Dia duit,

I am a PhD candidate in linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. As part of my dissertation research, I am studying the intonational patterns (speech melody and rhythm) of Modern Irish. As part of this project, I would like to make recordings of native speakers, and I am just now preparing to begin this work. My hope is that my research will benefit the Irish (and Irish-American) community in addition to the field of linguistics, both by helping to preserve and understand the intonation of the language by making recordings, as well as helping learners become more fluent in their speech.

I'm looking for native speakers (first language, learned in the home) who would be willing to act as language consultants and record a few sentences, possibly on a few occasions, for the purpose of this study. I am especially interested in making contact with speakers who live in the New England states or New York, since I live in Western Massachusetts and could then make the recordings myself. I was wondering if any of your members or anyone you know might fit this description, or if you know of anyone else I could contact. I would greatly appreciate if you could help put me in touch with anyone who may be interested in participating in this study.

Go raibh maith agat.

Emily Elfner

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Department of Linguistics
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Emily who was at Oideas Gael this past summer?

Either way, best of luck with the project.

I believe there's a Pat Folan from Ros 'a Mhíl in Conamara on the Irishgaelictranslator.com forum. He did some recordings for the site. Perhaps the mods can point you in the right direction.

Maybe one of the lads who posts on both forums can put you in touch with that Folan fellow. They are a very cantankerous lot on that site. I had one 'pillar' attack me for the mundane suggestion that with so many posts there everyday, one might have to learn to skim threads. Apparently that caused offence. Danny and myself have learned only unicorn and fairy translations are allowed, maybe a little grammar and certainly not dialect studies...

Emily,
I'm looking to apply to do a PhD stream next year and so would be interested in following the results of your work. When you are finished, can you please up it on the web and post the URL here?

Danny-- sadly you may have me confused with a different Emily.

Thank you both for the tips- I will look into it. And I would be happy to post a URL to my work, once it's underway. Thanks for your interest :)