A chairde,

I should like to call your attention to a newly published book from Ben Madigan Press, "Leabhar Mór Bhriathra na Gaeilge" (The Great Irish Verb Book) by Dr. Art Hughes. It features 112 verbs conjugated in the following tenses/moods:
Past
Present
Future
Conditional
Imperfect
Imperative
Pres. Subjunctive

Each verb's tense/mood is shown in "standard" Irish highlighted by a yellow background, then Ulster on a green field, Connacht on magenta and Munster on cyan. This system is similar to what one sees in the recently released "Gaschaint" book, which featured common phrases shown in their dialectical variants -- though I think LMBnG uses different colours than Gaschaint.

This volume truly deserves the adjective "mór" -- it's a nicely bound 489-page hardcover at a hefty 1.95 kg (4.3 lbs.) and measures 21.6 x 27.9 cm (8.5 x 11 inches). It has a colourful cover and colour is used liberally throughout the interior pages as described above. The binding is of a better quality which allows the book to lay nicely flat on a table-top.

As this book can be useful to both fluent Gaeilgeoir and the novice learner, Dr. Hughes provided his introduction, contents, section headers, etc. in both Irish and English.

Leabhar Mór Bhriathra na Gaeilge begins with a brief history of the language and includes a map of where Irish is primarily spoken today. As he takes us into the 20th century, he discusses the controversial aspects of orthography/typography/standardisation, and how "standard" Irish materials fail to prepare the learner for dialectical variation -- and that an important variation is among verb forms. The introduction finishes with many pages demonstrating verb variation, and the entire 50-page introduction is copiously footnoted for those who like to delve deeper into these topics.

This is the most comprehensive verb book I've ever seen, yet Dr. Hughes faced some choices when he chose to limit his categories to "standard", Ulster, Connacht & Munster. Within each of the dialects are regional variations, and to include all of these would necessitate a much larger tome. He has instead chosen north Donegal for Ulster (with notations about particle/pronoun differences further south), Cois Fhairrge for Connacht (sadly omitting Mayo), and Corca Dhuibhne for Munster (which omits Cork/Waterford variants).

Besides the 112 verbs chosen for full conjugation in this book, there are over 3,000 verbs indexed in the back of the book showing their English translation, C.O. present tense, C.O. verbal noun, C.O. verbal adjective and -- most importantly -- which verb within LMBnG should be used as a model when conjugating it in the dialect of one's choice.

Dr. Hughes finishes up with a short list of regional literature, samples of seanchló, and a bibliography.

This book may be ordered directly from the publisher:
http://www.benmadiganpress.com/english/book_lm.html

Ben Madigan Press unfortunately has no online shopping trolley and accepts only cheques, so if you're among the many for whom obtaining a cheque in UK£ is problematic, our friend Caitlín at Litríocht has made this book available by mail order using a credit card via their secure online shopping site:
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=5338

For those who feel that this book would be too large for practical use, a smaller A5 version (about 5.8 x 8.3 inches) is planned for release later this year.

Wow, a book that includes Gaeltacht Irish!! :D

This book is on my list.

Chonaic mé é seo i siopa an Chonartha an mhí seo caite. "Leabhar mór" go deimhin!

Is dóigh go mba mhaith an áis foghlama é más deacair le duine na briathra. Ní cuimhin liom féin iad a bheith chomh dúdheacair sin agus a rialta is atá siad, ach ar ais arís ní raibh uaim riamh foirmeacha uile an tsaoil a thabhairt liom mar eolas gníomhach. Gan amhras ach gur sár-obair atá ann agus gur breá an leabhar tagartha é do dhuine ar bith. Molaim go hard é do spiairí, d'aisteoirí, do chleasaithe glice de shaghas ar bith - d'aon duine, le scéal gairid a dhéanamh de, ar fonn leis nó ar tarrtháil dó foirmeacha na dtrí gcanúint a bheith aige ar bharr a theangan.

I hope I've read this wrong, there is no Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne, yet this is the strongest sub dialect of Munster..

Cár léigh tú é sin, a Thrigger?

Seo an méid a scríobh Cionaodh thuas:

quote:

This is the most comprehensive verb book I've ever seen, yet Dr. Hughes faced some choices when he chose to limit his categories to "standard", Ulster, Connacht & Munster. Within each of the dialects are regional variations, and to include all of these would necessitate a much larger tome. He has instead chosen north Donegal for Ulster (with notations about particle/pronoun differences further south), Cois Fhairrge for Connacht (sadly omitting Mayo), and Corca Dhuibhne for Munster (which omits Cork/Waterford variants)

.

A chairde,

I wish that I had this book when I was trying to learn Irish at school fadó, fadó. The author deserves a big clap on the back. An extremely useful resource.

Le meas,

Táim ag siúil go mór leis an leabhar seo freisin - go raibh maith agat a Chionaodh as an eolas.

quote:

Besides the 112 verbs chosen for full conjugation in this book, there are over 3,000 verbs indexed in the back of the book showing their English translation,...

Can we compare the quantity of the 12 or so irregular verbs to the overall quantity of regular verbs and, if so, how does that comparison "compare" to other languages, like English or French? Does Irish have a relatively low or high incidence of irregular verbs? Is Irish verbally regular?

FRC-GRMA

(Message edited by student on August 28, 2008)

It's generally held that Irish is particularly low on that point

"or French"

Tu parle Francais?.....

quote:

Can we compare the quantity of the 12 or so irregular verbs to the overall quantity of regular verbs and, if so, how does that comparison "compare" to other languages, like English or French?

Not really, because the number of verbs in any language is open-ended. Moreover, the less common a verb is, the more likely it is to be perfectly regular. So, for any language, the proportion of irregular verbs is going to be trivial compared to the proportion of regular ones.

I have always understood that the approximate number of irregular verbs is rather consistent across all languages because those verbs are so frequently used in everyday communication that persons readily learn and remember their complexities.

quote:

the proportion of irregular verbs is going to be trivial compared to the proportion of regular ones.

Although Old Irish often causes one to question that proposition!

A Dhennis,

Táim cinnte dearfa de gur "briathar rialta Sean-Ghaeilge" "contradiction in terms"!

A Phádraig,

This can't be true because there are languages where all verbs (including the copula!) are regular: Quechua, for instance. Also, extreme morphological regularity is one of the most conspicuous characteristics of any creole language. (I personally consider the sizable number of irregular verbs in English a solid refutation of any proposed "creole" origins for the language.)

Not wishing to argue, but rather to better understand, is it possible that the paucity of irregular verbs in certain languages is the result of devolution? For example, as a schoolboy I delighted in the relative simplicity of French after struggling with the complexities of Latin. I assumed that was due to French being a simplified spin-off of it's Roman predecessor.

As language change is not telic, "devolution" is not a term I can give a sensible interpretation to in this context.

Language consistent of an assortment of complex interlocking patterns. Simplifying one of these patterns inevitably ends up disturbing others, which then speakers go about trying to "tidy up". In the area of morphology, the kind of regularisation that results is called "paradigmatic leveling". The complication is that, in any body of inflectional paradigms, there are multiple conflicting patterns which could serve as models.

To take an example from English, there has been an ongoing process of regularisation of irregular verb paradigms. Rare verbs like abide and beseech have shed their "strong" past tense forms (abode, besought) in favour of regular forms (abided, beseeched). But the process is not unidirectional and, indeed, some common verbs have gone the other way. Dove is now standard for dived in North American varieties. Dialectal brung is an even better example, showing one irregular form (brought) being replaced with another on the model of a small subclass of similar-sounding verbs (sing, sink, swing, fling, etc.). In both these cases, you have examples of verbs being modified to resemble widespread but lesser paradigms instead of the overarching regular conjugation.

Jokes aside, Old Irish is an interesting example of what happens when a fairly regular conjugation pattern gets massively disrupted by profound linguistic change. Eventually, the highly complex patterns of Old Irish were regularised down to relatively few for the modern language, but the experience of other languages such as Georgian or Navajo shows us that this change was by no means inevitable.

Thanks for letting us know about this book, Cionaodh.

I just got mine in the mail to-day and it is, by far, the best Irish verb book that I have ever seen.

Thanks for letting us know about this book, Cionaodh.

Ná habair é, a WFM. I've been eagerly awaiting this book a long while, and had been in touch with Dr. Hughes a few times to check on its progress. It was well worth the wait.

I just got mine in the mail to-day and it is, by far, the best Irish verb book that I have ever seen.

Aontaím leatsa.

Hi a Chionaoidh,
Míle buíochas as insint dúinn faoi Leabhar Mór Bhriathra na Gaeilge. Beidh mé ag obair thar lear ar feadh trí seachtaine ag deireadh na míosa seo agus beidh neart ama saor agam beagainín staidéar a dhéanamh ar an nGaeilge. Déanfaidh an leabhar nua seo an beart :0) Sláinte!

(Message edited by asarlaí on September 02, 2008)