I was flicking though a book recently and I saw "go dtáinig". Should it not be "gur tháinig"?

And what is a sleamhnóg? Is it pronounced, and if it is used solely for grammatical reasons - caol le caol etc - has it caused confusion among non-native speakers who do not realize that it is not pronounced, so they pronounce it?

Has anybody thought about a more non-ambivilant way to write Irish? I have read that Scots Gaelic is written more true to its actual pronunciation.

I'd like to see the sentence. I think "go dtáinig" i probably a dialect form, but I'm not sure. I say it myself sometimes.

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I was flicking though a book recently and I saw "go dtáinig". Should it not be "gur tháinig"?

No. In some dialects it should be "go dtáinig".

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And what is a sleamhnóg?

A glide

quote:

Is it pronounced, and if it is used solely for grammatical reasons - caol le caol etc -

Not "solely". It's a mark to tell you the right pronounciation.
Because the pronounciation is different between slender and broad.

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has it caused confusion among non-native speakers who do not realize that it is not pronounced, so they pronounce it?

Of course it has caused confusion among lerners.

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Has anybody thought about a more non-ambivilant way to write Irish? I have read that Scots Gaelic is written more true to its actual pronunciation.

Ju shud start widh a mor non-aembivalent wei tu rait Inglish, mai frend. Dhaet is mutsh mor nesesaeri!

Lars

quote:

Ju shud start widh a mor non-aembivalent wei tu rait Inglish, mai frend. Dhaet is mutsh mor nesesaeri!

Iontach. Tá's agat is dócha gur mhaígh GB Shaw go bhfeadfaí iasc a litriú "ghoti" sa Bhéarla?


gh mar atá i cough
o mar atá i women
ti mar atá i nation

Tá's 'am.
Mhuise, is é litriú an Bhéarla a chuireann mearbhall ollmhór ar fhoghlaimeoirí.

Lars

Cleas maith is ea atá i "ghoti", ach teangeolaíocht lofa. De réir na fíor-rialacha den litriú Béarla, ní fhéidir ach aon fhuaimniú amháin: /'go:ti:/. Tá an fáth á mhíniú ag mo chara Zompist anso: http://zompist.com/spell.html.

quote:

Scots Gaelic is written more true to its actual pronunciation.

That's not true. In Gaelic there are many unpredictable things, maybe more than in Irish, in my opinion.

Go dtáinig is used by many Irish speakers, although it is not in the Standard Grammar.
In the Linguistic Atlas, there's a map about it ; actually it's about "why didn't you come?" in which you see if people use nach dtáinig or nár tháinig, and from that of couse you can know if they'd say go dtáinig or gur tháinig too.
Let's see:

Whole Munster (22 places) uses nár except 8 who uses ná (cad ina thaobh ná tháinís?... i don't know if they'd use go or gur), and for 6 we don't know.

Connachta: nár thá- in 19 places
nach dtá- in 20 places
nach thá- in 1 place
(in one place, both nach dtá- and nár thá- are given).

Ulster: na(ch) dtá- in whole Donegal (18 places) + Rathlin Island. Nár thá- in Tyrone and Co. Louth.