I don't see where the sub editor got the heading, though.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0116/1224262447899.html

quote:

The number of Irish speakers in Ireland is increasing, according to all census and survey data, and yet the number of Gaeltacht speakers is falling. However, the city dialect of Irish seems not yet to have progressed beyond the level of a second language spoken mostly outside the home by activists, while Gaeltacht Irish is, at least for its broadcasters, a medium through which they are working and thinking for most of the day without the undue influence of other languages.

LANGUAGE PURISTS may claim this as more evidence that Irish is dying, but it must be most vigorously noted that this small study shows quite the opposite. The language is being spoken in all corners of the country (and abroad), and while it might be changing radically, particularly in this current generation, there is no evidence of it dying out. The good news is that there are urban Irish-language radio stations, and that they broadcast a wide variety of programmes directed primarily at young people. There were no such media 20 years ago, and this suggests that Ireland’s towns and cities are reaching a critical mass of second-language Irish speakers who want their own media.

If their language is to move beyond its current unstable stage, however, they will have to consider making the decision to raise their children through Irish.

"If their language is to move beyond its current unstable stage, however, they will have to consider making the decision to raise their children through Irish."

Veritas.

That is the killer point.

The key demographic are those speakers who are fluent but do use the language as a venacular BUT it is fundamentally important to get those who use the language everyday to speak the language to their kids.

There is no problem when both parent speak Irish but we need to encourage and support the use of the language in families where only one parent has it.

If we can do that - and yes we can - we could double the amount of Irish speakers within a very short time.

Mar sin a mhairimse (agus m'athair romham)

Agus níl mé liom féin

http://www.comhluadar.ie


Tá an rud céanna fíor faoin nGaeltacht, áfach.

Ach, dála an scéil, is túisce a éistimse le RnaG (gach lá) ná le Radio na Life (go hannamh!)

Is dóigh liom go bhfuil an patrún níos ildathaí ná mar a thugann alt Bhrian le fios.

Táim den tuairim go bhfuil baint ag aois le cé acu a mbeadh duine ag éisteacht le RnaL nó RnaG, abair.

Éistim féin le Raidió nan Gaidheal nios minice ná Raidió na Gaeltachta ar an ábhar gur fearr liom an nuacht acu.

Éistim le Raidió Fáilte ó am go ham ach caithfidh an Ghaeilge a bheith ag leibheal éigin dom.

Éistinn leis na cláracha Gaeilge ar BBC Uladh ach chan chomh minic sin anois.

I really like this article because I think it hits on something that I think is really important to understand. Irish is going to adapt (and is adapting) to the new situation it is in by taking on a whole bunch of English speakers. My opinion is that this has to happen, and that it is a sign of the health of the language. Also, the Irish situation till circa 1922 was artificial in the sense that the language was killed in some places, abandoned in others, and some who happened to be speakers were pressured into moving to disparate areas. Now I think Irish has a chance to develop a dialectical system (or what will become just "accents") that is less patchwork, and more gradual. And also it will develop an "urban" or "received" dialect/accent based on the standard, the school system, and the speech of Dublin, and also on what Irish speakers from separate areas use to converse with one another. This process could take quite a while before it is perceived as the natural (de facto) standard instead of a de jure standard. I don't think we are looking at a schism developing, unless something very drastic happens to the Republic of Ireland. The North will, I think, need to be integrated into the nation eventually. That is a case of more of a schism becoming widened, even though a lot of people who are interested in Irish up there tend to not have their "center" in Belfast or London.

quote:

And also it will develop an "urban" or "received" dialect/accent based on the standard, the school system, and the speech of Dublin,

To me, that should no longer be called "Irish"... That language will be an artificial dialect, spoken by only non-native speakers, and probably full of mistakes in comparison with Gaeltacht Irish (and even standard Irish itself). So we'll need to find a name for that new language, which isn't Irish...

quote:

and also on what Irish speakers from separate areas use to converse with one another.

it seems to me like people from separate areas use their own dialect to converse with each other... and they understand each other anyway.

quote:

This process could take quite a while before it is perceived as the natural (de facto) standard instead of a de jure standard.

quite a while, I hope, yeah.

(The questions are not meant to be either rhetorical or polemical.)

Lughaidh, do you think that it is possible to teach pupils in the Galltacht, who are past the mother-tongue acquiring age, Gaeltacht-perfect Irish?

If not, what would be your idea of an achievable alternative?

Is that not ultimately the crux of the whole question as regards achievable standards of Galltacht Irish?

(Message edited by ormondo on January 16, 2010)

It seems that the "urban" or "received" dialect/accent is developing on its own, and "correcting" itself. I notice, for instance, native speakers using the standard spelling with "pepperings" of dialectical usage. I don't think the school Irish will ever drift so far as to become a new language.

The writer of the article seems to be saying that many 'urban speakers' (and not just average joes on the street..but BROADCASTERS) are making fairly basic errors a lot of the time.

quote:

In terms of expected pronunciation, the relaxed urban speakers missed almost every opportunity to lenite or eclipse (“séimhiú” and “urú”), usually failing, for example, to mark any masculine nouns that were in the plural or genitive. This is an extraordinary development, and the urban dialect of Irish seems to have not yet developed any strategies to deal with it.

It's no secret that the majority of habitual Irish speakers today are ISL (Irish as a Second Language) speakers.

quote:

Irish is going to adapt (and is adapting) to the new situation it is in by taking on a whole bunch of English speakers. My opinion is that this has to happen, and that it is a sign of the health of the language.

Adapting or dumbing down? And the language has no choice, Seán. Irish is an island in a sea of English. The majority of its speakers are native English speakers. It has no choice but to 'adapt' so how is it a sign of good health for the language when it has no choice in the matter? The changes will happen, it's just a question of how drastic they will be and how much they can be managed.

As others have noted, the key is the next generation. The children of those urban ISL types who as using Irish in the home. I, and I'm sure many of us here, know people who are the children of immigrants. Children of parents who have thick accents and don't necessarily speak English all that well, but who can be understood. In every case (in my experience), the children have 'perfect' native English, regardless of what language they used in their home. That's because they are in an English-dominant environment.

Will the same happen with Irish?

quote:

If not, what would be your idea of an achievable alternative?

Is that not ultimately the crux of the whole question as regards achievable standards of Galltacht Irish?

A very reasonable question.

A thought just occurred to me. Is knowledge of English a pre-requisite for understanding so-called 'urban Irish'? If we could resurrect a monoglot from the Gaeltacht, would they be able to understand it? I imagine they'd be able to understand Gaeltacht speech (at least in their own dialect) with little difficulty. Could the same be said about 'school Irish'?

(Message edited by Danny2007 on January 16, 2010)

(Message edited by Danny2007 on January 16, 2010)

Scríobh Lughaidh:

quote:

To me, that should no longer be called "Irish"... That language will be an artificial dialect, spoken by only non-native speakers, and probably full of mistakes in comparison with Gaeltacht Irish (and even standard Irish itself). So we'll need to find a name for that new language, which isn't Irish

I have some sympathy for this view, but I think it is too gloomy. Even in the Gaeltacht you will find speakers who are better than others; and in the urban areas you will find a wide variation in speaking ability and closeness to Gaeltacht speech.

It occurs to me that it used to be the case that Gaeltacht people preferred to listen to programs in the own dialect on RnaG - but that is changing, and they will listen to any native speaker.

As people are more exposed to different manners of speaking, I think we will see more convergence - hopefully to something closer to the Gaeltacht speech.

quote:

Is knowledge of English a pre-requisite for understanding so-called 'urban Irish'? If we could resurrect a monoglot from the Gaeltacht, would they be able to understand it? I imagine they'd be able to understand Gaeltacht speech (at least in their own dialect) with little difficulty. Could the same be said about 'school Irish'?

There are many variables here. I remember Seán Ó Neachtain commenting on how his neighbours complained that they couldn't understand him when he was talking European affairs on the radio, because he was using too many unfamiliar terms.

I think your assumed monoglot would probably understand an urban speaker provided the subject matter was familiar. He would (as I do) stumble over some clichés which are word for word translations of English ones. The accent would give him problems (I have similar ones - but more with rural speakers of English than rural speakers of Irish).

But the question is hypothetical since no such speaker exists.

---

Proinsias has a post today about how children speaking Irish will draw Irish out of those who don't often speak it. That is my experience too.

http://oileanach.blogspot.com/2010/01/cnap-rudai.html

Addendum:

It should also be pointed out that while RnaG staff are professionals as well as being mostly form the Gaeltacht, both Raidio na Life & Raidió Fáilte rely on enthusiastic volunteers.

And interviewees (covered in Briain's analysis too, and probably making the bulk of "relaxed speakers") will have been chosen for what they know rather than how they speak!

Maybe it is worth remembering that somebody with no Irish will be just as mystified by "urban Irish" as they would be by Gaeltacht Irish. I am stating this rather obvious fact lest the achievement aspect of becoming "urban Irish" fluent be lost sight of.

The fact that everyone partaking in the debate has a good knowledge about Irish - even if they mightn't have a good knowledge of Irish - means that people feel they have an awareness of what is not really up to the mark i.e. tend to be negative about achievements.

Maybe there is little to be derived from a lot of "comparative linguistics" because of the Irish language's unique situation. A point worth mentioning might be that a typical native German speaker of the highest ability from the north of Germany will understand so little of what is spoken by the typical native in certain parts of southern Germany as to fail to derive any meaning from it. Speakers from these areas in the south are sometimes sub-titled on TV. Austria is the same and only people who live near the Swiss border understand what Swiss people are saying. (And Standard German is largely based on southern German!)

All these people have a native speaker's command of the same common grammar and vocabulary, and their phonology is all within the realm of what is recognized as German.

So maybe a lot of Irish learners are doing better than they imagine.

(Message edited by ormondo on January 17, 2010)

Ní déarfaidh mé dada. This has been discussed before. Again and again. I agree with Seánw. Let the antiquarians rail as they will the revival of Irish proceeds apace. I think my own Irish pronunciation is improving. What of yours? At least we know what traditional Irish sounded like. Have a listen to the Cluastuiscint aural tests in the Junior and Leaving Cert exams. They are available online here www.examinations.ie and go to Archived Material.

Patrick Kavanagh wrote the poem In Memory of Brother Michael in which these lines occur:
The seeds among the dust were less than dust, / Dust we sought, decay, / The young sprout rising smothered in it, / Cursed for being in the way / And the same is true to-day. // Culture is always something that was, / Something pedants can measure, / Skull of bard, thigh of chief, / Depth of dried-up river. / Shall we be thus for ever? / Shall we be thus for ever?’

The children who speak Irish today in the Gaelscoileanna and Gnáthscoileanna are those who will carry it on and enable future generations to read Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Brian Merriman, and Desiderius. Give them a bit of praise and encouragement. Forget about the skull of bard and thigh of chief. Live life through Irish. Pass it on without censure and criticism. Cheer up.

I will repeat my opinion here as it is suitable.
Influence from English is unavoidable. Even in the Gaeltacht you will hear the influence of English, apart from older generations and the strongest ones. Pure Gaeltacht Irish can surelö not be saved as more and more Gaeltacht residents will be either neo-native speakers or those who learnt it during childhood. The number of speakers who still have such form of Irish has become irreversibly low. So the Irish spoken in the Gaeltacht and its adjacent towns will supposedly have only slight differences in the future. This process is similar to the developement from ancient Latin to medieval Latin when Latin became influenced by the national languages. Ancient Latin had been the native language of many people, whereas medieval Latin became a language mostly spoken and written as a second language. But neo-native speakers certainly did still exist in medieval ages, especially in Italy and within nobility. It is said from Charles V that he spoke better Latin than Franconian!
But what can be done is to take care that the influence from English will not become too heavy in order to keep as much authentity as possible. In medieval Latin the influence of the native languages of their speakers and writers were to be seen. But the essential features of Latin have been maintained! From ancient texts many proverbs had been adopted into medieval Latin speech and even today as citates into speech in modern languages! The Gaelscoils are to be compared to the ancient Latin schools in Europe. We have still texts from ancient native speakers as we have still the texts of ancient Latin. Gaelscoil students and neo-native speakers certainly have such a degree of abiliry to easily adopt something from these texts into their speech. Perhaps proverbs from natively-spoken Irish will mark the very well-educated person.
it is to the Irish themselves to keep at least neo-natively spoken Irish and Irish spoken as second language while it is already too late for pure natively spoken Irish. Last but not least the Gaeltacht ought to be kept as areas where Irish is more widely spoken than in the rest of the county. That non-scholar transmission in other social networks than the home is possible shows Sardinia. Many Sardinian speakers have stated in a study that they had picked up the language outside home, for example from class mates at school or in the neighbourhood.
Latin has remained a living language for centuries, even in form of a semi-vulgar version. This has been spoken by servants in monasteries and is called kitchen Latin. And this afterr it had lost the status of being natively spoken by the majority of any area. Why should this not be possible with Irish? A high image could help Irish similar to Latin in medieval Europe. Of course, the more (neo-)native speakers, the better! If one day the Irish people or at least a region decided to introduce Irish again as predominant community language, today's neo-native version would become a "really natively" spoken language. Ivrith is not the pure version once spoken by ancient Jews before they adopted Aramaic and later Yiddish and other languages. But the revived version today is again transmitted intergenerationally where the essentials of ancient Hebrew have been maintained.
Yes, specific regional accents of Irish English should be saved as predominant form of spoken English. For this Irish accent is igenerated by the influence of Irish and will again influence the spoken Irish.
I have noticed the strongest difference from Gaeltacht Irish at some Dubliners. in Galway I have not noticed such strong differences which is not surprising. I suppose that this is due to the Dublin accent of English which is very different from the other accents in Irish English and the Gaeltacht areas near Galway city .
Ar aghaidh leis an nGaeilge, chomh maith màs Gaeilge iar-dhùchasach a bheidh ann!
Slàn, Alex

quote:

This has been discussed before. Again and again. I agree with Seánw. Let the antiquarians rail as they will the revival of Irish proceeds apace.

Has such an article appeared before? I've never come across anything like it. Have you? I thought it quite a neat idea to compare and contrast 'Gaeltacht' v 'urban Irish' on the radio. Is your broom out to sweep, sweep, sweep it all under the rug? There is still plenty of reason to be optimistic anyway.

quote:

Maybe it is worth remembering that somebody with no Irish will be just as mystified by "urban Irish" as they would be by Gaeltacht Irish.

But only for a time. And, in what sense? At least to my ears, the difference between native Irish and a lot of learners Irish in the media is incredibly noticeable. And it was almost from the beginning. These are supposed to be competent speakers, otherwise why would they be hosting radio shows etc?
Sometimes I can't help but think: "Was Irish ever meant to sound like this?" And maybe that's wrong of me as I'm but one of the lowly learner horde who may just add to the problem if not diligent.

Some of the Irish heard in the media...it sounds like someone reading a phonetic rendering of Irish from a sheet of paper, without knowing what the words actually mean. Again, these are people in the media who are theoretically supposed to be comfortable speaking Irish. But to my ears it just doesn't sound like that at all.

(Message edited by Danny2007 on January 18, 2010)

Danny, I'd say part of it is in your ears [as in, you may not have heard the full range of accents and dialects]. And part of it is that some amateur broadcasters don't appreciate the importance of cultivating their Irish. But since they are volunteers, there is not a lot can be done about it! The fact is they are comfortable speaking Irish you disapprove of.

What I mean by an urban or received accent is that the standard is going to form this common bridge between the dialects which as the generations move on, more and more speakers will share. This does not mean they will loose their local speech, because school forms only a portion of their time, but the local speech may eventually drop more of its extreme differences (but you'll always have people from the country that a non-local could never understand). But it may well be that there is a new dialect emerging that does not have certain features of pronunciation, and has certain features of grammar which does not match any single dialect completely. What I see occurring in the debate has been done before with many standardization programs. To keep the train off the tracks, the ideal of native speakers, of average to high intellect, clear speech, a pretty wide vocabulary, and an acceptance of most of the standard, should continually be held up. Some might find that statement offensive to their ears, but I think that type of ideal could best keep those living in the majority Englsih areas from simply redressing English in Irish clothing.

Very interesting article. One point I disagree with is when Ó Broin refers to second language speakers of Irish as Pidgin speakers and that if they go on to raise Irish speaking children that the children will be Creole speakers. Ó Giollagáin has coined a term neo-natve Irish speaker for those children which is more suitable.

Also referred to in the article is Gaeltacht people turning off/switching channel when an urban second language speaker is talking on TG4 as they find it cringeworthy/hard on the ear/ unusual words used and Galltacht people not listening to Raidio Na Gaeltachta or watching TG4 programmes because they don't understand the native speakers.

I have to say I sometimes find the Irish of second language speakers on these programmes grating on the ear and have to turn it off or change channel. However in future and this has to be accepted will happen the spoken Irish of the Gaelscoil generation will be the standard spoken Irish. Séanw wrote about the urban Irish perceived as the natural de facto standard So the Gaelscoil Irish has to be improved and I would suggest only native Irish speakers to be employed as Gaelscoil teachers with emphasis on spoken Irish.

As Ggn alluded to "If their language is to move beyond its current unstable stage, however, they will have to consider making the decision to raise their children through Irish."

Veritas.

That is the killer point.

The key demographic are those speakers who are fluent but do use the language as a venacular BUT it is fundamentally important to get those who use the language everyday to speak the language to their kids.

There is no problem when both parent speak Irish but we need to encourage and support the use of the language in families where only one parent has it.

If we can do that - and yes we can - we could double the amount of Irish speakers within a very short time."

To many Irish second language speakers Irish is no more than a hobby. They do not raise their children with Irish but are perfectly happy attending Irish language events. This is mentioned in the article "However, the city dialect of Irish seems not yet to have progressed beyond the level of a second language spoken mostly outside the home by activists."

The 20 year plan for Irish to have 250,000 daily speakers is achievable if a significant amount of Irish speakers raise Irish speaking families. Comhluadar has plenty of families where either the mother or father has Irish and the other has a different language and this is not an obstacle in any way such as in the case of Aonghus.

Didn't see this article until being posted on IGT, I've posted same reply there.

That's a great article. The tern Urban Irish, urban irish speaker, is a way better label for all those not raised with Irish in a Gaeltacht region. It gives a platform at least to rest of us who have an affinity with Irish but would struggle to ever gain acceptance either because of our natural accents or out of refusal to only stick to one dialect. I've always said that Irish will only truly flourish once it has been re-embraced by the much larger population centers and like it or not, the purists can't expect kids from Dublin to pick a dialect as if their own isn't valid. The fact Urban Irish has evolved is out of a frustration at the lack of conversational Irish that deals with their cultural identity which is often not the same as those in the Irish speaking regions. Maybe Gaeltacht kids speak English in order to get a slice of city culture and maybe with a strong base of Urban Irish they wouldn't have to switch language.

http://tinyurl.com/y872zdd

Aiste

quote:

To me, that should no longer be called "Irish"... That language will be an artificial dialect, spoken by only non-native speakers, and probably full of mistakes in comparison with Gaeltacht Irish (and even standard Irish itself). So we'll need to find a name for that new language, which isn't Irish...

Don't they themselves call it Géillga? - from géill "to yield" (to English) + ga "pant or wheeze" (no lenition cause they can't be bothered with "rules").

I have been to the Cork Gaeltacht and have heard traces of "urban Munster Irish" even in the mouth of younger native speakers!
I have met a young girl from Howth near Dublin at the Gaelic League´s Club who spoke "urban Irish" and was raised by Irish. This means that there are already (neo-)native speakers of this form of Irish! Perhaps Gaeltacht kids will imitate the urban speakers in order to display a bit of urban culture when they do not switch to English.
Every standard form of a language is more or less an artificial dialect! In my opinion it is the best to find a compromiss between a standard form and the natural dialects. In Ireland they have succeed in doing so! There is a standard form without norming the language in too strict rules in every aspect as they do in France with French. So traces of natural dialects and regional identities are allowed to be kept.
Ní féidir dlúthchanúintí na nGaeltachtaí a choimeád inniu. Sin an fhírinne le a bheith glactha. Cad is féidir ná cúram a dhéanach nach n-éireoidh an Ghaeilge ró-shaorga agus go mbeidh níos mó cainteoirí dúchais uirbeacha ann amach anseo!

Follow up letters today:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2010/0125/1224263034937.html