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Pádraig
Member Username: Pádraig
Post Number: 376 Registered: 09-2004
| Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 10:19 am: |
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This may come under the heading: Tell-me-something-I-Don't-Already-Know, but after years of trying to remember which verbs are irregular while simultateously trying to learn the English to Irish vocabulary, I noticed that all the Irish irregular verbs are also irregular in English. Wow! Let the boys in Huntsville step aside. We have our own rocket scientist! For me, at least, this is a valuable bit of information. English I can remember and this gives me a handle on the Irish. Just thought I'd pass it on to anyone who may have been lost in the same patch of woods. Ní maith é an duine a bheith leis féin.
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Dennis
Member Username: Dennis
Post Number: 922 Registered: 02-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 11:28 am: |
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As you've no doubt intuited by now, it is the most common verbs in all Indo-European languages that retain irregularities, simply because speakers get to "practice" them constantly, so they don't forget all the exceptions. The majority of verbs are subject to forces of "leveling" and end up regular, or at least more nearly regular, depending on the language. |
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Fear_na_mbróg
Member Username: Fear_na_mbróg
Post Number: 979 Registered: 08-2004
| Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 12:29 pm: |
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There's eleven irregular verbs in Irish. There's hundreds in English. Fáilte Roimh Cheartúcháin
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Max
Member Username: Max
Post Number: 300 Registered: 05-2005
| Posted on Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 06:30 am: |
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Is this a competition? In this case, we should add to the list of criteria, as Dennis mentioned, the level of irregularity. I believe the Irish irregular verbs "out-irregular" the English irregular verbs (which show 3 different forms tops - except "be" which has 4: "be", "was", "were" and "been" - and of which, though technically "hundreds", there are around 200). Can French compete? |
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Domhnall
Member Username: Domhnall
Post Number: 480 Registered: 06-2005
| Posted on Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 01:14 pm: |
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As luck would have it the 11 irregular are more or less the most commonly used ones.. A people without a language of its own is only half a nation.A nation should guard its language more than its territories, 'tis a surer barrier and a more important frontier than mountain or river
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