In Paris last week I picked up a little Irish phrase book in the Assimil évasion series. It's been around since 2004, but it was new to me. The author is Ciarán Mac Guill, and it seems to me to be very well done indeed. It runs 189 pages in the usual small phrase book format and cost me 9,80€.

http:///jspv3/fr/fiche.jsp?paramIdCodeArticle=1415¶mAppelant=0& paramIdLBas=0¶mIdLApp=-1¶mIdColl=-1¶mIdMedi=-1

By the way, Dennis, looking through the net I found some remark by you on these two books below having stuff for Middle Irish. Are they any good? I bought them anyway.


Vendryes, Janet
Grammaire Du Vieil Irlandais

Manuel d'irlandais moyen: Grammaire textes et glossaire (Relié) George Dottin

Another choice, which does a very good job of pointing up the divergences of Middle Irish from Old Irish, is the final chapter of Kim McCone's A First Old Irish Grammar and Reader, Including an Introduction to Middle Irish (2005) from NUI Maynooth.

I'm just after buying a load of books from them, so its a pity I did before I knew about this

Thanks Dennis for telling that (about "L'Irlandais de Poche") because I've already seen this book in a bookshop in my town and I was wondering if it was worthwhile . I'm gonna buy it and have a look then.

One caution, Jean. The imitated pronunciation works with the sounds available in French, so the result is really only a rough approximation of the sound of Irish. Ça suffit pour te donner une idée grossière de la vraie prononciation.

Then there is the ever-present question of dialect. The author says in the avant-propos Pour que ce guide reste simple et cohérent, nous avons choisi de vous présenter l'irlandais d'Ulster. But I hasten to point out that what they present is by no means a heavily provincial sort of Irish. In the spelling and grammar, it is perfectly Standard Irish. The Ulster influence is felt only in a few choices of vocabulary and idiom, and in a mild way in the imitated pronunciation.

As you'll see, the guide also presents a lot of interesting and useful cultural information.

I'd like to take this unique opportunity to ask how frequently nasalized sounds occur in Irish? I cut my foreign-language teeth in French (lo these many years ago) and have, I think, heard similar sounds in Irish.

That said, I've never seen French referenced as a benchmark aside from the slender "r".

Am I hearing things or is this a genuine phenomenon?

Traditionally Irish has been heavily nasalised, but not as strong as French, and can have a lot of nasal and naslised consonants (m, mh (4) 4 ns, ng (2) =10) plus colouring of vowels and accidental nasalising of other consonants too where a nasal used to be (cnámh -bone -->crá(mh) so r and á can get it

In Old Irish, a lenited 'b' and a lenited 'm' differed only in that the vowel adjacent to a lenited 'm' was nasalized. This distinction continues to be made in Scottish Gaelic, and was current in Irish -- at least in some dialects -- up until a few generations ago.

Thanks! There was a word or two that I specifically had in mind when I posted, but was too tired to remember at the time.

Damhsa - does it sound suspiciously like the French "dance"?

Dennis,
how is Max? Has he had any new insights into grammar worth sharing? Does he have any published papers on Irish?

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Damhsa - does it sound suspiciously like the French "dance"?

Not really. To me it sounds more Chinese! It rhymes almost exactly with jiao-zi, aka potsickers aka gyoza. In newspaper phonetics, damhsa is DOW-suh.

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how is Max?

Tá sé ag déanamh go maith.

quote:

Does he have any published papers on Irish?

Ní dóigh liom go bhfuil aon rud i gcló aige fós. Thaispeáin sé alt dom cúpla mí ó shin a scríobh sé mar chuid den obair atá ar siúl aige san ollscoil.

We havn't seen Max around in a long time. A Dennis, you should tell him he should come back.

Beir bua agus beannacht

quote:

you should tell him he should come back

Il a d'autres chats à fouetter. En anglais: he has other fish to fry. Agus i nGaeilge?

ba eile le cur thar abhainn aige?

O, is maith liom é sin, Abigail! Níor chuala mé riamh cheana é. Ach beidh a bhó curtha thar abhainn aige go deimhin chomh luath agus a bheas na héisc chéanna friochta!

Bhuel, níl sé cloiste agam féin ach oiread go deimhin! Mise féin a sháigh an t-"eile" isteach.

"Tá bó le cur thar abhainn agam" an leagan atá cloiste agam - bhí sé mar leithscéal ag cara liom agus é ag cur in iúl nár mhaith dó ceist áirithe a phlé a thuilleadh, ainneoin go raibh suim mhór aige inti.

Ach an dóigh leat go bhfuil an bhrí chéanna leis go baileach? Nílim ró-chinnte de. Is éard a thuigim ó "do bhó a chur thar abhainn" ná sprioc éigin a bhaint amach. Ní hionann é agus a bheith gnóthach i mbun ruda éigin, mar atá sa leagan Béarla. Dar liom tá béim ar an ngníomhaíocht i gceann acu, ar an toradh sa gceann eile.

(Message edited by Abigail on June 04, 2007)

Aontaithe!

Clocha eile níos mó ar a phaidrín, seans?

Ach is casadh eile ar nath é sin.

Dennis,
got the Dottin book this morning. the other book is sold out, so nothing I can say about that.

Dottin's book is not very impresive for 120euro. Apart from a range of text and verb and noun flexion, it does not have the focus on copularic forms, and pre verbal particles that I want. I know they are in there, but like the Thurneysen, it is a book of its era, with bad design, and no index! The only thing, I suppose is that one has to read it (like what people did with books in those days)

Still, with its easy to read French, I might do an English translation late this year. I want to do an MA in linguistics after I've finished the one I'm doing now, and I think such work would look good to the application board

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Dottin's book is not very impresive for 120euro.

Phew! Sin a lán airgid! Is trua gur íoc tú an méid sin as. Caithfidh sé gur rare book atá ann anois.

Fáilte ar ais Dennis..

Ní raibh tú in Éirinn ar do thuras, an raibh?

An raibh tú ag faire ar na euros? Tá Gaeilge anois i bpóca mhuintir na hEorpa... Ar an €2 anois níl ach gaeilge ann.. Éire ar thaobh amháin. Conradh na Róimhe nó rud dá leithéid ar an taobh eile..
Tá airgead i mo phóca faoi láthair, ach Banríon na Breataine atá ar an airgead faraor ;(
B'fhéidir go bhfuil an freagra ceart ag duine saibhear ó dheas??

quote:

Ní raibh tú in Éirinn ar do thuras, an raibh?

Ní raibh.

quote:

An raibh tú ag faire ar na euros?

Ó am go ham. Chuaigh a lán acu trí mo mhéara ar aon chuma! Ar an drochuair ní fhaca mé aon bhonn Éireannach; cinn Fhrancacha agus Spáinneacha den chuid is mó, agus cúpla ceann ón nGearmáin agus ón Iodáil.

quote:

Ar an €2 anois níl ach gaeilge ann.. Éire ar thaobh amháin.

Mar is cóir!

Mar is ceart agus is cóir cinnte dearfach...

Faoin am seo den bhliain, bíonn mo dhuine ag dul thar lear ar saoire. Dá thoradh, tá an dochulacht ann go mbeidh sóinseál na tíre seo ag dul timpeall na hEorpa..