Recently, I started a thread about foreign accents.

It was subsequently hijacked by simpletons making idiotic, backwards statements, and the thread was cordially closed by the establishment.

The function of this current thread is to continue the interesting and friendly portion of the discussion -- the reason I started it in the first place.

For those of you who wish to express asinine ideals -- David Webb in particular -- do it on YOUR OWN TIME. This is MY THREAD and you are NOT welcome to post here. Of course, I have no authority over who can and who can't post, but I'm getting the conversation off on the right foot by making it clear what the purpose of this thread is, and indicating what will and what won't be tolerated.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss what we find interesting about foreign accents, how we distinguish them, how they came about, how they're adopted, how they're dropped, etc.

The purpose of this thread is NOT to discuss which nation is better than another nation. The purpose of this thread is NOT to discuss which people is better than another people. If you wish to embark on such a discussion, I suggest you go to "Google Groups" -- they have many thousands of groups which cater for even the most narrow-minded and dimwitted of people. I told them to expect you, David Webb.

The people who made the original thread quite interesting, polite and on-topic, such as:

Robert
Jonas
Max
Ríona
Julia

I invite you to continue the discussion here. Anyone else who would like to enter the discussion, please feel free to; we are a friendly community. Unfortunately, we are overcome from time to time by imbecilies, but we get by.

I believe the last item of discussion was the slenderisation of consonants in Irish; and in particular, how people with certain accents make no audibile distinction between slender and broad consonants (myself included at times).

We were going on to discuss the prospect of whether people who speak fluent Irish, but yet don't make such distinctions; whether their pronunciation is lacking, or if they genuinely are speaking a dialect of Irish (Dublin Irish for instance).

Please discuss.

Thank you Caoimhín for closing the first thread, it is a good way to cool people's mind.
Thank you Fear_na_mbróg for reorienting the debate.


From a linguistic point of view: the language spoken from cradle is native, whatever the child hears and however his mind establishes the linguistic structures from those inputs. Let's not labour the obvious here...

But: discussing whether some native language belongs to Irish or English or whatever, whether it's a variant or a dialect of those or whatever, whether it's correct or not, whether it's legitimate or not, whether it should be taught at school or not, et cetera, has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with linguistics.

What a stupid post by Fear na mbróg! You simply abuse this forum by hurling insults, but at least I realise - something that you don't - that it is a public forum and it is not possible to block users. You certainly don't own the thread - and I find that only asinine people need to hurl abuse at others!

One thing I've been wondering about... what exactly is one's "native language"?

The easiest and most fundamental definition would probably be:

The language which a person is surrounded by from birth and through infancy; the language which is spoken to them at this time, and the language which they try to speak back. As time goes by, the child gets better at interpreting adults' speech, and begins to be able to shape their own sentences.
In this way, a person's "native language" can be considered as the first language they encounter, the first language which is spoken to them, and the first language which they try to speak back.

But what happens if some-one's parents are bilingual? Let's say we have a married couple, about 25 years old. They live in the East of Ireland (i.e. not a Gaeltacht are), but they are both Gaeilge enthusiasts. They both speak Gaeilge fluently and proficiently and they fully intend for their children to be able to speak Irish.

So... a child comes along. From birth and through infancy, the child hears such sentences as:

Are you hungry?
An bhfuil ocras ort?
Do you want to sleep?
An dteastíonn uait codladh?

Now what will be the child's native language? Both English and Irish? Or can this child be considered as having no native language as they learned multiple languages simultaneously?

Just my opinion but i belive that both would ba native, I just wounder what language a child like that would think or dream in. Would it be a mix of both or would a mind that young even be able to deciffer the difference between such languages as Irish and English, and use them without mixing them? (i.e I'm ocras or tá tired orm)just a thought.

(I sure wish i could have been that kid though :)

I hope that wasn't off topic, if it was than i oppologize

A Fhir na mbróg,

You didn't mention me, so if I am not invited to this thread just give your sign and will leave.

Concerning native langauges: I know you ply a seductive logic that if child is born to two Gaelainn-enthusiasts the child will have Gaelainn as native language. In one singular case most probably. That person's pronunciation "pecularities" would drown in the sea of "authentic" pronunciation so this specific person will not make a difference - just an odd lot.
But imagine there are thousands of those and in certain territory those "mic/ínine na bhfoghlaimeoirí" overwhelm people whose ancestors have spoken Irish all along. What happens then? Is it change of Irish? Change for sure. But if it is Irish anymore? If we believe what happened with other langauges in similar circumstances a creole/pidgeon/Tok Pisin will emerge. Not a bad thing in itself: modern English is the best example of such creole. But this NEW language will not be Gaelainn that we all (I hope) are enthusiasts of.

A fhir na mbróg,

Pé scéal é, what concerns your problem with capall vs capaill. This one is very simple even for English speaker. The letter in second word is exactly this sort of "thick" l [L'] found in word "million" especially if you succeed in touching your upper teeth when saying it. In the first word a velar thick "l" [L] which is similar to a slow dark "l" of BBC English in words like "bell". Fancy the difference in English pronunciation of "bell" (a church's belonging) (in Celtic IPA [L]) and "belle" (a loanword from French - beauty in other words (also loanword from French but older one) transcribed like [l].

Pé scéal é, the rural Dublin pronunciation was [L] in all situations before dart with [l] spread. So visit your older country-side relatives and listen carefully whenever they pronounce word with letter "l".

quote:

You didn't mention me, so if I am not invited to this thread just give your sign and will leave.

You're welcome here, Róman. I did not aim to appear hostile in my original post (slightly dictatorial perhaps), but I wanted to express my disgust at the original thread being closed because of stupid people who made stupid comments.

As for the names I mentioned, it wasn't an exhaustive list! I just jotted a few names down for the sake of making people feel welcome to continue the friendly and interesting discussion -- please don't take the omission of your name as a personal vendetta : ) !

While we're on the subject though, I do feel that your language comes across as hostile from time to time. For example:

quote:

I know you ply a seductive logic that if child is born to two Gaelainn-enthusiasts...

This sort of came across as a scathing remark when I read it at first. Your choice of language can be colourful at times!

--

Thanks for the description of the different "l"'s... but to be honest I still pronounce them all the same (or at least I think I do)! The "l" in "million" is the same as the "l" in "bell" for me... just like how the "th" in "then" is just like the "d" in "den" for me. ("den" as in "a fox's den".)

I can't make any discernable audibile difference between "capall" and "capaill".

A Fhir na mbróg

While in BÁC you have access to national library - take any course of English phonetics for foreigners (British edition of course). If it is a serious course sooner or later they explain dark "l" (like in bell) vs light "l" (like in "like"). Or even simpler way - you know how Corkmen say "love", "like" don't you? This the same sound.

Le meas

>> pidgeon

Do you mean "pidgin"?

>>modern English is the best example of such creole.

I don't agree with this. It takes more than borrowing - even a lot - for a language to become a Creole.
What happened to English is just evolution due to external factors.

If "learned Irish" were to become the native language of those who don't live in the Gaeltacht, and if, eventually, it were to supplant "original Irish", I'd compare the situation to French:
French is the result of low Latin badly spoken by the German invaders.

As to "would this still be Irish or not?", I'd say yes and no.

>>a person's "native language" can be considered as the first language they encounter, the first language which is spoken to them, and the first language which they try to speak back.

I'd like to make a few statements here:
- Languages are nowhere but in our minds.
- To each language corresponds a particular linguistic structure.
- Language is not innate: if a child is not sopken to, he won't speak; furthermore, if he is not spoken to during childhood, he will never be able to speak.
- The linguistic structures are not innate: they are created by the child from the inputs he gets.
- Of course, no child gets the exact same inputs. As a consequence, no child creates the exact same linguistic strutures. With each person, language is recreated, and slightly altered.
- Speaking of Creoles: Creoles come from Pidgins. A Pigdin is an overly simplified "communication tool", often a mix between several languages, that serves as a lingua franca. A Pidgin is no-one's native language, in fact, it is too simple to be even considered a language. The proof of that is that when a Pidgin is spoken to children, the children will themselves complexify it, thus making it an "all-purpose communication tool", aka a language. Such a language that comes from a Pidgin is called a Creole.

A Mhaix, a chara

I am more than sure that you know that "pidgin" is a bad spelling of "pidgeon". So what were you trying to say?

quote:

French is the result of low Latin badly spoken by the German invaders

As English is badly spoken Saxon by indigenous Celts.

I think some creolisation of Irish is inevitable, between Gaeltacht speakers borrowing english words and twisting them (Bhí mé an-happy ar mo bhaidhsigil), and Galltacht speakers imposing english syntax and idioms on Irish (tá sé suas duitse).

However, all speakers will be by and large literate, so that I expect the progress of creolisation to be slowed by people still having good irish to read.

The accreditation scheme for translators is a good move in this direction. And I agree with Rómán, an "Acadamh na Gaeilge" to act as watchdog on published Irish would be a good idea.

"pidgin" comes from "pidgin English" and is an alteration of the word "business" pronounced by Chinese people. "pidgin" was formerly spelt "pigeon" (not "pidgeon").

quote:

"pidgin" comes from "pidgin English" and is an alteration of the word "business" pronounced by Chinese people

from Vicipéid:

quote:

Scholars though dispute this derivation of the word "pidgin", and suggest alternative etymologies since it was known also as "Pigeon English" in reference to imagery of the carrier pigeon

So?

Róman, I don't understand your point.
Whatever the etymology of "pidgin" actually is, and however that word was spelt before, the fact is: "pidgeon" is not an English word, "pigeon" is a bird, "pidgin" is a kind of communication tool.

Just a quick interest (that you may disregard) (English being my first language) when I was growing up I moved around a lot, that being said I acquired the Spanish language through people I lived near and later on I worked with them and have found that by being exposed to many different groups that had different wordings and meanings I speak a different type of the same language. Al so due to the moving around I seem to have no accent (just what I have been told) of any region, I lived with my Suid Affrika family from age 16-21 and when I was learning Afrikaans they said I spoke like a native that had been born there. Now I don't understand how one could grow up with no type of accent at all (like I said it is just what I have been told) I am wondering how my Irish sounds to other native speakers. If you would like to chat you can IM me at or but please don't spam me with crap.

P.S. I now live in Texas, USA if there be any groups or such near me I would like to join.

My best friend and I were talking about how the language(s) you grow up speaking do some shaping of how you view everything around you and the world you live in. This is not just how you view your culture and what have you, it goes down to such things as how sentences are structured telling you something about the way things go in life, like some languages, so I've heard, put very little emphasis on ownership or other such differences that can shape one's perception. I might be over estimating this but I thought I'd toss it out there.

Riona,
can i answer from my perspective?

Ask yourself this -the word 'apple'. Can you disect it and deduce the chemical components of an apple?

The 'idea' of apple, can one again, disect it and analyse it up like a real apple?

You might say 'yes', I know what an applie is made of. So if you seen a photo of a new fruit from Papua New Guinea, called a 'veeloren', could you know what it is made of too, down to the chemical and genetic level?

"it goes down to such things as how sentences are structured telling you something about the way things go in life"

The manner in which physical events are structured are not comparable with language syntax. Ex: 'The car crashed' 'The car harshed hard' 'the cars lightly crashed'. If you saw the event, your perception would not be deternined by linguisitc dimensions, but if you heard about if from another party and imagined it based on their description and it was the only info you had, what you generated based on the account would be in part determined by the content of the account. They say the proof is in the claimant. I claim content can modify how you feel about an event after the fact by been swayed by stories of the crash. I dont think grammar of language determines cognition

To Max: " The linguistic structures are not innate: they are created by the child from the inputs he gets."

This was what I was asking you about before. You must know better than I that grammars are not wholly dependant on input; human cognitive processes in the lab and in the field are much the same all over the world.

If grammar structure was form input only, then the conservative nature of languages and of the (addmittedly wide, but not infinite) range of grammars must be down to influercnes such as mechanical reproduction (mouth etc) and the need for communication over large areas and between generations.

I know that last paragraph is a little vagfue, but once I stated that there were limits to grammar, I then realised I had not a measure of this. Thus, before I mentioned that we need to have people communicate from birth with other media, such as light, or artistic symbols so we can see how wide grammars can get.

I am not talking about semiotics, were one puts a literary spin on everything, as that us ultimatly based on spoken language too.

What i'm sayings is to what degree unknown 'cognitive processes' plus the channel (the phsycvial medium of transmittion' (air, stone, light) plus how human interact with those (mouth, hand + tool, lights modulation) must have effects on the grammar, some syntactical and direct (mouth --> palitisation sometimes used for plural), some indirect (technologies) have on grammar.

In essence, is grammar embodied to any degree, and if so, how much? Or is it just abstract, like in Claude Shannon's information theory?

quote:

To Max: " The linguistic structures are not innate: they are created by the child from the inputs he gets."

This was what I was asking you about before. You must know better than I that grammars are not wholly dependant on input; human cognitive processes in the lab and in the field are much the same all over the world.

I'll try a metaphor:

You have no house and you are to build one. Like everybody else, the only material you can use is wood. You live in a community, and everybody has the same house, so you will imitate the others and build yourself a similar house.
Around the world, houses can be very different, yet they are somehow alike because they are always made of wood.
These "houses" are the linguistic structures, and the "wood" is the human mind.

Robert, I don't really understand what you wrote...

well, a) no need for a metaphor. We both agree that a kids will make a pigeon a creole, so I think we are ont the same wavelenghth. My quesiton was on to what degree we agreed, not on what yoy meant
b) not need to stop the thread

I didn't mean that language structure affects your perception of physical events. I was thinking more along the lines of it's effect on one's view of concepts of a more vague nature, such as ownership, individuality and one's place in the community, things like that. I think though that culture and language sort of shape each other.
beir bua agus beannacht

>>My quesiton was on to what degree we agreed, not on what yoy meant

That's why I need to understand what you mean...

"I didn't mean that language structure affects your perception of physical events. I was thinking more along the lines of it's effect on one's view of concepts of a more vague nature, such as ownership, individuality and one's place in the community, things like that. I think though that culture and language sort of shape each other. "

The sort of thing where it is easier to argue againt, than to show it does or exist, or if not, why not and do so explicitly.