I got a leaflet in my door the other day from the government, written both in English and Irish.

I might have decent enough grammar (e.g. I know where to place a séimhiú and so forth), but I'd be the first admit that I'd need more experience with the language to pick up more vocabulary, idioms, figures of speech, etc.

What I wonder about though is who do they get to translate these things from English to Irish (...and I think it's safe to assume they were originally in English). Reading through the Gaolainn, there are many things which face me as mistakes, and then there's the things which I think are mistakes but am not sure about. Here's my scrutiny of it:

Céard é an fhadhb / Should this not be Céard í or maybe just Cén fhadhb ?
ag téamh suas Is this Béarlachas? I thought téamh does the trick on its own without suas
ag téamh an pláinéad an phláinéid
ag cuir isteach ag cur isteach
Méadóidh an ardú an t-ardú
Bheadh an fulaingt an fhulaingt
ró maith ró-mhaith
ag feidhmiú na céimeanna riachtanach na gcéimeanna riachtanacha
ag Éire ag Éirinn
ní foláir d'Éire d'Éirinn
de meatán de mheatán
ar nós gaoth, tonn, grian, bithmhais ar nós gaoithe,toinne,gréine,bithmhaise
Cáin Cláraithe Feithiclí Cáin Chláraithe Fheithiclí

These are just some of the oddities I've spotted on the first two pages... of five pages. I wonder who they get to write these things for them because no native speaker would say "an ardú" instead of "an t-ardú", likewise with many other of the mistakes. Even a half-decent speaker won't leave out the t's.

Aside from the grammatical errors though, the use of language and so forth is pretty decent... but I wonder what kind of people have decent language use without having good grammar (assuming of course we're talking about a learner of the language instead of a native speaker).

I think Panu makes the point that the history of the 'Gaelic revival' has always neglected grammar, something to do with 'German essentialism' or something.

The lack of genitive after the VN is a bad one; even worse is the lack of lenition after ró -I'd bet there isint a soul here who lacks that one. Bad too is Éire for Éirinn after preps

Yeah but these things are natural to native speakers, as natural as it is for us to say "the man speaks" but "the men speak", or "that boy is stupid" but "those boys are stupid".

If they're not getting native speakers then who are they getting? Learners?! A proficient learner should be indistinguishable from a native, so are they getting less-than-able translaters or what?

Why should Irish be any different than English when it comes to correctness?

Could it just be another form of Irish, similar to all the different forms of English that exist, ranging from the "non-expressive" Queen's English to those whose creativity provide them with the ability to have different pronunciations even for personal pronouns?

A Mhic Léinn, in which different form of English would the Government send a leaflet to your house which reads:

Today, the twenty-oneth day of April, we would likes congratulates the persons who help with together-putting of process of the peace.

Sure it's intelligible... but does it sound like something a native or fluent learner would say?

quote:

to those whose creativity provide them with the ability to have different pronunciations even for personal pronouns?

You mean 99% of people?

A Fhear a chara,

I think the reason that you see these things is because you are smarter than you think you are. You are quite clever and proficient and that is probably how you notice these things.

Beir bua agus beannacht.

But it doesn't take a genius to notice a misplaced "s" in English (e.g. tagged onto the end of a verb to indicate a singular subject). Linguistic intelligence is something we all possess, an inherent ability which far surpasses the intelligence we use to try dissect it. Even the most stupid person will tell you that "Everyday the boys walks to school" sounds a bit odd, even if they're too dumb to tell you why.

I'd hate to be a learner of English trying to get my head around all the places and reasons for which we tag "s" onto the end of a word (e.g. singular for verbs, plural for nouns, contraction of "is", "was" or "has") -- thankfully though it comes naturally to me.

Anyway what kind of native speaker doesn't notice that "ar nós grian" should be "ar nós gréine"?!

(Message edited by Fear_na_mBróg on May 10, 2007)

Re: Who are they getting to do this work?

From the ads I've seen in newspapers, my guess is that all the government departments have their own ways of going about recruiting translators rather than having a central pool of translators and so, the quality of translations varies greatly from one dept to another. The usual token efforts at providing a service through Irish, in the case of that leaflet then.

Ná cuirfeá litir ghearáin chucu, a fhir na mbróg?

quote:

Ná cuirfeá litir ghearáin chucu, a fhir na mbróg?

Níl fhios agam an n-éistfidís le guth aon duine amháin... seans dá gcuirfeadh dream litir chucu, go n-éistfidís.

Ach caithfidh mé rá nach bhfuil an píosa páipéar ró-olc! Tá friotal deas ann ar a laghad... tá sé neart níos fearr ná gan Gaolainn a bheith air ar chor ar bith.

TOITD ('Tis only Irish, twill do)

quote:

TOITD ('Tis only Irish, twill do)

I don't know if many of yiz have seen the leaflet, but it's actually quite high quality, and it looks like quite a lot of effort was made to deliver pertinent information in both languages... which is why the broken grammar seems a little out of place.

Funnily enough though, you don't notice many of the errors if you read it fast. I don't know if I've gotten used to reading broken Irish, but I read (past tense) "an fulaingt" as "an fhulaingt" simply because my brain hopped in on its feiminity. More verbose things like "timpeall an áit" instead of "timpeall na háite" stand out.

quote:

A Mhic Léinn, in which different form of English would the Government send a leaflet to your house which reads:

Today, the twenty-oneth day of April, we would likes congratulates the persons who help with together-putting of process of the peace.

I look forward to the answer to your questions above. I still think something like the organization SPELL, http://www.spellorg.com/ would be a good way of going about addressing the TOITD factor.

You can check out SPELL (Society the Preservation of English Language and Literature at:
http://www.spellorg.com/

Has the time come for SPILL (Society for the Preservation of Irish Language and Literature)? I think there should be an Irish-language acronym instead. of SPILL. After I finish my sign, I'll get working on it.

CCCG!

Cumann Cosanta agus Caomhnaithe na Gaeilge!

Nó "Cumann Caomhnuighthe na Fíor-Ghaedhilge"!

I think the acronym would have a greater and a slightly humorous impact if it actually spelled out something in Irish. Not that it has to be SPELL, or the Irish equivalent Litriú, but some "word" that also stands for the name of this watchdog organization.

Ceist: Conas deirtear "goof card" as Gaeilge? See http://www.spellorg.com for its purpose.

If they're not getting native speakers then who are they getting? Learners?! A proficient learner should be indistinguishable from a native, so are they getting less-than-able translaters or what?

I wonder if maybe they're not "getting" anybody - if the job was just given to whoever in that office has the best Irish (or the least workload, or whatever).

quote:

Has the time come for SPILL (Society for the Preservation of Irish Language and Literature)? I think there should be an Irish-language acronym instead. of SPILL. After I finish my sign, I'll get working on it.

A Mhic Léinn, cén leathanach a bhfuil tú air?!

This is absolutely nothing to do with whether someone writes "it's" for "it is" and "its" for possession, nor is it anything to do with whether we write or say "to whom" or "who to", or whether we say "three" as "tree" or "free" -- this is about down right mistakes. I'm not talking about grammatical mistakes, or anything that contradicts the Standard, but rather the kind of mistakes that a four year old can point out and say "Daddy that sounds weird".

There are dialectal variations in every language that has more than a few speakers. Some of us say "I learnt" instead of "I learned", others say "should have gone" instead of "shuda went". These differences are totally different to the downright peculiararities that learners come out with.

I've heard native speakers of English say "You was" instead of "you were", but for some reason it doesn't sound weird to me because there's a flow to their speech when they say it, I can sense the resolve and I accept that that's their dialect. Their bold, different accent reinforces their dialectal claim. This is far removed from learners whose speech is rehearsed, structured, pre-meditated, lacking fluidity. It is the speech of learners that has gaping oddities that hop out at one's ear.

Just as though there are many things which we take for granted as native speakers of English, there are things which native speakers of every language take for granted. Do you think babies sit in their prams practising putting the genitive case after "ag + verbal noun" -- no they don't, they just copy what other people do, subconsciously creating patterns and cues in their mind. They only second guess themselves when something sounds "weird".

There are certain mistakes that native speakers don't make. After 10 cans of larger I'm still gonna say "I was, you were" or "the boys run, the boy runs". And I'm sure if you got a native speaker they'd still be saying "ar an gcailín, san óstán, ag lorg an fhir".

This is why I shake my head at these downright learner pieces of work. No native or proficient speaker of Irish is gonna say "Méadóidh an ardú" -- I mean I'm just a learner myself but it even screams bloody murder at my ear. Likewise they won't make the mistake of "ar nós an ghaoith" instead of "ar nós na gaoithe".

We are all human, and we are not infallible, we make mistakes from time to time, "brain farts" if you will. Sometimes I'll say something strange, but I think most of the time I even cop it myself and repeat it correctly. Other times though it'll go unnoticed until someone else points it out for me -- a good example of this would be where I switch the starting consonants of two words, (e.g. "bad soy" instead of "sad boy"). This is the spoken word to which I refer.

Then we have the written word. The written word has far more potential for error detection and correction. Sure, if you don't read over your work, you might find the odd error here and there, but if you go over it well then you shouldn't have a problem.

And last but not least, we have leaflets which are to be sent out to every residence in the Republic of Ireland, leaflets which were studied and painstakingly scrutanised. If by some stretch of the imagination you can rationalise how a piece of paper containing the words "Méadóidh an ardú" made it into my home, then I don't think you and I have anything to discuss.

(Message edited by Fear_na_mBróg on May 10, 2007)

Actually you will hear (at least some) native speakers dropping the genitive after v.n. Not in established phrases like "ag fáil bháis" or "ag baint soip" but "ag cur airgead i dtaisce" or "ag lorg fear", certainly.

I'm not praising or criticizing the habit - just saying it does exist and is not a problem unique to learners. If that were the only grammar issue in your bileog - which I recognize that it isn't - I could believe it was the work of a native speaker (though clearly not one who should have been given the job - just as there are plenty of native English speakers I wouldn't trust to write copy for something like this!)