Does "Cad Fáth" (assuming it's still used) have a different shade of meaning from "Cén Fáth"?

Never read nor heard "cad fáth" so far...

I have; I assume it's a Munsterism, as they're fondest of cad, but I'm not completely sure.

Seems to be a lot of Cad in Ulster also. Cad é mar atá...and so on. I heard a native speaker from Donegal who was visiting a small college in Georgia (upon seeing a former student whom he recognized) greet her with "Cad é mer." His voice trailed off into a mumble, but from the context both seemed to understand that he was saying "how are you and its a pleasant surpise to see you here after so many years." All that in "Kajaymer." I bet he'd know that Cad fath meant cén fath.

"Cad ina thaobh?" (or "Cad 'na thaobh?") is "Why?" in Munster Irish.

It's just that I'd be rather surprised to find an Ulsterism that Lughaidh claims never to have heard nor seen before. But that does seem to be where the evidence online points. Mar sampla:

quote:

Cé h-é an duine a chuireann an leathanach seo ar an Idirlíon, agus cad fáth go bhfuil sé ag deanamh é?

Seán Mac an Bháird is ainm dom, agus rugadh mé i Leitir Ceanainn, i dTír Chonaill, beagnach seachtmhógha bliadhan ó shoin.

(Foinse: http://www.vindicator.ca/foreword.html.)

Foinse eile
http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0032/D.0032.192912060008.html

But this is a Galwayman!
http://oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=6&MemberID=37 5&ConstID=102


Many of the other examples seem to be from Panu Hoeglunds Ulster phase - I'd be surprised if he hadn't good authority for it.

Thanks for the responses.
I hadn't heard of "Cad Fáth" myself until relatively recently when I came across it in an old (1927) book called "The Short Cut To Irish" by Shán Ó Cuív in which (pg. 23) he says: "In Southern Irish the distinction between cé and cad is rigidly observed" and goes on to include "cad fáth" in some examples.
He adds: "Cé is not used in reference to inanimate objects or the lower animals, any more than who is used in English outside the sporting columns of the newspapers, where the relative who, in place of which, is now justified by usage. It makes it easier for the learner to have a clearly-marked distinction, for the moment he hears cé in a question he knows that the question refers to a person and not a thing."

quote:

It's just that I'd be rather surprised to find an Ulsterism that Lughaidh claims never to have heard nor seen before.

Maybe it does exist (however, even if Panu uses it, it doesn't mean it's an Ulster thing), but I guess it's not so common in Ulster since I never heard or saw it so far. I know the most common way to say "why" in Ulster is "cad chuighe", often pronounced ca tuí or even tuí.
In Ulster, I think we very seldom use "cad" except in the expression "cad é" = what or in cad chuighe.

quote:

But that does seem to be where the evidence online points. Mar sampla:
quote:Cé h-é an duine a chuireann an leathanach seo ar an Idirlíon, agus cad fáth go bhfuil sé ag deanamh é?

that's no Ulster Irish : using go bhfuil instead of a bhfuil is typically Munster ; "ag déanamh é" doesn’t exist, as far as I know, in native Irish.

quote:

Seán Mac an Bháird is ainm dom, agus rugadh mé i Leitir Ceanainn, i dTír Chonaill, beagnach seachtmhógha bliadhan ó shoin.
(Foinse: http://www.vindicator.ca/foreword.html.)

In the page that man says he learnt Irish at school. His text is full of mistakes.
Once he wrote "tá fonn orm sgríobh uair amhain eile i m'theanga dhúthchais. "
Looks like he's one of the many Irish people who say Irish is their native tongue simply because they are Irish and the Irish language is the national language of the country... But a native language is just the first language you speak when you're a child. It is not a language you learn at school!

A data point: Both Dinneen & Ó Donaill list "Cad fá" as "why, for what reason."

I'm inclined to think that "Cad fáth" may simply be archaic rather than dialect.

What I said above was that I'd be surprised to see Panu use a form without authority for it, i.e. without his having read it several times in a source he trusted.

Yeah of course, but is it Ulster? Sin an cheist...

Níorbh í an chéad cheist í!

Níl fhios agam cén ceantar lena mbaineann an nath, agus ní dóigh liom go bhfuil fianaise san méid thuas chun an nath a cheangail le ceantar ar bith.

Mo léithscéal. Ag amharc siar feicim gur le "Southern Ireland", i. Mumhan a nascann Shan Ó Cuív é.

Mar sin, is doichí ná a mhalairt ná gurbh le Mumhan a bhaineann sé.


(Message edited by aonghus on October 12, 2008)

Gan amhras. Cúigeadh Mumhan tír "cad", cib bith... :-)

N'fheadar.

Bhíos ag amharc ar "Saol corrach" Mháire aréir - agus bhí "Cad chuige?" aige go minic. (Eagrán ós na 1920í a bhí ann).