Regardless of residence around the globe?

No way of knowing, is there? We have to rely on self-reporting, with all the uncertainty that entails, and on top of that hardly any country with Irish-speaking residents regularly asks this question. In the USA, for instance, you are only asked about your "home language" and I don't think the French census includes any language-related questions at all.

Agreed. There's no way of knowing. It's a tricky question to start with because there's no universally agreed definition of native speaker. For example, when the Folklore Commission went about the country in the 1930s and when Heinrich Wagner did his dialect studies in the late 40s and 50s, he encountered many people who had been raised with Irish but who had stopped speaking it in their later years. This was usually due to lack of practice as he spent a lot of time in places like Clare and north Louth where the last generation of native speakers were dying out in those areas. Many of his informants had only bits and pieces left. Were they native speakers?

I think the more important question is how many ACTIVE native speakers are alive right now. I'd go further and argue that the number of native speakers outside Ireland is inconsequential as the numbers are tiny (relatively speaking) and if the base (that is, speakers residing in the fíor-Ghaeltachtaí first and foremost and also speakers in the galltacht) expire, then there won't be a natural "wellspring" for the language. Nonetheless, it's an interesting question.

If I recall correctly, some 25,000 people put themselves down as Irish speakers in the USA census. In Britain, it's closer to 100,000. In Northern Ireland, it's in the tens of thousands. But how many of these individuals are native speakers? How many are even truly fluent? How many use Irish as the language of the home? I can see how there would be Irish speakers in Massachusetts due to the large amount of Irish immigration to the State over the centuries. Many of the Blasket Islanders who left settled in Springfield, Mass. throughout the first half of the 20th century, for example.

In Canada, you've got the case of Harold Kenny (who took the step of legally changing his name to Aralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh), one of the organisers of Gaeltacht Bhaile na hÉireann/Permanent North American Gaeltacht in Ontario. He's also a member of the Canadian Forces. The main language in his home is Irish. Is he a "native speaker"?

So out of these 100,000+ Irish speakers outside Ireland, how many are active native speakers? We'll never know for sure.

As far as Ireland is concerned, we can do more than rely on self-reporting mechanisms like the census. There have also been numerous studies and reports carried out over the past twenty years or so. There ie Scéim Labhairt na Gaeilge (SLG...scheme to encourage Irish speaking grants for households) which give an admittedly imperfect picture of the state of Irish amongst gaeltacht families with school age children.

The most common figure I've seen for native speakers in all of Ireland is 40,000. But the studies tend to focus on the gaeltacht only. The most common figure seems to be 25,000-30,000.

Breandán Ó hEithir carried out a report for Bord na Gaeilge where he concluded that there were only 10,000 native speakers left. This was in 1990. The Bord tried to suppress the report and it has yet to be published, as far as I'm aware.

Reg Hindley put the figure at around 9,000. That's based on work he did in the 1980s and generally agreed to be an underestimation.

According to the 2002 census, just under 34,000 people in the Gaeltacht claimed to speak Irish daily outside the education system.

We can't discount the Irish speaking families living in Bóthar Seoighe/the Shaw's Road Gaeltacht in West Belfast either. Or the growing number of speakers throughout Northern Ireland.

At the end of the day, it's about how many active speakers in Ireland there are that's paramount. Whether native, fluent second language speakers...or learners working towards it. In my opinion.

It's good to see some urgency from Éamon Ó Cuív and the recognition that speaking Irish in the home is the most important thing that can be done for the future health of the language.

"The Irish language will not survive as a true spoken language ... One hundred per cent, without a doubt, I am sure of that.

Now, have I startled you? I hope so, because if there is anyone here, especially journalists, who do not realize the danger in which the language is in at present, it's time for them to wake up.

I will say it again - The Irish language will not survive as a true spoken language ... now, I will finish that sentence, The Irish language will not survive as a true spoken language if parents do not speak the language to their children. I know that you are not fools, and that you understand that. It's a fact that is as simple as one and one, that's two, and yet, it has to be said again and again so that each parent in the country hears it."

http://www.pobail.ie/en/MinistersSpeeches/2004/September/htmltext,4514,en.html

All native speakers are alive right now. The dead ones don't talk.

Damnú, a Goblin! You beat me to it. That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. LOL

I meant 'how many people are there alive, who spoke Irish as a main language with or without English up until their teens', i.e. people who spend their childhood in the Gaeltachtaí regions.

"I'd go further and argue that the number of native speakers outside Ireland is inconsequential "

More natives live outside of Ireland then in it, I would have thought, so they would have to be counted

Absolutely they should be counted for the purposes of this discussion and your question. That's why I made reference to them in my earlier reply. Although I'm surprised that you seem to be limiting it to those who grew up with nothing but Irish until their teens.

Anyway, as far as there being more native speakers living outside of Ireland than in it...let's assume that is the case. How many are active speakers? I mean, how many people have the dedication to live their life (or as much of it as is possible) through Irish if they live outside of Ireland? The number must be very small indeed. Then there's the issue of simply being able to keep up the language when you are living in an environment where almost no one speaks it. The internet is a great resource, but it's no replacement for face to face communication. Furthermore, there is no concentration of native speakers outside Ireland. Unlike the fíor-ghaeltachtaí.

That's why I believe the numbers are inconsequential in terms of the long term health of the language.

You can put me in the same camp as people such as Pádraig Ó Riagáin and Mícheál Ó Gliasáin who have stated that:

"if the Gaeltacht dies out, Irish will die out also."
(for more...see National Survey on Languages, 1993, Linguistics-Institute of Ireland)

To a lesser extent, I also agree with their statement that:

"without Irish, Ireland would certainly lose its identity as a separate culture."

That's why I feel things like native speakers living outside Ireland are secondary issues. If the gaeltacht can't be sustained, then the battle will be well and truly over. Internet language communities and social networks in Dublin and Belfast just won't cut it, in my opinion. But I'll leave it at that before I start to really rant...as I'm veering off your original question.

"I'm surprised that you seem to be limiting it to those who grew up with nothing but Irish until their teens."

I'm not -I said those who grew up with it exclusively or with English too (both in parity)

I was not trying to start a debate on the future viability of the language, just the estimate of the number of people who would be defined by the criteria I set:

*Raised to native level Gaelic by teens
*Mostly in the Gaeltacht, but someone like Aonghus from the Galltacht included also

In essence, all those whose brains are wired for the native version of the language from childhood. Do I make myself clear?

quote:

I don't think the French census includes any language-related questions at all.

Yeah, actually some years ago (10 or 15 years?) there was a question about the language that is spoken at home, but it was only asked to 1 family out of 10 (or 100?), and I don't remember having seen any report about the result. Actually French government doesn't care about languages but French (and English in schools because most French people speak no or few English, and that may be a disadvantage in certain jobs). The only surveys that have been done about minority languages have been done by non-official organisations.

About Irish, maybe it would be good to make a difference between traditional speakers (people from families that have been speaking Irish for centuries in the Gaeltacht) and neo-native speakers (people whose first language is Irish but whose parents or grandparents are learners, so their Irish may not be as good as that of a traditional speaker).

Fair enough.

So how many do you think there are Bearn? The issue of active speakers is still relevant.

I agree there should be a big distinction between Native speakers and the new breed. You can hear the difference in their spoken Irish.

Without the Gaelthacht residence, Irish as a language would only be a shadow of what it once was.

quote:

To a lesser extent, I also agree with their statement that:

"without Irish, Ireland would certainly lose its identity as a separate culture."

Let no-one be in any doubt: Language is the brain, heart and back-bone of every culture that has a brain, heart and back-bone.

Only in a small minority of the Irish population are the aforementioned elements in their natural place. Some of the rest of us are hanging on to them for dear life - more or less from the outside.

And the rest, mar is gnáth, are blissfully oblivious.

Of course, all is not lost. There is, after all, a phenomenon that I would classify as "Craic-Hibernianism". It's the kind of thing that is typically extolled with great pride and emphasis by presenters - aptly placed, as they are, on the stage - of such events as the Rose of Tralee. "You know, we in Ireland - it makes us very unique and special - we say things like craic and erra (the advanced crowd even master "mar dhea")..."

Craic-Hibernianism is probably about as substantive as a quick lick of green paint on the local branch of Marks & Spencers in Ballytickles. But it's OK, I suppose, in small doses in its own wee (oh, and we say "wee" too) context.

However, if some people find Gaeilge embarassing, the constant public effusiveness concerning this threadbare, chintzy ersatz for the real brocade is an original squirm-enducer - or it should be!



Mar a scríobh Dáibhí Ó Bruadair fadó:

Mairg gan fuil 'na dhubhthuata!

"The issue of active speakers is still relevant"

Relevant if I had asked a question that included them. The terms of reference given were simple; finding out the answer is not, it seems

So how many do *YOU* think there are Bearn? :D

Hey! I just had to butt in! The west isnt as populated as the east. We have a population of like 4 million me thinks. Anyway, Connemara and the west is always quiet(and raining:~>) when i visit. Honestly, in my opinion, i think maybe 1/8 of our 4 million are PROPER fluent irish speakers. More people might call themselves fluent even if the only gaeilge the can speak is hello and goodbye.
Slán!

Alright...(???)

Only in our dreams is it one eighth of the population.

Is there an open day at the asylum, Susan?

Cén fáth an cheist ar Susan? An bhfuil an bheirt agaibh ag iarraidh sciorradh amach chun an tsiopa?

Is léir nach bhfuil ceachtar den bheirt agaibh ar eolas na hÉireann, ná ar eolas na Gaeltachta. Feiceann súil ghlas saol glas ar ndóigh.

Sna forais oideachais mar ionaid oibre, is é a thrian den fhoireann a labhraíos Gaeilge, as gach dámh. Níl aon amhras orm mar choinníos súil air leis na blianta.

Ar eastáit buailte le dífhostaíocht, bheadh an t-ochtú cuid gar go leor don fhírinne. Ar eastáit ar nós An Chnoc Theas i Luimneach, mar a bhfuil gaelscoil Sheoirse Mhic Fhlannchaidh i mbun oibre le blianta fada, bheadh tuairim is an cheathrú cuid.

Mura bhfuil an geata ar oscailt thíos romhaibh, caithigí sin ar an bpíopa is bí ag ól.

quote:

Honestly, in my opinion, i think maybe 1/8 of our 4 million are PROPER fluent irish speakers.

Isn't in Connemara where they say shit like "Beidh mé ag babysiteáil" and "Tá an bainne sa fridge"? Or is that just a falsehood put forward by Ros na Rún?

Hand on heart, I'd rather see the Irish language dead and buried than have it suffer the indignation of "Beidh mé ag babysiteáil". I refuse to speak Irish to people as soon as I hear them use a stupidly unnecessary English word.

dunno...French took babysitter.

I'd prefer to see Beidh mé ag babysiteáil than Beidh mé ag babysitting or Beidh mé babysitting.

I'm afraid I'm exactly the opposite...I'd must rather live with some vocab like babysiteáil than see the whole language go away forever. After all the words that were taken from latin and norman french (and english) over the centuries, some vocab and calque phrases are a small price to pay to see the language continue.

English vocab like that pervades many far healthier (and geographically distant) languages...the preference is purely aesthetic.

There's nothing wrong like taking a word like "pizza" and adopting it into a language. For instance, here in Lao, they say the following English words:

snooker
bowling
pizza
(these are the one's I've heard so far)

However, you'd never, EVER, in a million years hear a Lao person use an English word as a substitute for milk,bread,vegetable,table,door,light,moon,water,sea,dog,horse,monkey. They even have their own words for electricity, motorbike, spark plug.

Then you have these supposed, and I emphasise supposed Irish speakers who are saying bullshit like "babysiteáil". That's not Irish, plain and simple. I'd rather buy a tombstone for Irish than hear people say that. How long will it be before people are saying "Chonaic mé na boys ag súgradh leis na dogs" (assuming of course this sentence hasn't already been featured on Ros na Rún).

As for the French, well if people want to destroy their own language from the inside out then let them. But don't tell me you're an "Irish language enthusiast" if you don't mind people saying "babysiteáil".

Fine, I shan't then. Will "Irish speaker" do, or shall I renounce my claim to that as well?

Frankly I don't see much point in identifying myself as an "enthusiast", let alone trying to figure out who else around me is or isn't. I don't much care whether my conversation partner speaks it out of enthusiasm, or a sense of duty, or just because it's his mother tongue and he's comfortable in it. If we can speak Irish let's drop the posturing and speak Irish. If we can't let's learn it until we can.

I haven't heard "babysiteáil" myself (has anyone here? or is it just a convenient football?) but it's possible the subject simply hasn't come up. I've never asked a native speaker "listen, do you say 'babysiteáil'?" because we generally have other things to talk about.

But for argument's sake let's assume that they do say it. I don't see much difference between "babysitting" and your Lao example of "bowling", or between "pizza" and "fridge." All are relatively modern introductions (the concepts, not the words) from the English-speaking world. So are "virus" and "curry" by the way. So is "curry" in English. Whether Irish uses a Gaelicized loanword or a neologism to refer to these... well, I might rather a little more of one and less of the other myself, but as Antaine says that's an aesthetic preference, and I'm quite happy to speak Irish with people of different tastes.

Má éagann an Ghaeilge ní hiad na focla iasachta a mharfas í. Gaeilgeoirí a dhiúltaíonn í a labhairt lena chéile, sin scéal eile.

(Message edited by Abigail on October 27, 2008)

Creidtear go forleathan go bhfuil an Bhreatnais níos láidre ná an Ghaeilge. Níl a fhios agam. Ach tá a fhios agam go bhfuil an-chuid focal Béarla in úsáid insan teanga sin, cuid acu seanbhunaithe agus a lán acu nua. Agus mura bhfuil dul amú orm, tá Gearmáinis an lae inniu ag cur thar maoil le focail Bhéarla.

Tá Breatnais cuid mhaith níos láidre ná an Ghaeilge gan amhras agus úsáideann siad cúpla focal ón Bhéarla mar shampla deirtear ''cwestin'' nó rud inteacht mar sin ón fhocal ''question'' i mBéarla.

Is féidir go bhfuil an Bhreatnais níos láidre ach tá an Ghaeilge i bhfad níos fearr. ;)

Gaeilge Abú

Tá sí níos fearr toisc gur féidir liom í a thuiscint, murab ionann agus an Bhreatnais!

Termaí do "babysitting" i dteangacha roghnaithe den Eoraip:

Fraincis: babysitting
Germáinis: Babysitten
Iodáilis: baby-sitting
Ollainnis: babysitten

Cá bhfuil an fhadhb anso?

The English for "baby" is "baby". The English for "look after" is "look after" (but for some reason somebody decided to use the word "sitting" instead of "look after" in this context). Put them together and you get "babysitting". Fine.

The Irish for "baby" is not "baby", nor is the Irish for "sitting" "sitting". Therefore I don't see how the term "babysiteáil" can be seen as Irish. I'll tell you exactly what it is: Somebody at some stage or another was a native speaker of English who could also speak Irish to a certain extent, and one day this person was having a conversation in Irish and said "babysiteáil". This was not any sort of loan word, this was the person taking a word from their native knowledge of English and using it in Irish. Now if this person had been talking to me, I would have stopped speaking Irish to them, I'd say "Don't speak Irish to me if you're gonna use English words". Now they may see me as rude, and that's fair enough, but I'd rather speak English (or any other language for that matter) than speak a mixture. It even pisses me off when somebody who speaks both Lao and English uses an English word in a Lao sentence because they think I won't otherwise understand, and at times it can be totally confusing, for example the Lao word for sexual partner is "fen", which sounds identical to the English word "friend" when said with a Lao accent. When this happens, I stop them speaking and say quite clearly to them "I'm not going to speak to you if you're going to mix languages" and I deliberately say it with a quite flat impolite tone to convey that I've no patience. But as I've said already, I'd rather not speak Irish at all than hear "Chonaic na boys na dogs".

People seem surprised at my attitude. Some people say "It's a small price to pay to keep the language alive", stuff along those lines. I'll make my position clear: The Irish language has no purpose or function for me whatsoever. Being able to speak it doesn't allow me to communicate with more people all over the world, nor does it open up employment prospects for me. So why do I speak it? Simply because I want to, because it's the language of my ancestors and because I actually find it quite an interesting language. If you can understand that, then you might understand why I'd have no interest whatsoever in speaking, hearing, listening to a bastardised, polluted, adulterated, watered-down form of it -- if my sole objective were to communicate then I'd simply speak Irish (coz God knows everyone who speaks Irish also speaks English).

Now I've never been to a gaeltacht (or at least not a real gaeltacht because An Rinn doesn't count), so I can't say whether I have or haven't heard somebody say "babysiteáil". I can distinctly remember, however, watching Ros na Rún on television one day and hearing the character Bernie say "Beidh mé ag babysiteáil". My opinion on this is that I would prefer that the show didn't air at all rather than it have a mixture of Irish and English. Same goes for that "Top Fourty Oifigiúil na hÉireann" crap you hear on the radio.

Just because you're very familiar with an English term, doesn't mean it should be dragged straight into your Irish speech. For instance, in Ros na Rún, I recall hearing a character say "Tháinig litir sa phost inniubh, court proceedings". Now I don't give a f*** if the envelope had COURT PROCEEDINGS stamped on the front of it with thick red ink, the character still shouldn't have said "court proceedings", not on an Irish language show. What if somebody were bilingual in Japanese and Irish and they were watching the show, how the hell are they supposed to know what "court proceedings" are? Should "court proceedings" be added to the Irish dictionary? Give me a f***ing break. And this from a TV station that's SUPPOSED to be promoting the Irish language -- it's mocking, ridiculing and degrading the Irish language.

Now again, I can't stress this enough, I've no proof as to whether this crap is actually said by native speakers, but I'm just speaking about what I've heard in a TV show which is supposedly set in Connemara, so if anyone out there has had experience speaking Irish (or psuedo-Irish) in Connemara, I'd be interested to hear what the people are saying. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Ros na Rún were the child of Ulster Unionists set out to destroy the Irish spirit, because I can't think of anything more degrading that to have Irish-speaking characters on an Irish-speaking TV show on an Irish-speaking channel speak English words.

If I were in charge of Irish-language TV broadcasting, I'd dock the broadcaster's monthly pay by 2% every time a non-Irish word is spoken (except of course for exotic words that have not Irish equivalent, e.g. "pizza", but even in these cases an attempt should be made to make an Irish word as was so aptly done with "rhinoceros").

And as for the the list of languages that have some form of "babysitting" in them, well quite honestly I think it's degrading. If I were Italian and proud to be Italian, I can't imagine being happy about "babysitting". All it shows is that everyone's willing to piss their own language down the drain in favour of English. Of course it's great to be able to speak English, it's utterly invaluable to me travelling the world, but as great as it is it'll never be great enough to stick in a blender with Irish.

"Beidh mé ag tabhairt aire do leanbh" <- Sin Gaoluinn

Nach tú atá múinte mánla.

Mura bhfuil uait féin 'meascán dhá theanga' a labhairt, ná labhairse féin é - bíodh do chuid Gaeilge féin chomh híonghlan agus is mian leat - ach tá a leithéid de rud agus béasaíocht ar an saol fós. Tá sé thar a bheith mímhúinte athrú teanga a bhrú ar dhuine i lár comhrá toisc focal amháin a bheith ar iarraidh aige.

And as for the the list of languages that have some form of "babysitting" in them, well quite honestly I think it's degrading. If I were Italian and proud to be Italian, I can't imagine being happy about "babysitting". All it shows is that everyone's willing to piss their own language down the drain in favour of English.

So what does it show that English has adopted "lingerie" from French, "verboten" from German, and "latte" from Italian? Don't we have our own words for "undergarments", "forbidden", and "milk" (Milk! For crying out loud!) respectively? Does their use indicate that we're pissing our language down the drain in favour of exotic Continental languages?

Agus déan gar dúinn, a Thomáis: léigh cúpla alt scolártha faoin bhfeiniméan a aithnítear mar "chódmhalartú" sara mbeifeá ag callaireacht faoi seo orainn arís eile.

quote:

So what does it show that English has adopted "lingerie" from French, "verboten" from German, and "latte" from Italian?

When's the last time you heard someone say "I'm going to the shop to kaufen some milk"?.

The act of "babysitting" is nothing exotic, it shouldn't get exotic treatment. Now if it had something to do with sucking the nucleus out of a fertilised egg, splitting the nucleus into two nuclei, then injecting the egg back into the egg and dipping it in stem cells, then maybe some word-loaning would be warranted, but even then I'd suggest translating the components that make up the word.

Babysitting is about looking after a child, simple as. It's pathetic that a language doesn't have its own term for it.

quote:

Don't we have our own words for "undergarments", "forbidden", and "milk" (Milk! For crying out loud!) respectively?

Lingerie are a specific kind of undergarments, presumably that came from France, much like "pizza" came from Italy. Verboten isn't in use in English except when someone's taking the piss. Latté is something to do with coffee as far as I know, I wouldn't be able to tell you.

quote:

Does their use indicate that we're pissing our language down the drain in favour of exotic Continental languages?

I'll say that we're pissing the English language down the drain when people start saying "I went to the shop to kaufen some milk".

Do you not see the difference?

quote:

Nach tú atá múinte mánla.

Personal attacks already.

quote:

Mura bhfuil uait féin 'meascán dhá theanga' a labhairt, ná labhairse féin é - bíodh do chuid Gaeilge féin chomh híonghlan agus is mian leat - ach tá a leithéid de rud agus béasaíocht ar an saol fós. Tá sé thar a bheith mímhúinte athrú teanga a bhrú ar dhuine i lár comhrá toisc focal amháin a bheith ar iarraidh aige.

You've got me wrong there Abigail. If you're talking to someone and they say something like:

Bhí mé sa tsráidbhaile inniubh agus chonaic mé... emm... cén Ghaoluinn ar "tricycle"?

then that's entirely different from them saying:

Bhí mé sa tsráidbhaile inniubh agus chuala mé beirt fhear ag plé na court proceedings a bhí ar siúl mar gheall ar an cinema a tógadh ar an historic site.

The former shows someone who is reluctant to pollute their Irish and who is eager to learn new words. The latter shows a muppet.

Given the former, I'd tell them what "tricycle" is. Given the latter, I'd tell them I won't speak to them if they're going to mix languages.

When's the last time you heard someone say "I'm going to the shop to kaufen some milk"?.

Never heard this precise statement before (though I may have heard, "I have to go einkaufen"), but it's absolutely characteristic of the way we used to speak when I lived in Germany. Examples:

"Let's beweg!" (bewegen "to move")
"I'm going to nimm these bottles." (nimm, imp. of nehmen "to take")
"Bad Eltern beat their Kinder." (Eltern "parents"; Kinder "children")
"Did you anmelden with the Polizei yet?" (anmelden "register", Polizei "police")
Etc.

As far as I can tell, no lasting harm was done to my English in the process, but perhaps you care to differ?

This is code-switching. It happens whenever you have a community of speakers with mastery of two or more dialects/languages unless all speakers make a concerted effort to avoid it. I have known people who consciously made this effort, and I respect their decision to do so. But I expect them to extend the same courtesy in return if I choose to go the other way and have a little fun with the creative possibilities afforded by having two or more languages to draw from when communicating.

BTW, latté is a barbarism; the word is Italian, not French. It's an abbreviation of caffè latte which means "coffee milk" and is simply a cappuccino with about twice the amount of steamed milk. The version most commonly found in the States was invented here; it's not exotic or imported and there's no reason whatsoever why it couldn't have been given an entirely English name.

Oh, and there's nothing more "specific" about the reference of the term lingerie. It differs from "undergarments" in connotation, not denotation, in much the same way that "powder room" differs from "toilet".

(Message edited by Domhnaillín_Breac_na_dTruslóg on October 27, 2008)

I dunno about you a Dhomnaillín, but 'lingerie' and 'undergarments' differ in meaning -I 'm known to wear the latter but not the former!

So what is 'going commando' in Irish?

Sometimes when I go to our capital (and of course because I don't live there, I sometimes need to ask directions, and people know that I'm not from there) some people get the idea of starting to talk to each other in a mixture of Finnish and Swedish...

Once I replied to a couple: "Ja, det är jätte kiva att prata Svinska när en landepojke är nära!" They left, looking very embarrassed. (Translation: Yes, it's great fun to speak Swennish when a country boy is near.)

I have dubbed this mixture Svinska, because the word is a mixture of Svenska and Finska, and it could be considered Swedish for "pig language". Luckily it doesn't happen too often (and I didn't get beaten at that occasion).

I would understand if they went entirely Swedish to explain that they don't know Finnish well. I would understand if they gave me directions in Stadi Slang, which heavily mixes foreign languages into Finnish syntax... even if they tried to imitate my dialect, but when people go Swennish and look at me that way, they give themselves away as morons who just want to have fun about an outsider.

I don't mind if groups of people spoke language mixtures in their own circles, but I find it mostly offensive if people who are clearly capable of Finnish speech just have to gloat at someone considered an outsider, and use a mixture language just to look like foreign elitists.

OTOH, mixtures in multilingual countries can't be completely avoided. People can't be scorned for that. Back when I was taught English, Swedish and German at roughly the same time (sometimes with mere quarter-hour pauses between lessons) we sometimes had hard time trying to keep the languages apart. Our three foreign languages kept mixing a wee bit every now and then.

At my cinema, I sometimes have customers who are of English or German origin (very few Swedes up here) and I'm really not in the position to tell people that I won't talk to them unless they stop putting English and German words here and there (No offense, Tomás, I know that your situation is different due to your profession). Also every now and then, a pair of pitch black girls comes to watch a movie... if I was blind I couldn't tell whether they were originally Finns or not. They sound entirely Finnish. Only they have African names that I would never learn, and they speak their native tongue to each other, which sounds to be outside of my boundaries. But no other way to tell them form average Finns without looking.

(Message edited by curiousfinn on October 27, 2008)

(Message edited by curiousfinn on October 27, 2008)

A Thomáis,
It makes me so angry to read messages from people like you. It is NOT that I have a problem with your attitude or opinion, but rather, that you decide to inflict it on others is just appalling. I am trying to learn Irish, and by no means is my Irish perfect. It takes A LOT for me to communicate in Irish with someone and often times we are not speaking about Irish, but about everyday things. I am not going to stop mid sentence to ask people what the word for something is. Rather, I can learn it in my own time. I simply say it in English and move on. I am not fluent. Language is about communication. An dtuigeann siad mé? Yes they do. I hear no complaints. If I was speaking with someone who was ignorant enough to tell me they wouldn't speak with me because I was mixing languages, that would put me off ever speaking Irish in public again.
You may have this opinion and that's fine, but once you infringe on someone else, that's stepping over the line. Also, ALL LANGUAGES ARE INFLUENCED BY OTHER LANGUAGES. In my opinion, if so-called native speakers are saying ag babysiteáil or whatever, then THAT IS IRISH.
You've angered me so much. You don't understand the concept of language. It changes and alters and adjusts. It is not static. You are trying to make it become static.
I hope I never have the misfortune to speak with someone like you who does not respect other people's fears of speaking in a different language.

Dúirt Curiousfinn:

quote:

"Ja, det är jätte kiva att prata Svinska när en landepojke är nära!" They left, looking very embarrassed. (Translation: Yes, it's great fun to speak Swennish when a country boy is near.)

A man among men! :-D

Dúirt Cailín:

quote:

It makes me so angry to read messages from people like you. It is NOT that I have a problem with your attitude or opinion, but rather, that you decide to inflict it on others is just appalling.

What an outrageously strange comment to make. Usually people can express their opinions freely with the effect that people might be offended by the opinion, but I've never heard of someone having no problem at all with the opinion yet taking offence from the expression of it.

quote:

I am trying to learn Irish, and by no means is my Irish perfect. It takes A LOT for me to communicate in Irish with someone and often times we are not speaking about Irish, but about everyday things. I am not going to stop mid sentence to ask people what the word for something is.

Then embrace your mongrel Irish. If I did that speaking Lao I'd get nowhere. I bring a dictionary around with me everywhere here, I bring it to the shop, to the pub, to the bowling alley. If I start using English words in my Lao, I'll pick up the habit, and also I won't be understood by tons of native Lao people. But if you want mongrel Irish, go ahead, say "Phléamar na court proceedings."

quote:

Rather, I can learn it in my own time. I simply say it in English and move on. I am not fluent.

Now excuse me for being overly crude, and while I have no intention to hurt your feeling, I'm still going to be blunt: And you never will. If you willy-nilly mix English words with your Irish at this early stage, then I can guarantee you the habit will spiral out of control.

quote:

Language is about communication.

Not it's not, not the Irish language anyway. If your sole objective is to communicate then don't waste your time learning Irish, just speak English to them, because 999 out of 1000 Irish speakers also speak English.

quote:

An dtuigeann siad mé? Yes they do. I hear no complaints. If I was speaking with someone who was ignorant enough to tell me they wouldn't speak with me because I was mixing languages, that would put me off ever speaking Irish in public again.

Then perhaps have a rethink about what "speaking Irish" actually means. It's about using Irish pronunciation to say Irish words in an Irish way.

quote:

You may have this opinion and that's fine, but once you infringe on someone else, that's stepping over the line.

I'm free to communicate with whomever I please in my personal life. If I say to something "I'm not going to talk to you if you mix Lao and English" then that person is free to cease talking with me.

quote:

Also, ALL LANGUAGES ARE INFLUENCED BY OTHER LANGUAGES. In my opinion, if so-called native speakers are saying ag babysiteáil or whatever, then THAT IS IRISH.

Unfortunately, you're right, which is why I hope Ros na Rún is not representative of real gaeltachtaí such as Inis Oírr.

quote:

You've angered me so much. You don't understand the concept of language.

I'm listening...

quote:

It changes and alters and adjusts. It is not static. You are trying to make it become static.

Not, I'm trying to make it not mutate into English. Today people are saying "Chuala sé na court proceedings". Tomorrow they're saying "Chuala he na court proceedings". Next week they're saying "Heard he na court proceedings". Next month they're saying "He heard the court proceedings".

quote:

I hope I never have the misfortune to speak with someone like you who does not respect other people's fears of speaking in a different language.

You'd have no problem if you stopped to ask me what a word is or how to say something. As someone who is currently immersed in a foreign language about which I knew nothing 7 weeks ago, I can tell you that these interruptions will become fewer and fewer and that one's mastery of the language will sky rocket. But if you're going to mix languages, don't talk to me, I'd rather speak English than pollute my Irish.

As with many things relating to Irish, it's a complex issue. The language is under soo much pressure ALL THE TIME that it is inevitable that Anglicisms will seep in.

The most fascinating article on this topic that I've read so far is by Dr. Feargal Ó Béarra, an Irish language and linguistics prof from NUI-Galway. He grew up in the Cois Fharraige Gaeltacht in south Conamara.

A few extracts below:
(Full article here:)
http://www.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=67&p=462542

quote:

I believe we can all agree that the form of Irish spoken today is not that of 25 years ago, for example. What passes for Irish today would not have passed for Irish 25 years ago. Others will say to me that what passed for Irish 25 years ago would not
have passed for Irish in 1958 when An Caighdeán Oifigiúil was published and so on.

Of course, this should come as no surprise to us as languages are always in a state of flux. In most cases, except in the case of contemporary Irish, as I hope to show in this paper, language change is a fairly natural and unconscious development which forms an essential part of the life cycle of any language.

quote:

The most telling characteristic of Non-Traditional Late Modern Irish [term used by author] is that a monoglot speaker of Traditional Late Modern Irish would struggle to understand much of it, especially a lot of what is found in our contemporary literature. In other words, knowledge of English is a pre-requisite to the understanding of Non-Traditional Late Modern Irish. This is caused, in the main, by the unnatural
influence of English phonology and syntax on the contemporary language so that much of contemporary Irish is really nothing more than an imitation of English.

While no one is immune from the influence of English, the main offenders are the media, journalists of every description, and the thousands who are learning Irish as a second language, but who do not understand that they need to learn it correctly.

quote:

There are a number of other differences between the changes which happened to Irish in the past and those changes happening today. These are differences we ignore at our peril. The biggest and most significant difference is that the changes which Irish underwent in the past and which led to the transition from Old to Middle to Early and Late Modern Irish were all caused and engineered by native speakers. The change, while triggered and aided by certain external social and political developments, was not an imposed process, but an internal one. The change happening today is, for the most part (as 90% of speakers are non-native) an imposed, external process which is both unnatural and artificial.

quote:

While Irish may have become more popular in the last few years, the linguistic undercurrent which permeates much of this popularity points to – in my opinion – the demise of the language as we know it. There is a linguistic dichotomy in Ireland which we are unwilling to face up to. What we fail to understand in Ireland is that a threatened language cannot survive if, on the one hand, Irish is no more than a commodity for those who have the luxury of speaking the prestige language as their first language, while on the other, the Gaeltacht – the community which supports the first language of the child – continues to die.

People point to the growth of Gaelscoileanna, TG4, etc., but I always ask myself where the tens of thousands of children who have passed through the Gaelscoileanna system since the early 1970s have disappeared.

quote:

The other main difference between this period of change and all others is that the Irish language is at death’s door. Some, like myself, would contend that the language is moribund. Many – such as Government ministers – will even attempt to (though they should not) deny that the Gaeltacht itself is doomed to die. Think of this: how can a language which needs its own official Act and its own Language Commissioner to protect it from the government of the State in which it is the first official language, not be doomed to die?

Someone asked John Ghráinne would Irish survive in Ireland, and he said if it survives I won't understand it.

Confession time! When I'm speaking Irish or German and I can't think of a word for something, I'm far more likely to drop in an English word and keep going than I am to break off midsentence and inquire how to translate it. If I'm lucky, my interlocutor will simply use the correct word back to me - if people know you're a learner many of them are very good about this - but not always (and I wouldn't ask it of them. We're having a conversation, after all, not a language lesson!) Either I'll remember the word myself a few minutes later, or I'll look it up when I get home, or sometimes I'll forget all about it until next time it comes up.

Sounds terribly haphazard (and I suppose it is) but it seems to be working. My vocabulary is steadily growing and I'm far less likely to be caught out like this now than I was a year ago.

But - correct me if I'm wrong - you're not concerned with this sort of ad hoc oops-can't-think-of-the-word borrowing, are you, but with the idea of systematically importing these words into Irish. Which invites the question: how can you tell which of the two someone is doing? (Use the Irish word back to them and see whether they pick up on it, maybe. Or refuse to speak Irish with them at all... yeah, that'll do it.)

And even with systematic importations, you seem to accept that some loanwords are OK (e.g. "pizza") while others are not (e.g. "fridge".) Why? I'm not baiting you; I honestly don't understand the distinction you think is so evident here. Please explain.

Maidir leis na "personal attacks" ar thagair tú dóibh thuas, ní léir dom cén chúis gearáin atá agat beag ná mór. Dúirt tú féin go mbíonn tú borb míbhéasach le daoine agus gur d'aon ghnó glan é. Níl sa méid a dúirt mise i ndáiríre ach "nach fíor dhuit, a mhac, tagaim leat go huile is go hiomlán sa meas sin" - sin, agus rian bheag de "comhairle do leasa ort!" tríd, b'fhéidir. Is mór idir sin agus aon ionsaí pearsanta den sórt a shamhlaíonn tú.

quote:

Someone asked John Ghráinne would Irish survive in Ireland, and he said if it survives I won't understand it.

Dúirt sagart liom, fear a rugadh in Indreabhán agus a tógadh le Gaeilge agus atá ina chónaí i gCalifornia anois tar éis blianta fada a chaitheamh sa Afraic, dúirt sé liom cúpla bliain ó shin go mbeadh an Ghaeilge beo in Éirinn fós, ach go mbeadh sí difriúil leis an nGaeilge atá aige féin. Níor chuir sé sin ionadh ná díomá air.

Do déanadh tagairt do Bhreatnais thuas. Is aon rud amháin ab mhaith leis na Breatanaibh níos sine fésna n-inimircigh ón Phatagóin ná an easpa Béarlachais sa Bhreatnais atá acu. Tá Breatnais na Patagóin chomh lán de fhocail Spáinnise mar atá Breatnais na Breataine Bige de fhocail Béarla, ach nuair bhíonn an dá lucht ag caint lena chéile, ní mór do gach duine "glanBhreatnais" d'úsáid chun cumarsáid a dhéanamh go fónta. Is mór an trua ná fuil aon choilíneacht Ghaelach i Meiriceá Theas!

You shouldn't stop planting trees even if you knew the world would end tomorrow.

BTW Tomás, if you spoke with someone in Irish, and they mentioned Dublin (instead of Baile Átha Cliath), would you stop talking to them?

(Message edited by curiousfinn on October 29, 2008)

quote:

You shouldn't stop planting trees even if you knew the world would end tomorrow.

Giolla Brighde Ó hEoghusa a scríobh an rann seo. You plant the tree, not knowing who will harvest the apples:

A dhuine chuirios an crann
cía bhus beó ag búain a ubhall?
Ar bfás don chraoibh ghégaigh ghil,
ré a fhégoin dáoibh an deimhin?

And if I continue substituting English words for Irish words in this forum I will have to resort to a "bata scór" and apply it to myself!(= cúig bhuille is fiche)

A lot of interesting points were made here.

I believe one should be careful to steer one's fiery enthusiasm along the right tracks. There's an anecdote about how James Joyce, who attended the Irish classes of An Piarsach, was turned off Irish by the same man due to his tirades against the ould Béarla - especialy the word "thunder", focal a raibh meas mór ag Séamas air. Well, the bould James might not have been very enthusiastic in the first place if he was so easily put off but it certainly put the kibosh on any chance Ulysses ever might have had of being written as Gaeilge. (It might not have boosted the Irish language but it would certainly have cut down on the number of people who claim they have read the book.)

If you are learning a language and don't know a word, it's perfectly alright to substitute. Look up the word later in the dictionary. That's how you can make progress. If you are diligent and constantly look up the words you don't know, in time most of them will stick in your memory. Hey folks, Irish learners/speakers should encourage and help one another, not the opposite. (And, needless to say, it hardly behooves a threatened minority to present itself as narrow-minded and bigotted.)

As regards Gaeltacht speakers using English words instead of the Irish neologisms: that's a tricky one. As native speakers they no doubt feel they have the proprietor's prerogative. English speakers say things like "bon appetit" and would not appreciate being enjoined to replace it with "good appetite". At what point do the undigested foreign words start to tear perniciously at the fabric of the host language is the important question.

As has been mentioned above, Germany has been flooded by English words - "Anglizismen". The in-crowd and the advertisement folks think it's really chic to stick in an English word where possible - often times undigested and out of context where they stick out like a sore thumb. Most people are completely against it - including myself.

English is a robust borrowing language but in "Element of Style" by Strunk and White one can read the following: "Anglo-Saxon is a livelier tongue than Latin, so use Anglo-Saxon words."

So now you know!

(Message edited by ormondo on October 29, 2008)

A Ormondo,

My favourite formulation of this maxim is "Avoid unnecessary complexity. Use terse Anglo-Saxon terms."

Ag magadh atá tú, ós ón Laidin a tháinig "use, terse, term".

quote:

And even with systematic importations, you seem to accept that some loanwords are OK (e.g. "pizza") while others are not (e.g. "fridge".) Why? I'm not baiting you; I honestly don't understand the distinction you think is so evident here. Please explain.

Because before I ever heard someone say "fridge" in Irish, I had it in my head as "cuisneoir". I'd be equally as disgusted if someone used the word "rhinoceros" when speaking Irish.

My reaction of disgust is sometimes to do with how "unexotic" the idea is, for example "babysitting", and other times it can be to do with having a perfectly good Irish word, e.g. "srónbheannach" (regardless of how exotic the word is).

quote:

Maidir leis na "personal attacks" ar thagair tú dóibh thuas, ní léir dom cén chúis gearáin atá agat beag ná mór. Dúirt tú féin go mbíonn tú borb míbhéasach le daoine agus gur d'aon ghnó glan é.

I do the same thing with people who (idiotically) wear sunglasses indoors; I don't like talking to people when I can't see their eyes. It bothers me so much that I just rather not talk to them. I ask them why their wearing opaque glasses, and if they don't respond with a good reason, I let them know I don't like talking face-to-face with people when I can't see their eyes.

I'm basically conveying the following information: The irritation you're causing me outweighs any pleasure I can take from this conversation.

quote:

BTW Tomás, if you spoke with someone in Irish, and they mentioned Dublin (instead of Baile Átha Cliath), would you stop talking to them?

I'd look at them funny, the kind of patronising look that says "What the hell are you doing?". If someone says "Thailand" when speaking Irish, I pause for just a second and say "An Téalainn". If, hypothetically speaking, they were to continue saying "Thailand", I'd carry on the conversation in English.

quote:

If you are learning a language and don't know a word, it's perfectly alright to substitute.

If you're speaking with someone, someone with whom you've already established a culture of "When I say an English word, correct me with the Irish word", then fine, go ahead. But if the Irish speaker is willy-nilly letting you get away with English words then they're not doing you any favours.

I never mix languages at all, ever. I always start a fresh sentence when I want to switch languages, ensuring that the two languages stay separate in my head. When I was in school learning Irish, I'd interrupt my spoken Irish and ask how to say something in English, for instance:

Mise: Chuaigh mé go dtí an siopa agus chonaic mé Seán in aice an... em... how do you say "roundabout"?
Múinteoir: Timpeallán
Mise: Chuaigh mé go dtí an siopa agus chonaic mé Seán in aice an timpealláin

Another choice might be to pause your voice and raise the tone when you say the English word, indicating that you're asking a question and looking for an answer, but I don't do this because I'm afraid it might lead to leakage between the languages in my head. If I always start a new crisp fresh sentence with every language, then I find it an effortless task to never mix up languages.

I never mix up languages when I'm speaking, you'd never hear me erroneously use an Irish word when speaking Lao, or even an English word when speaking Lao, and one of the reasons for this is that I never mix languages.

quote:

Look up the word later in the dictionary. That's how you can make progress.

Nah, I prefer carrying around a dictionary with me, or if I don't have a dictionary I ask the person. One of these two options will always be available.

quote:

If you are diligent and constantly look up the words you don't know, in time most of them will stick in your memory.

If you have photographic memory maybe... I mean c'mon if I came home at the end of the day how many words do you think I'd remember to look up? Here in Lao I probably look up fifty words a day just carrying my dictionary around with me, and they really stick in my head when I'm actually plonked in the situation where I wanna use them. There the other day I paused outside a shop to look up the word for "bread".

quote:

Hey folks, Irish learners/speakers should encourage and help one another, not the opposite. (And, needless to say, it hardly behooves a threatened minority to present itself as narrow-minded and bigotted.)

Again I'm of the opinion that "Chuala mé na court proceedings" is not Irish, and so I won't encourage it. Being a firm follower of the school of thought, "If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem", I'll actively discourage it.

quote:

My favourite formulation of this maxim is "Avoid unnecessary complexity. Use terse Anglo-Saxon terms."

quote:

Ag magadh atá tú, ós ón Laidin a tháinig "use, terse, term"

Is é mar seo go mba chóir é a rá:

"Shun needless Verflochtenheit, wield curt Anglo-Saxon words."


O an teanga ghlan, is deacair í a bhualadh.

Agus anois, ruaigimis an Laidineachas amach as an mBéarla!

Moladh do mhana an lae: Glaine ár gcroí agus ná cuirtear suas a thuilleadh le Béarla iltruaillithe amach anseo!

(Ach ar éigean is féidir é a chur i gcrích sa chás seo gan úsáid a bhaint as "Verflochtenheit" - fiú amháin sa Bhéarltacht.)

"it would certainly have cut down on the number of people who claim they have read the book.) "

But not the numbers who i\{actually} read it!


"srónbheannach" -I'd bet against one native having used that today


"I never mix languages"
I can't how it would be possible not to -some sort of hidden calques would probably appear in somewhere

A Ormondo, "short" is ea a theastaigh uaim a rá, ní hea? Díoraítear "curt" ó curtus Laidine, ar ndóigh.

quote:

"I never mix languages"
I can't how it would be possible not to -some sort of hidden calques would probably appear in somewhere.

You'd be surprised, the Lao language is so different from English that I'd be hard pushed to find any sort of saying or idiomatic phrase that wouldn't sound quite weird if I translated it word for word, a good example being "it doesn't work" when referring to something that's broken and no longer functional. (In Lao, they don't use the word "work" for this at all, they simply say "cannot", as in "the lights on my bike cannot").

My learning of Lao is pretty much 99% natural with just a hint of academia from reading over my Lao book every couple of days. Because of this, when I want to say something, instead of trying to form it together in my head, I'm borrowing stuff I've already heard people say. This stop calques from slipping in.

My Irish is the opposite way around, it's 1% natural and 99% academic. I can say more stuff in Irish than in Lao, I've a greater vocabulary in Irish and I know more grammar and constructs, but my Irish is slower because I put it together mechanically there on the spot. Two days ago was the turning point at which I realised I'm understanding the majority of what people are saying in Lao, I also noticed how instantly fast my replies were and it felt as though the process was entirely unconscious (or is that subconscious?). When they ask a question, I can respond straight away in Lao, I don't translate an English thought. In Irish though however, I find myself consciously constructing the sentence in my head... I'll pick a verb, a certain know, use a certain grammatical construct I know.

The result of this is that my written Irish is way better than my written Lao because I can stop to think what words I want to use, and I can even mull things over, for example should I say "Smaointe maith" or "Maith an smaointe é sin". My spoken Irish though is slower to respond, and comes across as less comfortable regardless of whether I get all my mutations and cases right.

But you have 24/7 immersion for Lao. Three months of that would do for my Irish far more than the ten years of "book learnin'" I've done in NJ.

But if every english-speaking Gaeilge-student did that, it would kill the Gaeltacht. Most people don't have the level of commitment that would see them willingly go hungry rather than explain themselves in english to a person they know is also fluent in the language.

And most don't have the resources to do that, or the desire to uproot their lives for months to achieve greater fluency in a "hobby language" that is of no practical communicative use in their lives.

...Not to mention that being such an outsider, I think they'd have a hard time getting the native speakers to talk to them in Irish.

But the more I study languages, and watch my foreign-born students struggle to varying degrees with learning english, the more convinced I am that it is virtually impossible to learn a language to practical use without immersion.

Languages borrow stuff all the time, even stuff they can invent a more native sounding word for (like museum) or give an ancient word that has fallen into disuse another life. In any linguistic example I can think of, even the native speakers' inclinations is to simply borrow the foreign word. The idea that this is some violation of linguistic ethics is silly, and the argument that it is in violation of good taste is an aesthetic one (with no "right" or "wrong" answer, merely individual preferences).

The fact that after 800 years of domination the Irish language's relationship to english is not like the relationship between Middle-English and Norman French is amazing. If Irish had followed the traditional historical model with the occupation, It wouldn't be surprising if half the vocabulary and grammar were to come straight from english.

But for 800 years Irish resisted natural linguistic forces. Unfortunately, that kept Irish seen as "other" and "subversive" and resulted in much of the sad state of decline we see today. If Irish is going to survive and see the dawn of the 22nd century, it is going to "modernize," and by that I mean make compromises with its english-speaking world and mostly english-speaking native population that it desperately needs to learn their "first official language" with no practical reason to do so. To insist that a mostly bilingual Irish society is a pipe dream, and that Gaeltacht stabilization is the best that can be hoped, is to say that Irish is dead already and simply hasn't realized it's time to fall down. A minority language can't exist indefinitely as a museum, in a static state. It must either expand or contract, and there's not much contraction room left.

Perhaps if Irish were the native island language of some former british colony in the Pacific, it might be able to resist completely succumbing to death in the face of governmental preference for english based on class, tradition and what have you. But the fact that the sledgehammer of english hasn't stopped pounding Irish on her head since independence (and isn't going to stop, ever), the future of the language does not lie in the quiet pubs of the gaeltacht. The only thing that's changed since independence is that the ruling government teaches it in school (fairly ineffectively), and there is no longer a sense of having the enemy on your turf, of needing to preserve your identity. It seems that after 1937, Ireland breathed a collective sigh of relief when it came to nationalism and felt "safe" adopting as much british culture and values as they could get their hands on. I suppose it's natural to idealize and romanticize the former empire, after all Western European statelets did the same with the Roman language, law and government almost as soon as their tribes managed to carve off a territory.

In short, the more Irish resists even the most basic, natural and expected cross-language-pollination, the more it will hasten its own demise. This does not mean that she should suffer her syntax to be rearranged, or even kiss initial mutations goodbye...but it may mean the importing of words or phrases from english, a few calques like "gratte-ciel" in French, "flea market" in english or "tá fáilte romhat" after thank you in Irish. The cheesy ones will fast die out, the better ones will become part of the language and no longer be thought of as foreign even by native speakers.

I'd rather my grandchildren lived in a world where Irish was still spoken, rather than reading about how it "went down swinging" in their history books.

quote:

I'd rather my grandchildren lived in a world where Irish was still spoken, rather than reading about how it "went down swinging" in their history books.

Some philosophy's differ to your own. Think of how many ancient cultures, the Samurai for instance, that have held the view of "death before dishonour". I'm sure there's plenty of people, myself included, that would rather see Irish dead than to have "Chuala mé faoi na court proceedings" accepted as Irish. Having people accept this as Irish would just cement my view of Irish people being a pack of irresolute, spine-less, vacuous, West-british cowards.

You'd be surprised how much there is to speaking a different language. It's not just about the words you use, it's about the accent, the intonation, the flow, there's so many things to it.

When I first started learning Lao, people kept asking me what it was like dealing with the tones... but I can tell you that nowhere are tones more prevalent than in the English language. Every single speaker of English raises the tone at the end of a sentence when asking a question, and I can tell you it takes quite a while to break his habit (took me a few weeks anyway)! It's these little things that are such a great part of language, but people don't even notice them. Believe me, after a while of being immersed in a language where they don't raise the tone when asking a question, you really see how it sticks out like a sore thumb, yet it wasn't very noticeable until you were exposed to something different.

I wonder, when Irish was spoken as a native tongue, before it was exposed to and adulterated by English, did it too have this feature of raising the tone when asking a question? Or perhaps did the tone drop? Or maybe did it stay netural? Things like this are the first thing to be lost. Next thing to go are idioms and common saying, replaced by calques. And next you have the final nail in the coffin, the use of foreign words in place of native words.

There's something I'm curious about however. People in Ireland are perfectly fluent in English, they are truly speakers of English... but what I'm surprised at is how we've managed to keep our own accent (I'm talking about the subset of sounds that are common between English and Irish)? We've no problem with the intricacies of English grammar (e.g. the boy runs VS the boys run), but it's strange how we didn't adopt new sounds such as the "th" sounds in "then" and "that".

Just as an aside: They say the "th" sounds in Dublin 4, which quite strangely is surrounded around its full radial by dialects that don't say "th".

"Every single speaker of English raises the tone at the end of a sentence when asking a question,"

Wait a minute! Have you been to the west & midlands of Ireland? I don't naturally raise my voice, tone-wise, nor do a lot of other people from said regions, when asking questions. This monotonous effect has been noticed by non-English speakers here

Listen to Buntús Cainte. Another, similar effect can be heard there and is especially to be found in people over a certain age band, maybe 50 in the English spoken in many places -it is a sort of a suspicious tone to the voice. For myself, that is rarer (tho possible); mostly I ask questions flatly. I do raise the tone however to show I am especially interested (so it adds emphasis) say if I ask "are you going to the shop" and I want a lift there

I have the opposite problem in Korea -I don't like raising the tone, and as Irish and English have a long/short vowel distinction and as I like to clip the vowel in final position, the ó in greetings of 'an-yang-hass-eyó' sound savage long to me, almost like 'óó'

"how we've managed to keep our own accent"

The differences are not as similar as it is popularly imagined, especially today. Proof of this is how poorly Irish people articulate when they learn Irish. It is little better than English or Americans (in fact the best ones I ever heard were Englishman).

People need to make phonemic distinctions (t is different to f) and so allow many variations within a give 'envelope'. Their t and f sounds may vary, but comprehension is still afforded by the fact that they exist as members of the same functional class

I wonder, when Irish was spoken as a native tongue, before it was exposed to and adulterated by English, did it too have this feature of raising the tone when asking a question? Or perhaps did the tone drop? Or maybe did it stay netural? Things like this are the first thing to be lost.

If this were true, then there'd be no such thing as the "Irish accent" you talk about in the very next passage. In my experience, prosody and intonation are the last things a speaker masters even though they are objectively easier to learn than many other aspect of a language. (After all, when people mock other speakers, it's often the prosody they imitate rather than the exact words.)

Some of my colleagues in linguistics theorised that the reason is that these sorts of suprasegmental features are more closely tied to personal identity. I know that when I speak German, the whole tenor of my voice--pitch, speed, intonation, etc.--changes. I sound like a different person, and it took me a while to stop feeling strange about that.

Incidentally, there's some evidence that the widespread (and spreading) intonation pattern known variously as "uptalk", "High Rising Terminal", or "Australian Questioning Intonation" may originate in Hiberno-Irish. See this Language Log entry for more discussion.

"Samurai for instance, that have held the view of "death before dishonour"

And where is the Samurai culture today? An argument can be made that such a die-hard philosophy was calcified and needed to be dismantled (in earnest starting in the mid-19th century) for the benefit, survival and development of the nation. Remnants of it contributed to far more losses and hardship (and possibly the eventual outcome) of WWII...hardly beneficial for the culture.


"I'm sure there's plenty of people, myself included, that would rather see Irish dead than to have "Chuala mé faoi na court proceedings" accepted as Irish."

This is our main point of contention (although I would not recognize "court proceedings" as Irish, I'd rather hear that sentence on the street than hear Irish no more)...but the operative word is in your statement that you'd "rather"...meaning this is a personal preference, and not incontrovertable sociolinguistic or concrete sociohistoric fact. We simply have different visions for the optimal (not necessarily "ideal") future of the language.

Like, oh-m'gawd! It's totally interesting that Valley Girl speech may have, like, derived from Hiberno-Irish??? And thus ultimately from Gaelic??? But I suppose I can see it??? You knay-uh-ah-oh?????

Interestingly, I don't believe I've ever misperceived a Hiberno-Irish statement as a question even with the most outrageously Lucky Charmsy rising terminal. There's a facet to that rising terminal that is very distinct from a rising terminal that indicates a question. It's a matter of specific pitch and degree, I suppose.

(Message edited by Domhnall_Ó_h_aireachtaigh on October 30, 2008)

quote:

And where is the Samurai culture today?

Glad they achieved "death before dishonour" maybe?

quote:

This is our main point of contention (although I would not recognize "court proceedings" as Irish, I'd rather hear that sentence on the street than hear Irish no more)

I don't think there's much more to say. Given the choice of Irish dying out altogether, or being left with an adulterated Irish, I'd opt for the former while you'd opt for the latter.

(Message edited by Tomás_Ó_hÉilidhe on October 30, 2008)

A Dhomhnaillín_bhric_na_dtruslóige,

quote:

A Ormondo, "short" is ea a theastaigh uaim a rá, ní hea? Díoraítear "curt" ó curtus Laidine, ar ndóigh.

Der Curt ist also ein falscher Freund - agus níl sé gaolmhar do "kurz", tar éis an tsaoil? Da habe ich schon immer den Verdacht gehabt!

quote:

Der Curt ist also ein falscher Freund - agus níl sé gaolmhar do "kurz", tar éis an tsaoil?

Wer ist denn der Curt?

Tá tríú féidearthacht ag dul amú ort: focal iasachta is ea "kurz" féin leis!

''Given the choice of Irish dying out altogether, or being left with an adulterated Irish''

I'd rather have adulterated Irish than Irish being completely gone.

Cé hé Curt? Is é siúd an té a bhfuil col ceathar aige sa Róimh darb ainm Terse - agus, dár ndóigh, col ceathar eile aige sa Ghearmáin darb ainm Kurz. Agus d'éirigh leis mearbhall a chur orm mar b'é an t-aon duine céanna a bhí i gceist an t-am go léir - agus, más é sin é, Iodáileach faoi cheilt is ea an bodach seo.

Aber wirklich, soll dieser armselig aussehende Shorty wirklich deutsche Vorfahren haben? Er sieht aus mar bhall de "Dad's Army"!

Agus anois cuir Gaeilge ar "code-switching", más é do thoil é.

(Message edited by ormondo on October 30, 2008)

quote:

cuir Gaeilge ar "code-switching"

Cód-switcháil, gan dabht. Nó comhad-switcháil más ríomhaire atá i gceist. Nó "truailliú"? Macarónachas? Actually, "códmhalartú" an téarma atá acu ag focal.ie.

Has anyone a link showing rising terminals in Hiberno-English? Perhaps it's the result of having grown up in a small English-speaking nation, and thus having been exposed to many Englishes by way of different sources, but I can't see what is being spoken of here.

On a daily basis here I speak English with the following people:
1) London
2) Australian
3) New Zealand
4) Indian
5) German (but with an American accent he's been immersed so long)
6) Irish
7) USA
8) Scottish

They all raise the tone when asking a question, it's particularly noticeable in questions that consist just of nouns, e.g. "This one?". When me and my Australian friend started speaking Lao, we both were raising the tone when asking simple "noun questions", e.g. "A bottle of larger?".

What once seemed so subtle to me sticks out like a sore thumb now that I'm immersed in a language that doesn't do the "high question" thing. Instead they stick a "question marker" at the end, either "baw" or "wa".

This = an nee
Question marker = wa

This one? = an nee wa? (without any tone raising)

In response to the comment that said this is one of the last things you pick up... well not really. Different people's heads work differently. Some people never, even after 30 years of immersion, pick up the accent. Other people pick up the accent in a few months. The day before yesterday, a Lao person gave me a great compliment, he told me my Lao is "very clear" and asked me how many years I've lived here. Telling me my Lao is "very clear" means that I'm speaking it very differently from how I speak English, it means I'm putting stress in different places, I'm changing tone in different places, I'm producing my vowels and consonants differently. The reason I know this is that Lao spoken with an English accent comes out as complete crap! It's like trying to understand a Vietnamese person speaking English (if anyone's had the pleasure).

When my Australian friend speaks Lao, he speaks it with an Australian accent. When he speaks Lao I tend not to understand him. Sometimes I "record" what he says and I have to mull over it for a second, and other times his words just escape me altogether. His vowels aren't long enough in places, his tones are different, and his nouns and consonants don't have a Lao quality to them. I tend to miss the first few syllables of what he says, but then I sort of "tune in" to his accent and try to pick out the rest of it. Funnily enough, I used to have the same problem back in Dublin with a Cork man who had a very low voice!

Much of my good fortune with the Lao language is put down to making a concerted conscious effort. I mean sometimes I really go the whole hog and try to imitate "like a parrot" what someone else has said, trying to sound like them as if I'm doing an impersonation. It's the only non-tedious way of picking up the tones also.

I think to incorporate english words into Irish is becoming the done thing these days. Take the word for car. It is taught as 'carr' in schools and my mother would say a word like glústaín or something. And because of new technology, words like internet, computer, mobile phone, ect.ect... wouldnt have existed 100 years ago. And for Tomás to say that he would stop talking to a person if they mixed languages! How is a person expected to learn!! I can understand how he feels, but for someone to say- Tá mé ag going to the shop agus i will buy bainne. That's odd. But at least the person is putting effort. For someone to mix their tenses. Thats understandable. For someone to stop talking to another person because they put an english word into a sentence. Thats rude. I, hand on heart, dont know the countries in irish. Native speakers dont mind if i say Liechtenstein or Italy. Its difficult for a beginner to learn countries like that. I am one. I mean, i say goodnight EVERY night in Gaeilge. Its a habit. I live in an English speaking household in kerry. No-one in my town would speak irish on a day-to-day basis. Even to use such a small bit of irish has some effect.

In relation to a post made by Susan- Think of all the teachers, government people, natives and people who taught themselves irish. They might not all live in the west, but most of these people have a pretty good understanding of the lingo. Since there are no true official records of people who speak irish, we can only guess... Maybe 1/8 mightnt be so far out after all.

quote:

Take the word for car. It is taught as 'carr' in schools

Creid é nó ná creid, this is an absolutely native Celtic word. English got the word from French, which inherited it from Latin, which got it from Gaulish.

Yeah, I was taught that basically "gluaistán" is "automobile" but "carr" is/comes from the ancient word for chariot. Anybody have the actual etymology?

I'm with Grainne... using what you know in Irish can't hurt. you have to put the effort forth and of course there will be ups and downs with that. There will be pain in the process... BUT if you never even try because you dont speak 'perfect' Gaeilge at a conversational level then you'll NEVER learn to speak Gaeilge at a functional conversational level. You'll never get comfortable enough with it.

Mistakes are wonderful things in anything. Make tons of mistakeas as you get on your way to speaking the cupla focal or even a lan focal. you'll learn from the mistakes and wont keep making the same ones over time. Keep that attitude up Grainne. The mOre Irish people that do that and have your attitude the better off the language will be. feck the begrudgers.
slan anois

quote:

Mistakes are wonderful things

quote:

Make tons of mistakeas

You obviously love those wonderful mistakes. ;p

cupla focal = cúpla focal
lan focal = lán focal
slan anois = slán anois

(a big pet peeve of mine is when people disregard sínte fada.)

the point was to understand what I said. was just trying to get a point across which was more important than slight gramattical errors (which can be corrected in time) and on those words i didn't exactly know where the fada went. An bhfúil fhíos agat? go raibh maith agat arís
niall


p.s. how does everyone one here write such long messages in Irish and add the fada's? cut and paste or what? that's a pain if you have to do that.

quote:

the point was to understand what I said. was just trying to get a point across which was more important than slight gramattical errors (which can be corrected in time) and on those words i didn't exactly know where the fada went.

I confess, I've never understood this. Fadas change the pronunciation of words immensely; if you don't know where they go, then how is it possible that you're pronouncing the words in a manner that other speakers can comprehend?

Case in point: An bhfúil fhíos agat? "Bhfúil" (/vu:l'/ "vooil" ) sounds nothing like "bhfuil" (/vil'/ "vwill") and there's as much difference between "fhíos" and "fhios" as there is between "ease" and "is" in English.

quote:

p.s. how does everyone one here write such long messages in Irish and add the fada's? cut and paste or what? that's a pain if you have to do that.

It's a pain to me, to be sure, but so is writing in Irish at all at this point. Compared to the inconvenience of consulting a dictionary several times a sentence, cutting-and-pasting a few fadas is nothing. I imagine more fluent writers have programmed keyboard shortcuts.

quote:

(a big pet peeve of mine is when people disregard sínte fada.)

A big pet peeve of mine is people who don't actually know the language who nitpick over a few details they are capable of recognizing. I get e-mail from people who do control the language and who omit the fadas, usually because of technical constraints, and there is zero barrier to comprehension.

And by the way, that's síntí fada.

a couple ways, a dhomhnaillín, perhaps they don't have much spoken, only written practice (so the presence of a fada is one more memorized tidbit in the spelling)...perhaps their ear is not well trained yet and they really can't hear the difference.

also, many english speakers have little or no prior experience with accent marks, and are used to a single letter or combination having a wide variety of sounds with little or no relationship to their written representations.

Scríobh Domhnaillín:

Hiberno-Irish

As opposed to Irish spoken outside Ireland?

Oh, an the fadas... on my Finnish layout keyboard, between Backspace and the +\? key (which is right after the number keys), there's an accent key, it has the "ascent" mark in lower case, "descent" mark in upper case... I hit that key (with shift for descent), then a vowel key, and tádà! the vowel gets the accent mark. This goes for the umlaut "¨" key too, between Å and Enter... works the same way. No need to copy and paste... allows ë of the French car brand, ï from "sïc" etc...

The Finnish layout differs a wee bit from other Nordic layouts... I recall Norwegian has Ä and Ö swapped (and represented by the AE and slashed O)... but the layout is good because it has all the latin characters, allowing Fi/Se/En/Ga typing readily with little need for combinations.

(Message edited by curiousfinn on October 31, 2008)

I have a mac and can use any keyboard layout standard. I like to use either US-Extended (unicode) or the old US System 6 layouts. It would be cumbersome for the grave accent (option+topleftkey, then vowel), but for the acute (which is the only one that matters for Irish), opt+e, then the vowel. I can type full speed (timed at 80+wpm) using this method.

"p.s. how does everyone one here write such long messages in Irish and add the fada's? cut and paste or what? that's a pain if you have to do that."

What? Is this a joke thread? Just change the keyboard setting to 'Irish (Gaelic)' or 'English (Ireland)' or another lanuage that supports acute accents -áéóúí can be typed usually by AltGr + vowel

quote:

A big pet peeve of mine is people who don't actually know the language who nitpick over a few details they are capable of recognizing. I get e-mail from people who do control the language and who omit the fadas, usually because of technical constraints, and there is zero barrier to comprehension.

And by the way, that's síntí fada.

Ew, you've hurt me with that comment, Dennis. ;p Forgive me for admitting that I'm not willing to devote the time, money and effort to become fluent in a language which has no use to me outside of Ireland. However, I know enough to know where fadas go on some of the most basic words in the language like slán and cúpla. You'd prefer if people just disregard them altogether? Sure, why not prostitute the language even more! There are just there to make the letters look pretty, after all. The person was talking about learning from mistakes, ffs.

Thanks for the heads up re: síntí fada. Just goes to show you that you can't trust certain websites relating to Irish grammar and punctuation. That of course includes the Wikipedia entry for Irish. A google search for sínte fada turns up many pages in Irish. Does it mean something other than the plural of síneadh fada or is it just an outright typo being peddled online?

As far people who have good Irish and don't use fadas...I find it hard to believe that "technical constraints" would stop them from using fadas. For me it's simply Alt Gr + vowel. And as Bearn and Antaine above me have pointed out, there are other ways to do it as well.

quote:

A big pet peeve of mine is people who don't actually know the language who nitpick over a few details they are capable of recognizing. I get e-mail from people who do control the language and who omit the fadas, usually because of technical constraints, and there is zero barrier to comprehension.

Actually, on second thought this is an even more absurd response than I first thought.

By referring to people who "don't actually know the language" you must be referring to those who are less than fluent. Are you suggesting that those at a beginner level shouldn't correct mistakes when they notice them? N_iall was talking about making mistakes and learning from them. He said how mistakes are wonderful things so I made a little harmless crack about them before correcting the typos on some basic words that many beginners would even be familiar with. That's not nitpicking. That's correcting a mistake at a level that I can deal with.

As far as a lack of fadas not hindering communication between competent speakers, I don't really care. It shows a lack of respect for the language, in my opinion. If people aren't sure about fadas or are having trouble using them on their keyboard, fair enough. But does anyone here *purposely* misspell words in English? Why have such low expectations? Just because the Irish Independent and others place little value in Irish, doesn't mean we need to follow their lead.

After spending most of the spring and summer traveling in various gaeltachtaí, I took a two week Irish course in Donegal. By the time I was finished, my teacher said that with hindsight, I probably should have been in the elementary level class. Not the beginners.

Don't assume that I know nothing about the language. If anyone here has a problem with me because I'm not striving for full fluency, or because I've said things which some find overly pessimistic...tough luck. I'm going to keep calling it as I see it. (while doing my utmost to remain civil at all times)

quote:

Does it mean something other than the plural of síneadh fada or is it just an outright typo being peddled online?

There's a notorious amount of variation in Irish plurals. To quote Dillon and Ó Cróinín on the subject once again:

quote:

Many nouns have alternative plural forms: áiteanna and áiteacha are both common as plural forms of áit "place". In general, it may be said that plural forms in Irish are much freer than in English. As pl. of óráid, óráidí, óráideanna, óráideacha, óráidíocha would all be understood, and none of them would be shocking to a native speaker.

An Foclóir Beag actually gives the plural of síneadh as síneaidh, but I don't think I've ever seen that. Sínte would be in line with other pluralised verbal nouns like taifeadta from taifeadadh, but it Dennis says that síntí is more common I trust him.

[In this post, I use the term "native language" to refer to the language you are fluent in, and "foreign language" to refer to the language you are trying to learn]

OK I've harked on about this a lot, and I have a tendency to rant, so I'm going to try and be short and sweet.

There are two kinds of beginner that will use a native word when speaking a foreign language.
1) The kind who will say the native word, and then within 10 seconds or so, actually ask their audience what the foreign word is.
2) The kind who will throw in native words everywhere, like "Chuala mé na court proceedings", and the conversation will continue on without them ever inquiring as to the foreign word.

I'm not trying to be hard on beginners, because God knows it can be difficult communicating in a foreign language, but I'm against the people who make minimal effort to communicate proficiently in the foreign language, going so far as to use native words where possible. A great example of this is that chap on Ros na Rún who said "court proceedings".

Gráinne, you say that you don't know the countries in Irish. And that's fine. If you were talking to me, the conversation might go something like:
-Tháinig mo chara go Bleá Cliath inné ó China
-"An tSín", tháinig do chara ón tSín
-Ó, An tSín, go raibh maith agat, tháing mo chara ón tSín agus chuamar go dtí an phictiúrlann i lár na cathrach.

If you start saying "An tSín" from that point on, then fair play to you. But if you don't, then that's when you'll find me to be rude. It would be as ridiculous as saying in English, "My friend arrived from Deutschland there yesterday". (Yes I realise some people talk like that when they're being facetious but let's try stick to "normal" speech).

Let's go back to that fella who said "court proceedings" on an Irish-language television program. Well we know that court is "cúirt" in Irish. The English word, "proceedings", in this context, means something like "goings on". So if we were to try muddle something together, we might have "imeachtaí cúirte".

Now that wasn't too hard now, was it? I'd rather take the enjoyment to stop and mull over something for a few seconds than just fling an English word in. When I was in the middle of my oral Irish exam for the Leaving Certificate, I didn't know the word for "roundabout". I paused for a second, then threw out "faoi... thimpeall...". The examiner stared blankly at me (I'm not sure if he didn't understand or whether he just wanted to see what lengths I would go to to keep my Irish pure, either way he seemed to listen intently with a bemused smile). I paused for another second and said "roundabout". Thinking back on the situation, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't go further, for instance "ciorcal sa bhóthar".

See the problem with Irish is that it's surrounded by English. This encourages some speakers, such as myself, to keep it as non-English as possible. I'd like to be able to speak Irish to another Irish person and to have English listeners not have a clue what we're saying.

"Court proceedings" is an example of a term used in English, but it's by no means exotic. Let's take another example though, a word such as "rhinoceros". Rhinoceros is made up of two latin words. "rhino" = nose (just think of rhinoplasty, which is a "nose job"), and "ceros" which is horn. So it's something like "nosehorn".

Now, given such an exotic word as "rhinoceros" which refers to something that most Irish people probably have never encountered, one could be forgiven for dragging it straight into the language. When I saw "srónbheannach" listed in a dictionary for "rhinoceros", I was confused at first. I knew that "srón" was nose, but I didn't know what beannach was. So I looked up "beannach" and found that it meant horn. I thought this was absolutely fantastic, it gave me great pleasure to see that people were getting creative instead of just making up new words like "drilleáil" for "drilling", or "heiliceaptar" for "helicopter". I can have a conversation about rhinoceroses and English people won't have a clue what I'm saying, brilliant!

There's a nightclub here in Lao called "Don Chan". Two German people were talking to each other, and one of them said something like "Du mussen Don Chan cam". Now I don't speak German, but I got the idea he was saying "You must come to Don Chan". (Of course I wasn't sure, because I don't know what "mussen" and "cam" mean, but still I had the idea in my head about what he might have said).

Irish is sufficiently different from English that you can speak Irish amongst English people and they won't have a clue what you're saying. I was at a bowling alley here in Lao about two weeks ago. A new fella had arrived, a chap from Ireland (I'll leave his name out). At one point during the night, I looked over and saw him sitting down talking to a very-convincing ladyboy. The ladybody in question is always hanging around in different places, the bowling alley, the pub, the snooker hall, and she regularly fools men into thinking she's a woman. She's native Lao so she speaks perfect Lao, but her English is also top-notch. So anyway I went over and said to him, "bhfuil Gaoluinn agat?", and he responded with "ah cúpla focal". Next I said, "an cailín... atá in a suí in aice leat... an dtuigeann tú?... (he nodded)... buachaill atá ann". Now something tells me I would have upset the situation if I'd say "boy atá ann", or "tá penis aici".

As I've said before, speaking Irish won't help you communicate with more people, nor will it help your employment prospects. All you'll get from speaking it is a sense of speaking the native language of Ireland, and you'll feel very at home speaking it in gaeltachtaí with fellow Irish people. Plus when you're at the bowling alley in Lao you can warn fellow Irishmen about ladyboys. Given these reasons for speaking Irish, I don't understand why anyone would be keen on throwing in an English word.

(And I bet there's at least one person who would drag "ladyboy" right in Irish without stopping to think hmm maybe I could say "banbhuachaill")

(Message edited by Tomás_Ó_hÉilidhe on November 01, 2008)

O mo Dhia, Irish is such a contencious (spelling?) issue and there are many things I would like to comment on, if I can remember!
1. With regards to accents in Irish; as an Irish person, I feel like I'm making a fool outta myself if I start doing the accent of native speakers. I have a flat accent in English and I know I'd sound like I was making fun of people if I took on the accent. The sounds are important though. For example, for years, I'd pronounce hata an fhir like hatta on ear, but the 'r' sound is different, more like a d or th sound in Irish and I use that now.
2. Tomás said:
What an outrageously strange comment to make. Usually people can express their opinions freely with the effect that people might be offended by the opinion, but I've never heard of someone having no problem at all with the opinion yet taking offence from the expression of it.

That's not what I meant. It's not the expression of your opinion that I mind, it's that you actually tell other innocent people that you won't talk to them because of this hatred of yours. It's the enforcement of this on others I disagree with.
3. Tomás also said that Irish is NOT about communication. Fine. Tat's your opinion. Personally, it's still about communication, just in a different way.

Can't anyone answer the question "How many native speakers are alive right now?" Seems rather straightforward. Why are you people dodging the question?
(Waiting for ad hominem response.)

In relation to comment(s) made by N_iall-
My French teacher in school used to say 'You can only be wrong, so have a go at it'. OH, and for fadas, i just hold down Alt Gr and the vowel i want the fada over. It works for me...
Slán Anois!

Sínte fada is the plural in Dinneen's dictionary. Síntí is in Domhnaill's dictionary - I am not sure what dialect the CO is copying there - but sínte fada is not wrong, and in fact is more correct on historical grounds.

A Thaig, I thought I explained well enough why it's anything but a straightforward question. First, you have to define "native speaker". (Give it a try--it'd not as easy as it sounds.) Then you have to hunt down everyone in the world who fits your definition. How will you do that? Sure, some governments collect data on their citizens spoken languages, but only some and it's not complete. And even if it were, it wouldn't necessarily tell you what you need to know.

US Census data, for instance, only asks "Does this person speak a language other than English at home?" You could be a native Irish-speaker who doesn't speak Irish any more or at least not in the home. Conversely, there are enthusiasts who speak Irish at home even though they first learned it in school. The first group would be ignored in the census whereas the second would be listed as "speakers of Irish".

I think Dennis just wanted to try and stick it to me by "correcting" me.

quote:

Can't anyone answer the question "How many native speakers are alive right now?"

Hey, some of us have tried. One possible answer is: "not enough to sustain the language in the long term."

quote:

In 1990, the late Breandán Ó hEithir stated in a report commissioned by Bord na Gaeilge (which they tried to suppress and have yet to publish) that the number of native Irish speakers stood at 10,000. This figure may be a bit too pessimistic; perhaps 30,000-40,000 is nearer to the truth.

quote:

The paucity of speakers means that we lack a vibrant Irish language community in which the language could invent, in a natural and unconscious manner, the terminology needed by a modern language. This lack of critical mass is what causes the another obstacle in the growth of the language – the lack of exposure. Exposure to various and many sources is how we learn new words and phrases. The only place your average Irish speaker will learn new phrases is on Raidió Na Gaeltachta. There are not enough occasions on which to interact with other Irish speakers and thereby pick up new phrases and words. On top of this, there are not enough people who speak Irish well enough from whom you would want to learn anything.

quote:

This problem of lack of exposure is further compounded by the fact that there is no tradition of reading in the Irish language among Irish speakers. The only people who read Irish are academics or writers. Native speakers of Irish do not read their own language.

- Feargal Ó Béarra, Ollscoil na hÉireann-Gaillimh (NUI)

I think he's underestimating the power of the language community online and all the new Irish media which has come about just in the last couple of years. I wonder if he's referring strictly to novels when he says native speakers don't read their own language??

quote:

I think he's underestimating the power of the language community online and all the new Irish media which has come about just in the last couple of years.

Aontaíom leat. Is áis iontach í an idirlíon i gcomhair mionteangacha agus tugann sé deis agus spreagadh araon do lucht na teangacha i gceist atá scaipthe beagnach ar fud an domhain chun teacht le chéile.


Agus is maith is cuimhin liom Breandán Ó hEithir. Ba chraoltóir agus iriseoir den chéad scoth é ach bhí dearcadh duairc aige ar thodhchaí na Gaeilge. B'fhéidir gurbh é an rud é go raibh an slat tomhais aige ró-dhian.

I find it's hard to sustain a discussion when someone replies to a post in a language other than the one used by the original poster. It's also somewhat inconsiderate. So I'd appreciate it if you would translate or summarise the response you made in English since you took the time to quote me and reply in the first place.

Thug cuid againn, duine i ndiaidh a chéile, aistriúchán duit ar ar scríobhamar cheana go dtí gur mhínigh tusa, tú féin, nach bhfuil agat ach spéis an chaithimh aimsire sa Ghaeilg.

Tá a chead ag gach éinne anseo scríobh ina rogha teanga, G. nó B., agus níl aon dul thairis sin, go háirithe nuair nach bhfuil i do chás féin, mar a mhínigh tú cheana, ach caitheamh aimsire.

Anois, cén chuid den reacht san a ndeirtear ann 'other than the one used by the original poster'?

Keep using the language as a blunt instrument, Smac_muirí. See how far that gets you.
Very classy.

I have no problem with bilingual posts or posts in Irish amongst people who can speak it comfortably. What I *do* have a problem with is when people GO OUT OF THEIR WAY to hinder communication and obstruct discussion. All the more so when they quote my post in English and respond in Irish only. You'll notice that the thread was started in English and most of the responses have been in English only. I was merely responding to a question in English until Ormondo decided to have a go.

It's an issue that comes up a lot...so I was told when I created a thread about it some months back. The general consensus was that people shouldn't be restricted from switching languages. One of the more fluent posters said they don't switch to Irish if it hinders communication. Others said a request for translation would be fine. Fair enough.

That what I've done, so hopefully Ormondo will have more class and decency than you.

Is léir nach leor leid do do dhuine, a Sheosaimh.

"Others said a request for translation would be fine. Fair enough. / That what I've done..."

Who do you think you're fooling? You didn't submit a request. You broadcast a petulant snark:

"It's also somewhat inconsiderate... hopefully Ormondo will have more class and decency than you."

It's particularly rich hearing you complain about this since you've just admitted that you understand the general consensus is that people shouldn't be restricted from switching languages.

If all you want is a translation, then by all means feel free to ask for one.

Is léir.

Chuala trácht ar an iompar so i dTrá Lí. Tá a cháil imithe roimhe. Fear as Béal Feirste a bhí ag caint liom. Luadh liom mórán an rud céanna in áit eile a ndeachaigh sé. D'fhéadfainn tuilleadh a inse, ach is leor nod. Is é an dearcadh is an t-iompar frith-Ghaeilge a bhfuil daoine go mór in amhras faoi. Céard tá á thiomáint ar chor ar bith? Tuige nach bhfuil mealladh ar bith ann i leith na Gaeilge má tá sé ag crochadh thart le scathamh de bhlianta anois?

An as Trá Lí thú a Smac_muirí?

quote:

So I'd appreciate it if you would translate or summarise the response you made in English

The above quote is me requesting a translation to Ormondo and his post, Domhnall. So yes, I absolutely did request a translation from the start. That said, of course Smac_muirí is under no obligation to translate another posters message. But they also know that I'm unable to respond to a lengthy message in Irish. Hence, the request I made to Ormondo in the first place!

But what do I get, ANOTHER lengthy message in Irish which once again includes a quote from me.

Why the vindictiveness? Why use a language as a tool of exclusion?

quote:

you've just admitted that you understand the general consensus is that people shouldn't be restricted from switching languages.

Of course they shouldn't be. Unlike some people, I don't believe in hindering communication. Why do you think the majority of posts on this forum are in English!? But it was also clear from that thread that COMMON COURTESY is important too. It's rude to continue addressing someone (in this case, by quoting them) when you know they aren't able to understand what you're saying.

Let's say you're chatting with a group of people in a pub. The conversation is in English. People are chatting with one another...asking questions...answering. Suddenly a couple of Irish speakers join in. One of them begins talking in Irish to one of the guys who was speaking English. It's soon clear that person is not able to keep up. So, they ask them to translate what they just said since it's obvious that the Irish speaker was addressing them specifically. Then all of a sudden, his friend jumps in and continues speaking Irish to him even though he is now in no doubt that the guy is unable to understand what's being said to/about him.

Why do this online when you wouldn't do it in a pub? Why reinforce the worst stereotypes of Irish speakers in this way because you disagree with someones viewpoint?

quote:

Of course they shouldn't be. Unlike some people, I don't believe in hindering communication. Why do you think the majority of posts on this forum are in English!?

That's the reason I post in English so much, because I can't communicate as effectively as I want to in Irish. Plus I'm not comfortable communicating in a language that I haven't been immersed in because I can never be sure if something sounds natural or not.

Ah, it seems this little "game" has been deployed on this forum before.

quote:

If you look back over the older posts you will notice a tendency for the purists to avoid too much serious discussion about the state of the language.
It usually starts with someone (even if sympathetic to the language) asking about the health of the language. There may be follow up posts in Irish and the subject fades away. If there are comments in English it can turn ugly when the questioner is demonized and basically treated as a sort of traitor/troll.
We all have our own reasons to learn Irish, some because of ethnicity, others for reasons of their own,
but I see no problem with a potential learner wondering if the time (in a busy world) and money is worth it.
The Irish language revival movement is often its own worst enemy.

- Taig
http://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/13510/33289.html#POST67726


I'm satisfied with having the cúpla focal and little else. I've admitted as much. Is that a problem? It doesn't mean that I won't learn more as I go along. I just have no expectations of full fluency. I'm more interested in the development of the language and the challenges facing it than I am in actually speaking it. (I'm not going to be living out my days in Ireland, after all). Clearly that admission and some of the discussions on the decline of Irish have rubbed certain people the wrong way. We've been seeing the fallout from that lately.

I'm not seeking conflict. I merely want to be able to respond to people in a language that I fully understand. I can't do this when people go out of their way to respond to my messages in Irish only.

That being said, Ormondo, would you please translate or summarise your response to my post when you get the chance? I'm not able to reply in any meaningful way as things are now.

Smac_muirí,
I request the same of you since you quoted a section of my post.

Go raibh maith agaibh.

I find this thread so fascinating as a beginning student of Irish (Lesson 2 in "Progress in Irish; Lesson 2 in "Buntús Cainte 1"; Lesson 1 in "Colloquial Irish"; and, finally, Lesson 2 in "Learning Irish") as well as an upper-intermediate/lower advanced student of Russian. I have this great Russian dictionary that is comprised of 64,000 "borrowed" words now used in the Russian language. Certainly, the Russians have kept part of the linguistic models for each type of word (nouns, adjectives, verbs and so on), using a sort of applique on each word as it is ushered into the Russian language. Mind you, the most commonly used "extensive" dictionaries by Russians only contain approximately 130,000 words. The Webster's Unabridged Dictionary has about 236,000 words and a lot of those rarely see the light of day, fostering the idea that a "good" English dictionary would have about 90,000 words. Of the 90,000 words in the English/American language, many are taken from German, French, Latin, Old English, Irish, Native American, Chines, Japanese and on and on. The way that most languages have ever "survived" for long has been through the "attrition" or "matriculation" of words from those who have come to populate the land in which the language is used or have some form of communication with them. Imagine those Russians having to "matriculate" 64,000 new words since the early 1950's (over 1,000 words each month)! Has Russian "lost" its viability due to this? No! It "married" those words into its own language and assimilated them into their language in a way that would be "comfortable" to their own syntactic sense of how words are "marked" as to their type as well as use.

Remember "The Jabberwocky" (sp) in "Alice in Wonderland"? If you read it as a native English speaker (there is a definite trick to this that cannot be picked up by "other" language users who are not "fluent" in English!), the words actually just roll off of the tongue as though they are quite natural to us and, all the while, is sheer nonsense! After reading it, look at the endings of the words and ou will then understand why this poem is so important to language learners!

Remember, too, that Latin is now a "dead" language because it was incapable of adjusting to new cultural and linguistic "additions" to its own language.

Now, the use of the "babysitter" here is an excellent case. I would rather that the Irish "assimilate" other languages into it, all the while inscribing syntactic and linguistic "markers" to the "new" words that it acquires as time goes along and as it "assimilates" new cultural and linguistic influences than to simply "die on the vine" as did Latin and other languages that could not adjust, that were too rigid to allow for change. The French have added may words to their language despite the French government and the Francophile's urgent sense in the past that they had to maintain the "purity" of French at any cost.

Overall, to me, the malleability of the Irish NOT to stay so "pure" so as to cut off all other world influences is a very, very healthy thing. To stay open to other cultural influences and to absorb them is not only good for the language but also shows a certain tolerance and acceptance of the ideas, thoughts and cultures of others.

This must be kept in mind constantly or, for certain, Irish will no longer be a language at all that can "work" in a "global" culture.

I could go on forever about this and, I am sure, some of you may feel that I already have! However, it is this type of perspective that ca make all of this much more understandable as well as to hep us to also apply that understanding to Irish, English, or whatever language one speaks.

Anyse

I read through here and, I have made it quite clear, I am very new to this. I came to THIS forum because it said that it permits English as well as Irish. I feel like, when someone posts their response entirely in Irish, I am directly being left out of the conversation. On the "other" board, where it is IRISH only, I would definitely expect this and would find no offense. However, here, out of kindness as well as consideration and a sense of not being rude, could one also place (even sketchy at that) a quick translation to help us newbies along?

Go raibh maith agat. [For the very first time, I was able to write this without the book! I AM getting somewhere at last!]

Anyse

Dia Duit Tomás!

There is one huge problem that I, as a learner of Russian, a teacher of English and a new learner of Irish, have: the problem with inflections in Irish! In English, most words keep a very basic form with little inflection needed in order to use a word in a different part of speech or in its very miniscule (compared with other languages) use of inflections. However, in Russian there are many. Yet, it takes time to "learn all of the rules" and such (over twice the time that it takes to learn Spanish or French) in order to use them fluently. Irish has presented me with an orthography that I can, at this level, only barely comprehend at all. However, I have learned that I can actually find new words spelled out in a book, that is not in its nominative, infinitive or "root" form, by removing particular letters from them at the beginning or breaking a vowel pair up and then deleting one of the vowels or adding a Fada to one of the vowels in the pair and, sometimes, adding a Fada to the remaining vowel. I am NEW to this and, only due to my former training in linguistics, I have been able to "spot" these "intricacies" of the Irish language. One cannot just "go home and look up" a lot of words that they "heard" in an Irish conversation all that easily. I can't tell if a "bh" at the beginning of a word is due to some declension or is really a part of the "base" word itself! Also, I would not hear it in the conversation either in most, if not all, oral experience, would I? It just takes time.

Yes, I speak with Russians and I have to do the "raise the pitch on a word in askance of the proper one" a lot. However, if I spent a minute or two between each "questioned" word, how long would a 5 minute conversation last, were the "native" speaker kindly enough to bear with it?

Each one of us is an "ambassador" of our naive tongues and, in return, I would expect the same from a native Irish speaker. I remember one day at the information counter in the Louvre when an American came up and asked, "Where is the 'Mona Lisa'?" Seeing an "opportunity" to show off my own knowledge as a Graduate in Humanities, I answered the question, as I could see that "tired of the question" look on her face. I told him, "See that sign over there?" I pointed to the sign with "La Gioconda" on it. "That says 'La Gioconda,' which is the Italian word for 'the housewife.' This is the true name of the 'Mona Lisa.' So, just follow those signs and you will get to see 'La Gioconda'." She smiled at me from ear to ear with the pleasure of seeing an American know what something truly and culturally is AND it also showed that even an American has to go through the same stuff that she does every day. It was a "teachable moment" for the tourist, an ambassadorial act on my part toward the French, and I felt like I did something most Americans simply could not do: relate to the culture in context.

Now, I am in the same situation; yet, I have my "cultural sensors" on. I spent 2 months before even learning the language at all just to make sure that all of the sound files that I would learn from would be in the dialect of Connemara (sp?). Now that I have all of the sound files, I can now concentrate on learning, through one dialect, the words, phrases and grammar—I have finally begun. It was a lot of tedious work just to "be sure" that I would not mix and match dialects, much less English and Irish! Now that I am on my way, I have come here and I am still learning more about the ins and outs of learning Irish and, maybe unfortunately, the possibly greater probability that I will more than likely run into impatient and unkind speakers of Irish who may want to take the wind from my exuberant, thirsty for knowledge of the Irish language sails as did the Irish teacher did to James Joyce!

I hope that my time while learning, as well as getting others to try to help me through the use of SKYPE, will not be unheeded and unanswered because of this. For this would be not only sad, but pathetic. I don't even leave my house very much as I am bedridden and, for me, learning is what helps me to feel "whole." Without it, I would simply die. So, I cast out my net for those who can help and even get me going faster with helpful language learning ideas, tricks and skills. I certainly am able to help my English students in Russia, Ukraine and the US to do this. However, to me, Irish is a different animal that requires different methods as well as skills for acquiring the proper "learning" in such an order as to facilitate greater learning with less time overall.

Anyse

Anyse

1. What is the "Gr" key?

2. I read, in my own research that the Irish governmental body as well as a few people who have written these Irish language learning books, that the newest number (in the the year of 2000+) is about 125,000 native speakers who speak and use Irish every day for practically all of their activities. I think that this should be sufficient as I have not seen anything counter to this estimate.

3. I, having just begun learning Irish, have been striving as well as always will strive to learn "all of the time" and to tey to spell (with accents) on all occasions, no matter how painful or tedious it may be. From this, I know that I will learn and thrive in Irish!

Slán

Anyse

''Forgive me for admitting that I'm not willing to devote the time, money and effort to become fluent in a language which has no use to me outside of Ireland''

I can't believe you Danny, I have no use of Irish in this country (England) but I spend a lot of time studying Irish especially the amount of $$$ I've spent.

If you are not aiming for good enough Irish, cad chuighe a bhfuil tú anseo?

Look, when I post in Irish without a translation I am fully aware that not everyone will be able to read it - that I am thus excluding people who might be interested in my viewpoint and I in theirs.
Am I intentionally excluding people then? Yes, I guess so.
Am I doing it on purpose to be rude? No, not really, but I can understand how it might annoy people sometimes (especially people from monoglot cultures).
Am I going to quit then? Not a chance. It's a minority language. If there is nothing worthwhile in Irish you cannot get in English, soon enough there will be nothing in Irish at all. An té a thuigfeadh sin ina aigne istigh, má mheasann sé a chuid tuairimí féin a bheith fiúntach (agus cé againn nach measfadh?) is cóir agus is cuí go mba leasc leis Béarla a chur orthu uilig gan iarraidh.

Ideally the two languages would be treated equally. Shall posters in English be required to provide summaries in Irish? If not, then requiring the opposite only serves to increase the cost of speaking Irish, further marginalizing it. I submit that people who care about the language should be willing to put up with a bit of excludedness in the circumstances.

Anyway, Anyse, with all that said the situation you're seeing here is a bit atypical. Actual learners who need help to understand something are a different matter entirely, particularly if they've put in a bit of effort themselves trying to translate it. It's unreasonable to expect that you will have everything translated for you automatically as soon as you walk in the room - any more than in any other language community - but if you ask, people are generally willing enough. Danny, though, has been a pretty reliable source of lugubrious hand-wringing about the state of the language, all the while refusing to do a thing about it himself (i.e. learn it and speak it.) He says the language is more or less doomed already, and he doesn't even live in Ireland, so why should he bother? Fine for him, but as you can imagine that does get up the noses of people who spend their days promoting a different view. You wouldn't expect the warmest of receptions.

"Alt Gr" is what we meant -a button to the right of the spacebar

"125,000 native speakers who speak and use Irish every day for practically all of their activities."

Sounds like a statistic from 1870!

quote:

Remember, too, that Latin is now a "dead" language because it was incapable of adjusting to new cultural and linguistic "additions" to its own language.

No, Latin still lives, we just call it "Portuguese", "French", "Catalan", "Romansh", etc. It became what it is today because it assimilated so many linguistic influences from newer communities of speakers.

quote:

Go raibh maith agat.

Tá cheana níos mó Gaeilge cloiste agam ar an gclár seo uaitse, a Anyse, ná riamh ónár nDanny.

I read somewhere that there would be 700 to 800 thousand Irish speakers worldwide (counting mediocre to fluent) which would give Irish about 1/8 of the "footprint" of Finnish...

I understand that many people want to go extreme about keeping their language pure, and to a certain extent that is a good thing.

And even the Finns had a period when new words were invented for things which already had perfectly functional, borrowed names... only many of these new names were cumbersome at best, and one of our best known comic artists even invented some really hilarious mock names (not that the official candidates weren't hilarious in one or more sense).

(Message edited by curiousfinn on November 04, 2008)

I think all languages have undergone bouts of linguistic purism from time to time, with varying degrees of success. They never seemed to have gained much footing in English, but some languages--e.g. Anatolian Turkish or Literary Hindi--have been so reworked that people fluent in the older vernacular can understand the new puristic form only with great difficulty.

Mar a dúirt an file "Ne quid nimis." Ciméara is ea fíor-ghlaineacht.

Abigail,

quote:

when I post in Irish without a translation I am fully aware that not everyone will be able to read it

Do you reply to people in Irish when you know they can't understand it? That's what this is about. Period.

I don't expect general discussion to be translated for the benefit of any beginners who might be reading. It's not complicated.

quote:

He says the language is more or less doomed already

You're struggling with the truth, Abigail. I've never said that. I've merely brought up the issue of the state of the gaeltacht, for example. I'm not pulling these things out of my @ss. They're out there so you may as well accuse Donncha Ó hEallaithe and Feargal Ó Béarra and Éamon Ó Cuív etc of being defeatists too.

quote:

Do you reply to people in Irish when you know they can't understand it?

Do you spout off about other languages you can't read and refuse to speak?

Good one. Respond to a question with a question.

Alright, let's go. Do you expect someone with more or less beginners Irish to wade through paragraphs of Irish? That was certainly not what happened when I took a course.

Why do you think most of the recent books about the state of Irish have been printed in English?

You don't know me. I've seen more of Ireland than most Irish people ever will. And I spoke what little Irish I've got when I lived in Dún Chaoin.

You're wrong if you think I'm against Irish.

quote:

Alright, let's go. Do you expect someone with more or less beginners Irish to wade through paragraphs of Irish?

An bhfuil sé míréasúnta a bheith ag súil le beagán Gaelainne uait anois agus arís ar chlár atá ar son daltaí Gaelainne?

Yes, you have. You've said that you don't expect the Gaeltacht will survive (i.e. with Irish as a community language) - I remember you said it could survive with sufficient effort/investment, but that you felt the effort would not be made in time - and you've said that without the Gaeltacht Irish is not really worth having. I've better things to do than go track down the exact quotes but there you are. Of course if you've changed your tune I'll be only delighted to hear it!

As far as the defeatism thing, I never said you were the only one. For what it's worth I wouldn't waste my time providing translations for Feargal Ó Barra or Éamon Ó Cuív either.

Do you reply to people in Irish when you know they can't understand it? That's what this is about. Period.
Can't, or won't? When somebody can't understand a word of Irish, of course I don't speak Irish to them. But when they just won't, out of pure cussedness - yeah, I've been known to get stubborn right back.

People have all but talked baby-talk to you (not on this thread, I grant!) and you refuse to understand any of it. "Cén fáth?" (me, Seosamh) and "Cad chuige?" (Trigger) are pretty elementary questions. I find it hard to believe anyone could spend two weeks at Oideas Gael - or two minutes with a dictionary - and still find himself honestly unable to make head or tail of those. This refusal to put forth even a bit of effort is frankly inconsistent with any kind of active language learning I know about.

In the past, Smac_muirí has literally responded to my requests with paragraph after paragraph of Irish with my username peppered throughout. He's just having a go and it's childish.

Ormondo...I'm not yet sure. Haven't heard back from them and no one else has chimed in so I'm still not sure. I know he said something to the effect of "I agree with you" at the beginning...but I was lost from that point onwards. I think it's just easier to post in a language everyone understands well for certain topics. There are countless threads out there devoted to grammar and vocab etc...

You've left me no choice but to create...a thread listing many of the current positives for Irish. ;p (and negatives...just for balance)

Sorry for the delay. The person who does the English-German / German-English translating for me was away for a few days. In the meantime, I could understand only the Irish posts. Otherwise I felt excluded, it is true to say, but I now realize that I can rectify the situation by learning the language in question - as arduous as that may be! (But sure, isn't learning and cultivating a certain language more or less what it is all about here?) But please don't feel compelled to provide Irish translations to your English posts in future; I would end up reading only the Irish translations all the time and would never advance my English beyond the ever uncertain "couples off word"(?) stage.


Agus anois a Dhanny2007,

quote:

That being said, Ormondo, would you please translate or summarise your response to my post when you get the chance?

Is fearr mar sin é! (That's better!)

quote:

Aontaíom leat. Is áis iontach í an idirlíon i gcomhair mionteangacha agus tugann sé deis agus spreagadh araon do lucht na teangacha i gceist atá scaipthe beagnach ar fud an domhain chun teacht le chéile.


Agus is maith is cuimhin liom Breandán Ó hEithir. Ba chraoltóir agus iriseoir den chéad scoth é ach bhí dearcadh duairc aige ar thodhchaí na Gaeilge. B'fhéidir gurbh é an rud é go raibh an slat tomhais aige ró-dhian.

Aistriúchán: "I agree with you!?! The internet is a wonderful facility for minority tongues and it provides both opportunity and motivation to the language communities in question that are scattered around the world to come together.

And I remember Breandán Ó hEithir well. He was a very good broadcaster and journalist but he had a gloomy outlook on the future of Irish. Maybe the bench-mark he was setting was too high."




"The best service you can render a language is to use it."

Go raibh maith agat, a Ormondo! Ní marbh sean-ealaín na haoire fós. Bhain do "couples off word" na deora asam!

Hello,

I think everyone can estimate the numbers by studying the census carefully.
Native speakers in homes where they have been speaking the language since centuries: 50.000 - 60.000 - 90 % of Gaeltacht residents (90.000) are able to speak Irish considering some new residents from the Galltacht.
Native speakers including those whose parents are not native speakers: 100.000 - 150.000 considering 30.000 pupils of Gaelscoileanna and the Belfast Gaeltacht residents of about 30.000 plus an estimate "out of stomach"
Active Irish speakers: 100.000 - 300.000 - 104.000 people claim to speak Irish daily outside education all over the island and about 300.000 really fluent Irish speakers including those who have learnt it in their childhood. For you have to consider that especially in rural Galltacht areas many people do not have the opportunity to speak Irish daily. To be an active Irish speaker you have to be fluent in Irish in my opinion.

I think Irish will be nevertheless a living language in the future! I myself have been in Ireland and I have met young people speaking fluent Irish as it were normal in Ireland. In the Galway Gaelic Club I have met pupils who spoke Irish to each other so fast that I had not unterstood everything! They used English only when speaking to non-Irish-speaking friends. In the cities of Galway and Dublin you can meet people who can converse normally in Irish with you. Of course you can notice the difference between an urban and a Gaeltacht speaker. But nevertheless I cannot say that they speak bad Irish as some Gaeltacht speakers say.
One thing is very important: Irish speakers with real native knowledge all over the island have the great responsibility to pass on their authentic Irish to children and youngsters by teaching in Gaelscoileanna and by going to urban clubs and events or simply speakting to children.

Maith thú a Alexderfranke, tugann tú misneach do dhaoine.
Tá fáilte romhat isteach ar an gclár.

quote:

Aistriúchán: "I agree with you!?! The internet is a wonderful facility for minority tongues and it provides both opportunity and motivation to the language communities in question that are scattered around the world to come together.

And I remember Breandán Ó hEithir well. He was a very good broadcaster and journalist but he had a gloomy outlook on the future of Irish. Maybe the bench-mark he was setting was too high."

Ormondo,

Go raibh mile maith agat for the translation! I didn't realise English was a bit of an issue for you. Apologies for suggesting that you were seeking to exclude me.

quote:

I didn't realise English was a bit of an issue for you.

Ababú! Cád é an Ghaeilge ar "pranked"?

Pranked?

Inis dom go níl sé in ainm a bheith fíor! Oof.

(Message edited by Domhnall_Ó_h_aireachtaigh on November 06, 2008)

Níl aon easpa Béarla ar Ormondo. Is Éireannach é a tógadh leis an teanga sin. Níl le déanamh agat ach cliceáil ar a ainm lena phrofile a fheiceáil. Is ag tarraingt as do dhuine thuas a bhí sé, sin an méid.

Dála an scéil: He was pranked. = Bualadh bob air.

Bhuail les Justiciers masqués bob ar Phalin le déanaí, rud a chuir McCain le báiní de réir dealraimh.

http://www.justiciers.tv/

NB: ag tarraingt as = ag spochadh as

Ní heol dom go bhfuil sé sin bainteach leis an nGaeilge.

Le bheith díreach neamhbhalbh faoi, táim bréan de pholaitíocht Mheiriceá i mbliana - den dá thaobh - agus níor bheag liom an clár plé seo a bheith ina oileán suaimhnis agam uaithi.

Áimeáin!

quote:

Ní heol dom go bhfuil sé sin bainteach leis an nGaeilge.

An tuiscint atá agamsa: má tá sé i nGaeilge, tá sé bainteach leis an nGaeilge. Tá brón orm nach bhfuil áthas ort go bhfuil uachtarán nua, agus i bhfad níos fearr ná an duine a bhí ann, ag Meiriceá anois.

Sé an chaoi go bhfuil baol mór bladhmchogaíochta ag baint le polaitíocht SAM, fiú agus é á phle i nGaeilge. Beagnach chomh baolach leis an síor chomhrá sacsbhéarlach maidir le an Ghaeilge Mhairbh.

... go bhfuil ... a bhí ...
Tá tú rud beag deifreach, nach bhfuil?

Ná ná bí ag cur tuairimí agus mothúchán i mo leith seachas an méid a dúirt mé ach oiread, maith an fear. Dá mbeifeá ag caitheamh anuas ar an dream a bhuaigh ní bheinn pioc ní ba shásta leat faoi. (OK, b'fhéidir piocín beag, ach ní bheinn sásta ná rud ar bith mar é.) Táid araon ag stocaireacht don phost i bhfad ró-fhada agus tá mise bréan bailithe de bheith ag síorchloisteáil faoi cheachtar acub. Faoiseamh a mhothaigh mé thar aon ní eile nuair a chonaic mé na ceannlínte - faoiseamh go bhfuil an fheachtaisíocht seo uilig thart, is an rud atá thart, bíodh sé thart. Caithimis uainn na talking points is na staitisticí-mar-ghléas-cogaidh (matamaiticeoir atá ionam - is breá liom staitisticí ar a son féin!) agus bímis inár ngnáthMheiriceánaigh agus inár gcomharsanaí maithe le chéile arís. Ní maith liom aimsir toghcháin náisiúnta in aon chor, agus an chaoi a ngríosann sé na daoine in adharca a chéile.

Agus treabhadh an chuid eile den saol ar aghaidh lena ngnóithe féin! Is dócha gur ghoill an séasúr toghcháin seo orm thar na cinn roimhe toisc mé a bheith abhus anseo. Tuigim anois don chuid sin de na hÉireannaigh a dtagann cochall orthu nuair a bhíonns Gael-Mheiriceánaigh ag bolscaireacht is ag síorthuairimíocht faoin rud nach mbaineann leo ar aon chuma. Ní deirim nach bhfuil sé de cheart ag chuile mhac máthar a thuairimí féin a bheith aige, agus tuigim dóibh agus iad ag iarraidh na tuairimí céanna a nochtadh is a phlé le Meiriceánach nuair a chasfaí a leithéid orthu, ach tá mo sheacht ndóthain faighte agam de. Ar nós Bhríd Thoirdhealbhaigh, suaimhneas atá anois uaim.

Agus ar nós Bhríd Thoirdhealbhaigh, ní dócha go bhfaighidh mé é... ach sin an saol agat, is dócha, i gcré na cille nó ar fhód na hiasachta nó ar mhuir mhór an idirlín. Cheap mé go raibh sé aimsithe agam anseo - cibé a tharlódh ar IGTF nó ar GhAEILGE-A nó sa mbaile nó san oifig, go bhfanfadh clár Dhaltaí slán air - agus go deimhin, d'fhan ar feadh tamaill fhada. Cén t-iontas díomá agus cantal a bheith anois orm nuair nach amhlaidh atá.

Right. Sin é mo racht go n-uige seo, a dhaoine chóra, nó fillim anois ar an mánlacht.

quote:

Ná ná bí ag cur tuairimí agus mothúchán i mo leith seachas an méid a dúirt mé ach oiread, maith an fear. Dá mbeifeá ag caitheamh anuas ar an dream a bhuaigh ní bheinn pioc ní ba shásta leat faoi. (OK, b'fhéidir piocín beag, ach ní bheinn sásta ná rud ar bith mar é.)

Is léir ón méid sin gur léigh mé i gceart thú, mar sin féin.

Chi ku a thugtar air i Sínis.
Sin itheadh searbhais.
Le hocht mbliana anuas
tá mo dhóthain ite agam
de bhriathra Cheney
de gníomhartha Bush
de challán Rumsfeld
de chealgaireacht Rove.
Tá mo bholg lán lán
de nimh is de dhomlas,
agus tá sé le brath
ar mo bhriathra féin.
Más searbh leat anois
a bhfuil le rá agam,
smaoinigh ar na
roghanna a rinne tú
le hocht mbliana anuas.

Sin é mo racht féin go n-uige seo.

(Message edited by dennis on November 07, 2008)

D'áthas ní thógaim ort, m'imní ní bhrúim ort. Fair enough?

(Message edited by abigail on November 07, 2008)

Muise. Éigse uaibh beirt.
Is maith ann tinfeadh seachas bladhmanna!

Tá sé ina mhargadh!

"Remember, too, that Latin is now a "dead" language because it was incapable of adjusting to new cultural and linguistic "additions" to its own language."

Why do people hang on to these myths? People speak the language of their peers growing up; to answer questions about lanuage survival one must look at why the peer group not the individual spoke/speaks a tongue, both diachonically and synchronically