. Scoil Idé is St. Ita's.

quote:

Bhí píosa greannmhar ag Myles na gCopaleen i gceann dá altanna faoi.

Bheinn faoi chomaoin agat dá mbeifeá in ann é a aimsiú, a Aonghuis. Tá mé féin chomh hamhrasach céanna faoin na focail sin "a chara", "say, friend..." agus mar sin de, agus iad ag teacht ó strainséir.

Bheul, tá scata leabhar de chuid Maolmhuire na nEach agam, ach theip ar stracfhéachaint orthu an píosa a aimsiú.

Má aimsím é, beidh sé le leamh anseo!

Tuige nach féidir google a dhéanmah ar leabhar....

Bhí fónóta greannmhar gaolmhar ag Terry Prattchett freisin.

>And all beginners make mistakes as do even those >proficient in Irish. You'll out lughaidh Lughaidh.

You'll out me? Cad é atá tú a mhaíomh?

Pax, I think the main problem FnaB has(or at least, I would have) is that these boyos are going around with their tatoos and Celtic jerseys and they're about as patriotic as the Queen's arse. Then they throw in this 'mo chara' and 'tiocfaidh ár lá', even though they can't be arsed to actually learn the language, just give a bit of lip service to it.

A Lughaidh, I think he was suggesting that you're a bit of a 'garda gramadaí' and that FnaB is becoming as bad as you.

quote:

You'll out me? Cad é atá tú a mhaíomh?

Go mbeidh sé ina bheachtóir níos measa ná tusa, i. saródh sé thú i do "lughaidheachais". (Nílim ag aontú go hiomlan leis).

Nath atá ann - "You'll out X X" saróidh tú X mar X.

Cosúil leis an nath Géarmánach "Päpstlicher als der Papst"

Grma a Aonghuis: de réir gach dealraimh, tuigim nathannaí na Gaeilge is na Gearmáinise níos fearr ná cuid a' Bhéarla!


>A Lughaidh, I think he was suggesting that you're a bit >of a 'garda gramadaí' and that FnaB is becoming as bad >as you.

Muna mbeadh daoiní a' ceartú na meancóg mór ó am go chéile, dhéanfadh na foghlaimeoirí na meancógaí céanna aríst is aríst eile agus cha dtiocfadh feabhas ar a gcuid Gaeilge, nó cha dtiocfadh ach i bhfad níos moille. Níl ar m'intinn ach cuidiú leis na foghlaimeoirí. Ceartaim meancógaí le duine níos líofa féin fosta, amannaí, siocair go bhfuil muinín ag na foghlaimeoirí as na daoiní atá níos líofa ná iad féin, ach is féidir go ndéanann siad sin meancógaí fosta.

That use of "out" can be found in Hamlet's advice to the players prior to the play within the play.

"It out Herods Herod."

The term has come to mean excessiveness of behavior -- overdoing something. Over acting.

My aologies to Louis. I just reread the thread, and it's obvious you intended the reference. No condescension was intended.

On the other hand, isn't ruling out mo chara as an acceptable direct address being a bit purist? The Spanish use it (amigo mio) the French use it (mon ami) and Americans who hang out with Mexicans pick up the habit of addressing others as "my friend."

(Message edited by pádraig on September 11, 2005)

Scríobh Lughaidh

quote:

Níl ar m'intinn ach cuidiú leis na foghlaimeoirí. Ceartaim meancógaí le duine níos líofa féin fosta, amannaí, siocair go bhfuil muinín ag na foghlaimeoirí as na daoiní atá níos líofa ná iad féin, ach is féidir go ndéanann siad sin meancógaí fosta.

Agus níl (de ghnáth) fadhbh agam le tú bheith do mo cheartú. Ach is fuath liom na spallaí úd a chaitheann tú: "You must not be able to pronounce properly if you make spelling mistakes like that". Níl call le sin. Ceartaigh daoine, ach bí béasach; agus déan iarracht gan comhrá a bhriseadh - i. abair rúd éigin súntasach ar dtúis, agus ina dhiadh sin ceartaigh an mheancóg.

>My aologies to Louis.

Ní Louis mé, i bhFraincis féin.

>On the other hand, isn't ruling out mo chara as an acceptable direct address being a bit purist?

Bhuel, if being purist = making no mistakes, it is being purist! I think nobody has ever said "mo chara" in the vocative in Irish, except learners, so...

>The Spanish use it (amigo mio)

Nach Iodáilis é sin? Is dóigh liom gur "mi amigo" a deirfí i Spáinnis - ach níl mé iomlán cinnte.


Aonghus>
Ceart go leooooor, a Aonghuis.

Séard atá ag cuir imní ormsa ná an laghdú atá tagtha ar líon na daoine atá sásta iarracht a dhéanamh gaeilge a scríobh anseo ó thosaigh túsa (agus daoine eile) ag beachtaíocht orthu!

>>if being purist = making no mistakes, it is being purist!

True:

Whatever the point of view, it is through purism and prescriptivism that certain forms are considered "mistakes".
The very concept of "mistake" is a consequence of purism and prescriptivism (and not the other way around).

(Message edited by Max on September 12, 2005)

>Séard atá ag cuir imní ormsa ná an laghdú atá tagtha ar >líon na daoine atá sásta iarracht a dhéanamh gaeilge a >scríobh anseo ó thosaigh túsa (agus daoine eile) ag >beachtaíocht orthu!

Muna mian leofa go gceartófaí iad, níl 's agam cad é mar a fhoghlaimeochas siad agus cad é mar a thiocfas feabhas ar a gcuid Gaeilge.

>The very concept of "mistake" is a consequence of >purism and prescriptivism

Should we accept any mistake and never correct anything? Ok. From now on, the word-order in Irish will be SVO.

Mé tá foghlaiming Gaeilge. Mé ith úll.

Much better! you even don't need to learn anything then (maybe a couple of words, at least?). An Gaelige tá mórán níos mó furasta mar sin.

quote:

Should we accept any mistake and never correct anything? Ok. From now on, the word-order in Irish will be SVO.

Mé tá foghlaiming Gaeilge. Mé ith úll.

Much better! you even don't need to learn anything then (maybe a couple of words, at least?). An Gaelige tá mórán níos mó furasta mar sin.

You know perfectly well that I think one can't learn a language without being corrected. Correction is part of the learning process. (You know (or should know) it because I already wrote about it on this forum not so long ago, although I can't remember which thread it was.)

The problem (as I see it) is that when it comes to Irish, you are blinded by your feelings toward the language... and you confuse those feelings with reason. As a consequence, you sometimes justify you corrections with arguments which, in fact, are wrong from a linguistic point of view.

For instance:
Purism & prescriptivism is not "mistakes exist, let's weed them out"
Purism & prescriptivism is "here are what we decide to be mistakes, let's weed them out"

But since you believe reason is on your side, you tend to be a little haughty at times.
(You are not alone in this case... I think I fall into this category too...)

ps: don't misunderstand me: I am a purist too; I would rather use "a chara" instead of "mo chara"; and my ears hurt me I hear "between you and I" or "l'homme que je t'ai parlé"; but I generally have enough linguistic hindsight to counter-balance these feelings.

quote:

my ears hurt me I hear "between you and I"

Bheadh pian shíoraí ort dá mbeifeá i do chónaí abhus anseo! Cloisim é sin ó dhlíodóirí, ó dhochtúirí, agus ó ollúna ollscoile. Uaireanta ceapaim gur mise an t-aon duine a deir "between you and me", agus is rí-léir dom gur ag snámh in aghaidh easa atá mé.

A Lughaidh, ní raibh mé ag rá go bhfuil tú mícheart daoine a cheartú, ní raibh mé ach ag rá cad ba mhaith le Pax a rá. Is maith liom do chuid ceartachán agus ceapaim gur rud maith iad d'fhoglaimeoirí.

And I don't think Lughaidh does be haughty at all when correcting people. Perhaps blunt at times, but he doesn't let his personal feelings about the language enter into it, he just gives what would be acceptable. He doesn't even show a dialect bias.

quote:

my ears hurt me I hear "between you and I"

I don't know why I wrote "me" instead of "when"... I find it puzzling.

Is ionann "my ears hurt" agus "my ears hurt me" (domsa, ar aon nós), agus is furasta focal a fhágáil ar lár. That's the problem we face if we're too quick to correct what someone else writes. The problem may not be ignorance, just sloppy typing or a momentary lapse. One of my personal pitfalls is changing what I've written, but not changing all the words and grammar around the change to fit it!

What's wrong with "between you and I"?

You always here the likes of:

You and I shall rectify the situation.
You and me will sort it out.

"I" is commonly accepted as the accusative or dative case of the first person singular when it's preceed by "something and", as in "They hate James and I".

Fear_na_mbróg ,

1/ Where do you see cases in (modern) English?

2/ The point is not that "you and I" is often heard and commonly accepted, but that it is a mistake (though an often heard and commonly accepted mistake).

I don't pretend to be a grammarian, but the rule I was always taught regarding the use of "I" vs. "me" with another object is that you should be able to remove the other object and still have the sentence sound correct.

For instance, using the one of the sentences FnB used

"They hate James and I"

if you remove the "James and" part you get

"They hate I"

which obviously isn't correct. If you say "They hate James and me" and remove the "James and" part you get "They hate me", which is correct. So "They hate James and me" is actually the correct form.

Now, that's not to say that what FnB is saying isn't very common, because it is. And it may be that may 25-year old grammar skills are out-of-date now and what he says is indeed accepted as the standard now.

But as far as "Between you and I" goes, I'm not sure which way that one should go!

Regards,

Searlas

>>what he says is indeed accepted as the standard now.

There's a difference between "commonly accepted" and "standard".

>>But as far as "Between you and I" goes, I'm not sure which way that one should go

"I" is the "subject form of the 1st person pronoun". No subject can follow a preposition: there are grammatically incompatible (at least in English), therefore "beween you and I" is a mistake (from the standard/purist point of view).

The current ascendance of "between you and I", even among the highly educated, is a perfect case history of the pitfalls of correction!

Once upon a time, lots and lots of people said "Me and you should have a drink," and "That's between me and you." School teachers and grammar books hated this. (Grammar books are what the socially insecure turn to for guidance.) These forces of corretion did a remarkably good job at beating "you and me" out of the collective consciousness... so good that nearly everyone simply learned a new rule: "you and I" is always right. That's where we stand today.

Another, more parochial, example of this has to do with Midwestern American pronunciation. Once upon a time, a lot folks pronounced final /-@/ as /i:/, thus America came out as Ameriky. School masters hated this, and taught the insecure middle class to shun that pronunciation like poison. Again, they succeed beyond measure. The result is that many people routinely pronounce Missouri as "Missoura". And I had an aunt in Kansas who announced that we would be having "spaghetta" for dinner! :-)

>>(Grammar books are what the socially insecure turn to for guidance.)

People don't always need grammar books:
The multiple "discrepancies" between the different variants (socially speaking) of a language are known (more or less consciously) by the speakers of the language.

This "between you and I" phenomenon is called hypercorrection:
Dennis very justly used the expression "socially insecure". Since the different variants reveal which social class one belongs to, those who are insecure will try and imitate the upper class variant. But since they are not familiar with it, they will correct in their speech even that which is already correct, thus "hypercorrecting", thus making new mistakes in the process.

Labov's works are remarkable in this respect: and it turns out that the more socially insecure (those who hypercorrect themselves) are those belonging to the upper middle class.

Cé hé Labov?

William Labov:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/

Max,

This most recent post of yours is perhaps the most "spot on" description of the hypercorrection phenomenon (and I do like the term..hypercorrection....fits what's happening perfectly).

It is a pet issue of mine, the "Max and me" versus "Max and I" conundrum.

Interesting link to Labov as well.

For a little passage on this, go to:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=I

Scroll down to where it says "Usage Note".

Thanks for the passage, Fear_na_mbróg, a lot can be said about it:

1/
This passage deals with traditional grammar and usage. Linguistics is not mentioned (or hinted, as far as I perceived).
The problem with "traditional grammar" is tradition. It is older than linguistics, and lacks a real theory and tools which are necessary to describe accurately the different languages. Traditional grammar books are extremely useful for linguists, but, indeed, lack accuracy.
Very simple example: in French, the tenses are traditionally divided into 3 semantic categories (past - present - future). The tense called "passé composé" (composed past) is said to belong to the 1st category (past). But if you say "j'ai bientôt fini" (using the "passé composé"), you are not refering to the past, but to the future (I will soon have finished); which proves that the "passé compé" doesn't belong to the 1st category.

2/

quote:

Many critics have seen this construction as originating in a hypercorrection, whereby speakers who have been taught to say It is I instead of It is me come further to assume that correctness also requires between you and I in place of between you and me.

A little explanation of the concept of hypercorrection is given above.

3/

quote:

This explanation of the tendency cannot be the whole story, inasmuch as the phrase between you and I occurs in Shakespeare, centuries before the prescriptive rules requiring It is I and the like were formulated.

That may not be the whole story indeed, but a) Shakespear's style is particular enough (even for his period) so as not be taken as the sole counter-example, b) people don't need explicit rules (like in grammar books) to produce hypercorrected forms: they do it through imitation (cf. what I wrote in the post above).

4/

quote:

The question of when to use nominative forms of the personal pronouns [...] and when to use objective forms [...]

Nowhere in the passage can we read the word "case"; so, as far as I can juge, there's nothing wrong here (linguistically speaking). (In fact, the very way this sentence is formulated conveys a meaning which is in total accordance with what I would say myself. But I won't get into the little details here.)
Still, the sentence could be a little clearer...because:
Traditional grammar often confuses 2 different concepts: function and case. Both are linguistic units, but not of the same kind. All human languages have units that belongs the "function kind", but not all have units that belongs to the "case kind".
To be more precise, what is often confused is (is given: first the function, then the case):
"subject" with "nominative"
"direct object" with "accusative"
"indirect object" with "dative"

It is safe (though confusing) to use the expression "nominative form" in English because it can refer to the "subject function" (you couldn't do it in Finnish for instance because there are cases, and the equation "nominative" <=> "subject" is not always true). You can also notice that, parallelly, the expression "objective form" is used...

"I" is commonly accepted as the accusative or dative case of the first person singular when it's preceed by "something and", as in "They hate James and I".


Not so. I have nothing against the process by which common usage becomes correct usuage largely because there's nothing I can do to stop it anyway. However there is a good reason why "between you and I" is incorrect. In English this construct is called a compound object of a preposition. As such personal pronouns which are inflected according to case belong in the objective case, a collective term that includes (in other languages) accusative, dative, and ablative. Whatever it may be, it is not the nominative "I."

So, what's the difference between looking at something from a grammar point of view and looking at something from a linguistic point of view?

I guess you have to ask a linguist that. I would guess that the scope of linguistics extends beyond that of grammar or even of a specific language.

linguistics also covers what's really going on in one or more languages, while grammar covers what's 'supposed' to be going on in a specific language.

grammar covers the current rules

linguistics covers the rules as they are actually applied, how they got that way, and why they are the way they are (as well as what the grammar books say).

at least that was the understanding i came away from my linguistics classes with...

(Message edited by antaine on September 14, 2005)

I agree with Pádraig and Antaine.

To be a little more precise:

- Linguistics studies "the human language" (from a scientific point of view). Everything has to be taken into account: all the different human languages, all the different variants of a particular language, all the different levels of language (phonology, syntax, lexicon...), everything that can be said (or written) by humans (be they fluent speakers or learners).

- "Grammar" is too precious a word not to be used by linguists. Although not all linguists share the same definition of "grammar". This is why I always use the adjective "traditional" when refering to the grammar which people commonly know.

- Traditional grammar is prescriptive. It tells what you should say and what you shouldn't say. In Europe, it is strongly influenced by the Latin grammatical tradition, even when it applies to languages which don't ressemble Latin. (For instance, until recently, French nouns were taught with declension tables, like in Latin (nom. "le père", acc. "le père", gen. "du père", dat. "au père", etc.), even though the cases had been dropped a long time ago.)

- Linguistics is descriptive. I don't use the term "rule" in linguistics because of its prescriptive connotation. Linguistics being all-encompassing, the terms we use shall always have the same definition, whichever the language they are applied to. For instance, it is not possible to use the term "case" with the same definition if we apply it to Latin and then to English (unless we make the definition so general that it becomes useless).

quote:

The very concept of "mistake" is a consequence of purism and prescriptivism

Tá díospóireacht ar siúl inniu ar fhoram eile faoin Ghaeilge atá, nó ba chóir a bheith, ar an bhfocal "purist" i gcúrsaí teangeolaíochta. Right now, the only word for "purist" in the dico is "saoithín", which is not exactly neutral.

Céard faoi:
beachtaire (níl sin neodrach ach oiread)

An bhfuil an focal "purist" neodrach?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=purist

So, Max, can linguistics make predictions as to what languages people will be speaking in the future? And is there a reason given as to why certain peoples in certain areas developed their language one way and other peoples in other areas developed it another way. Or is that one of those questions that will never really be answered.

Aonghus and Dennis, why aren't saoithín and beachtaire nuetral? What do they mean?

quote:

saoithín and beachtaire

Pedant and hyper-correcter respectively.

Peire deas eile:
éigeas (go maith)
agus
éigsín (olc)

---

éigeas [ainmfhocal firinscneach den chéad díochlaonadh]
duine léannta, saoi; file.
éigsín : poetaster
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=poetaster

>>So, Max, can linguistics make predictions as to what languages people will be speaking in the future?

Well, if you mean "speaking English (as opposed to French) in the future", we are not dealing with linguistics anymore... but with much more...

>>And is there a reason given as to why certain peoples in certain areas developed their language one way and other peoples in other areas developed it another way.

That's the problem: there is not one reason, but several... in fact, the reasons are so numerous that we know for sure we have listed only some of them. Even now, the evolution of language reaches far beyond our comprehension (I am hinting at both "understanding" and "comprehensive").
I am not saying that we know nothing... in fact we know a great lot... but knowing how some language has evolved is not enough to know how it will evolve in the future (we can make predictions, but we couldn't give a sample of what will be spoken)

>>Or is that one of those questions that will never really be answered.

Indeed, I think no one could ever answer (precisely) such a question... save a seer.