Well like loads of people I've been really looking forward to the new paper coming out- I enjoy Foinse but it is the articles by the native speakers that I enjoy, both to read for the sake of reading, and also of course to learn from.

Was just on Gaelport and had a quick look at some of the articles, and this is a quote about Gaelscéal:

"De réir Dunbar is nuachtán ildaite, 32 leathanach a bheidh i nGaelscéal dírithe ar lucht labhartha laethúil na Gaeilge, ní dhéanfar idirdhealú idir lucht na Gaeltachta agus na Galltachta, agus is sa chaighdeán oifigiúil amháin a scríobhfar"

I will buy it on Friday of course but if this pans out to be the case, and it's all -or practically all- in caighdeán Irish, I won't be interested in getting it again.

I think they intend the caighdeán to be a selling item, a way for people from the all areas to engage in the native writings.

One question I'd pose to someone who wouldn't read it because it is written in the caighdeán is this: If one is advanced in the language, and devoted to older spellings (or dialectical spellings), wouldn't that person be able and comfortable to read and write in either style.


Sinéad, this is not necessarily directed at you or a critique of your opinions, just a curious question I have which you sparked.

Using only standard Irish in written stuff is an impoverishment.

If one is advanced in the language, one will understand what is written, no matter how it's written. If one isn't advanced in the language, one won't understand everything, even if it's written in the caighdeán. So...
Btw Ó Dónaill's dictionary is full of non-standard entries, not only dialectal things, but even words in the old spelling. So learners will find dialectal words in it anyway.

An sean-deilín seo arís. What a pity we get so het up about the caighdeán. Everything can be written in the Caighdeán. Who's to impose a restriction? When Breandán 'ac Gearailt writes in that extraordinary way that he does, using words in a way I haven't heard before, and creating images and allusions that are obviously the product of a brilliant mind immersed in the living tradition of Kerry Irish, who is going to ask "Is that written in the Caighdeán?" If he uses an Caighdeán he can do it well. If he chooses to use the features of Irish peculiar to his own area he can do that just as well.

We are all familiar with the dialect divergences nowadays most of which occur in speech not in writing. The idea of confining ourselves to one dialect is ludicrous. If I'm in Donegal I make the effort to speak as they do. If I'm in Cork or Kerry I try and use the Munster dialect. If I'm west of the Shannon I relax. The dialects are no big deal. Distinctive features of Irish pronunciation occur in all dialects. Today I listened to people talking about "An tAire" and having heard the Shell to Sea protestors say the slender "r" I wince when I hear the English "r" being used so carelessly. That has nothing to do with dialect or Caighdeán it is just carelessness or bad teaching.

With all the electronic media nowadays pronunciation should improve.

I am a Dubliner. I am never going to pretend to be from the Gaeltacht and yet I regard myself as part of the Irish-speaking community and I take particular satisfaction in using all those words that I heard my mother use long ago. Irish words that were never chosen for textbooks. I keep them going. When I write them I write them according to the Caighdeán. I say them as I heard them sixty years ago. The last vestiges of a vanished dialect.

The Caighdeán is a guide not a restriction. I will buy Gaelscéal every week just as I bought Inniu, Amárach, Anois, Foinse, even Gairm in Gaidhlig na hAlban. I probably still have them all too if the cracks in the ceiling from the weight in the attic are any indication.

I think there can be room for people who want to read and write the Caighdeán as wel as for people who want to focus on one dialect and mainly read and write that. These are choices, and people should be able to choose.

quote:

With all the electronic media nowadays pronunciation should improve.

Should improve if the pronunciation that can be found on these media is correct! And quite often it isn't. So it just spreads bad pronunciations.

quote:

The Caighdeán is a guide not a restriction.

The Caighdeán *should be* a guide, not a restriction. But many (if not most) Irish speakers do believe it's better to write in the Caighdeán than in their dialect. But when they speak, they use their dialect. If people understand them when they're speaking their dialect, why faoi Dhia wouldn't they understand them when they're writing in their dialect?

quote:

I think there can be room for people who want to read and write the Caighdeán as wel as for people who want to focus on one dialect and mainly read and write that. These are choices, and people should be able to choose.

Yes. And the use of Gaeltacht Irish in writing should be supported. The more we support it, the longer it will live.
Once again, I know there are parents in the Gaeltacht who've chosen not to speak Irish to their children because they believe that their Irish is not "correct Irish" (ie. Standard Irish). If that happens in every family of the Gaeltacht, Irish will be dead as a natural language in a couple a years. It'll be like Manx, Cornish or Latin, ie. only spoken by learners.
So ná creidigí go bhfuil an CO níos fearr ná Gaeilg na Gaeltachta : níl !

"Using only standard Irish in written stuff is an impoverishment."

This is pretty standard for any language...indeed, one of the main reasons all major languages have a "standard" in the first place. Pick up a newspaper from Montgomery, Alabama...is it written in southern dialect? No, it's written in (or something closely approximating) Standard American English.

I don't think you'll find a serious paper written in Cockney, either.

Irish is getting so hung up on dialect fighting that it loses sight of the big picture: survival and spread of the language...it's like arguing over the color of the wallpaper while the house is burning down.

Publish in dialect. Publish in CO. PUBLISH! (and support those who do regardless of dialect or decision to publish in CO).

The argument for dialect over standard in periodical publishing is soooo 1495 ;-)

Lughaidh, as I have said many times, I am a strong supporter of the Gaeltacht Irish, and I am trying to foster Cork Irish via my site www.corkirish.com . But, playing devil's advocate for a moment, it surely can be admitted by dialectal enthusiasts that writing in non-CO Irish is confusing to learners. Do you agree? When someone on some sites (IGT, to a lesser extent here) asks for a translation, they sometimes get back 4 or 5 quite different replies.

Antaine hasn't engaged with the fact that Standard English was not designed in the same way as the CO - in fact Standard English wasn't designed at all. And that is the main objection by the dialectal enthusiasts to the CO. You said, "I don't think you'll find a serious paper written in Cockney, either". That's true, but writing a serious paper in the CO is like writing a paper in a mishmash of Cockney, Standard English and random simplifications designed by the government. That is why it doesn't quite have the cachet of the Standards that exist in other languages.

Of course, the government did its best. Let's admit that. And maybe they wouldn't have brought in the CO at all if Ó Grianna in Donegal had not been so vociferously opposed to Cork Irish. I suppose the real question now is what the minister is planning to do with CO 2.0.

Lughaidh, I am sure you must know and be a fan of the work of Panu Hoglund who occasionally comes ar cuairt on Daltaí. He has advanced the interesting opinion that the standard could be improved by introducing the relative form of the verb. Elsewhere he has said he supports t-prefixation in the masculine dative singular (sa tsiopa), given the fact that nearly all dialects have it like that. He hasn't said so, but I wonder whether he would add into the mix getting rid of táimid and bhíomar (forms that are very hard to find in the Gaeltacht), and going for tá muid and bhí muid. Yet I don't believe the minister would consider introducing the relative form of the verb - simply on the grounds that the whole point of the CO is simplicity for learners and the relative form would clutter the grammar again. I hope the minister will not listen to those calling for abolition of lenition and eclipsis.

Lughaidh, if you were the minister's right hand man, what would you do in CO 2.0?

Every newspaper I've ever seen has opinion pieces as well as news items and it's not unusual for the former to be written in a less standard, more colloquial variety. For instance, the local papers where I lived in Germany had regular columns in Alemannic. (This was particularly common just across the border in Switzerland, where dialect enjoys unusually high prestige.)

So I can see a case for limiting heavily dialectal writing to certain sections, but I can't see the justification for excluding it from the paper altogether.

quote:

That is why it doesn't quite have the cachet of the Standards that exist in other languages.

I actually think it doesn't have the cachet only because it is new. If the standard developed organically from the late middle ages, with the advent of widespread printing and literacy, growing slowly over a few hundred years, then it would be accepted by practically everyone. Irish was cut off from experiencing this process as Irish was taken out of public life and brought down in prestige.

I posed the question because it seems that those who object to the CO are the ones most apt to function within it without a problem and most skilled at adapting it to their needs.

Here has been my experience. I have taken Ulster words and phrases and to track preferred word choices and phrases I have underlined or written in the word(s) in my Eng-Irish and Irish-Eng dictionaries. Then in my Focloir Scoile I write in pronunciations which differ from their pronunciations. I place this next to the preferred standard spelling (unless there is no equivalent item). In this ongoing process, I have been amazed at how little the differences are, how much is linked to the "common core", and how easily it is, with a little knowledge, to deduce a regional pronunciation from a different standard spelling. I have found the process to be quite edifying, and have developed in my own mind a ranking of the CO. For instance, Panu is right about the pres and fut relatives. He is also right about masculine dative singular and 1st person past, etc. These fit into the standard very easily. I think the CO should be widened, or there should be a widening of it as students progress through school, but in the mean time I also don't think it is as narrow as it is made out to be.

Sorry to heat up the old debate, but I thought it was an interesting question.

It will be potentially accessible to more people if it is written in the CO; it's as simple as that.

The people in the (linguistically thoroughly mono-anglicized) Galltacht who would be willing to try out Gaelscéal (a minority, no doubt) and whose grasp of the language might not be that strong (the majority of the aforementioned, no doubt) would definitely reel back in discouragement if confronted with what would be for them an even more difficult form of Irish than the CO.

And let's face it, they might be reeling anyway because the kind of standard of language which is required for a newspaper, CO or not, would be (at least initially) beyond them. (How many people reel back from the linguistic challenge of reading a quality broadsheet in English?)

If the bottom rung on the ladder, any ladder, is so high as to be unattainable for the large majority they will reject it. I believe that in the case of people who dislike or disregard the language the negative attitude is tied up with learning difficulty. It's the unrequited love syndrome in a lot of cases: in order to protect my self-esteem I will hate the girl whom I would surely fail to woo even before she actually rejects me (and, what's more, I will tell everyone how worthless she is!)

Of course, it is indeed the naturally spoken/written Irish that gets the blood moving faster in the veins but ...

The only way to expand the Irish language basis is to get people up to speed on their news, sport, weather forecast etc. vocabulary so that they will start to read and listen to Irish news and thereby enter the realm of the living language.

One might even consider an easier CO news bulletin on RTE once a day - leaving, of course, the rest as they are at the moment. It might be worth a try for a while. And don't worry, I have no illusions about it having a too high probability of it succeeding!

I have heard an interview with Ciarán Dunbar on Adhmhaidin and he seems to be a man with drive and energy. Guím gach rath ar an bhfear féin agus ar an nuachtán.

I think it's such a missed opportunity to deliberately decide on an all caighdeán policy! It's actually a form of censorship. Do they not know about the upcoming revision to this caighdeán and how the new caighdeán will be expanding and be inclusive of the dialectical variations? How disappointing of them to limit themselves, and us! They have a responsibility! They have this enormous privilege, great funding and more than anything they owe it to the Irish language which outlives us all (or has done :( )

My problem with the caighdeán in the written format is that it is practically letter for letter spoken as it looks by learners and by most secondary school teachers. Gaelscéal can do its duty. If it was to have articles written in the different dialects, and the learner read 'sa mbaile' instead of 'sa bhaile', and they pick it up, then that is adding to the chances of pronunciation to survive instead of this horrid stuff non natives speak and are happy with.. I can't listen to it. I just hear laziness when I hear this caighdeán speak. And I mean there isn't any attempt at blas. It is monotone. At least a learner will wonder why there are two versions sa bhaile and sa mbaile and that may lead them to discover the true Irish! And be that a mix of dialects or one dialect, I don't care, once the dialect is preserved.

Way out from now in 2060 how many of you would want to wake up and be in a world where the native natural dialect is gone, the Gaeltachts are gone, and 95% of those who speak Irish speak this generic caighdeán stuff?
Perish the thought!

I am going to stick with iGaeilge which at least is rich in language, idioms, and you can hear someone speak in your head as you read it! Gaelport provides plenty of the other news in the caighdeán so one caighdeán is enough. I'll still have about 5 articles a week to read in Foinse that are not censored.

quote:

the new caighdeán will be expanding and be inclusive of the dialectical variations

Sinéad, you are right. I saw that the new Eng-Irish dictionary will have variations and have them labeled with C, M, U. Glory be to God! I think it is long overdue. I think there should be a standard, but there should be less prescription and more description.

quote:

at least is rich in language, idioms, and you can hear someone speak in your head as you read it

Good writing can redeem the caighdeán. Bad writing I think can't redeem anything. But I think good writing in itself entails going beyond the caighdeán because that's what good writing does in any language.

quote:

This is pretty standard for any language...indeed, one of the main reasons all major languages have a "standard" in the first place. Pick up a newspaper from Montgomery, Alabama...is it written in southern dialect? No, it's written in (or something closely approximating) Standard American English.

The difference is this, once again : Gaeltacht Irish is in danger. Alabama English isn't, I think. If people use Alabama English only in speech, it's ok because it won't die. Alabama people have no reason to abandon their dialect to speak Standard English.
With an endangered language like Irish, if you don't support and use the native dialects, they'll disappear, because too few people speak it, there's no support for it, and the pressure of English is too strong.

The story is different with endangered languages and "normal" languages, you see.

Sineadw, the problem, the difficulty with drawing up a Caighdeán is that the dialects vary. You highlighted sa mbaile vs. sa bhaile and indicated that native speakers actually say "sa mbaile". But in fact, native speakers vary - Cork Irish is sa bhaile, so is Kerry Irish, and I think Donegal Irish. Maybe, as the majority dialect, sa mbaile should be the standard, or all forms equally standard.

iGaeilge - Sinead, this is written in Standard Irish, albeit produced in the Cork Gaeltacht. It is not in Cork Irish.

Seánw, you said, "I actually think it doesn't have the cachet only because it is new." But that is the same point put a different way round. Standard English was not suddenly introduced after being drawn up by a committee - there never was a point when it was "new". If there had been, it wouldn't have worked. While changing over time, at each point it was a summation of English as it had come to be written. You could not say that was true of the CO the day it was published - although you could say that that has become true with respect to Irish written since it was published. [This would be subject to the counter-argument that that is only the case as most Irish is written by non-native speakers in the Galltacht, and that is how they have been taught to write.] As such, you could argue, that with a body of literature and other genres now behind it, the CO is more valid in 2010 than it was the day it was produced (when it did not have a single literary or other work to back it up).

The Minister could produce CO 2.0 and say "this is just a summation of how Irish has come to be written since the CO was introduced, and CO 2.0 includes all the natural and organic changes that have happened since the CO was introduced, and therefore does not aim to provide a new formulation of what an Irish standard should look like, but just to sum up on paper how formal Irish has actually come to be written". The Taoiseach in the 1940s/50s could NOT say that about the CO when it was first introduced - it was a form of Irish that had never been seen before and not a standardisation of the existing prevailing form of written Irish, but 60 years on, the Minister could take a more organic approach.

I said the Minister could now produce a more organic CO 2.0, based, not on being "dreamed up", but on organic changes in the language, but that doesn't mean to say that is what he is going to do. The most logical approach would be to make Galway Irish the standard - and to do that properly and not tinker with it for political reasons. But even if he did adopt the logical approach, it would still not stop people from taking interest in other dialects.

> Seánw said : "If the standard developed organically from the late middle ages, with the advent of widespread printing and literacy, growing slowly over a few hundred years, then it would be accepted by practically everyone."

Yes, but that is exactly NOT how the CO was arrived at, which is exactly why the CO was "new", as you said, and exactly why the CO did not gain the equivalent level of acceptance as standards that were arrived at in the organic way. The call for a CO 2.0 by the Minister shows that he believes the CO needs revising -- that it is unnatural in some points, and that there should be a national debate in Ireland about what the CO 2.0 should contain.

Some people seem to think that the CO had always existed, and that it has always been seen as a more literary form of the language or that it was just a codification of literary Irish as it had organically evolved up to the 1940s -- I remember someone saying that even Cork Irish writers in the early 20th century must have used the more literary form of the language, which, they say, is the CO, when they wanted to write something more formal. But of course, that is quite mistaken, as the CO had not been drawn up at the time, and when Corkonians like Peadar Ua Laoghaire used Irish for the most literary of productions (eg the Four Gospels)--they wrote in Cork Irish.

For what it's worth, present and future relative forms are included in the current CO.

Also for what it's worth, apart from a few local news items Foinse always has been written in CO or very-near-CO.

If you can't hear someone speaking in your head when you read standard Irish, then maybe you need to meet more Irish speakers. Plenty of people out there speaking the language professionally who use dialect for home and (near-)standard Irish for reports and meetings.

I am finding it hard to care that much. I hope it offers interesting perspectives on current issues. I hope it has a clear editorial stance and that it is not constrained by being in receipt of Government funding. I hope there's a bit of devilment in it. I hope it doesn't bang on about the Irish language all the time. Most of all, I hope it isn't crap.

In Switzerland the newspapers are in standard German even though most German speakers speak a German dialect. In Quebec the French spoken on TV on the news is the french spoken in France than the colloquial french spoken on the street. The point being many languages have the same situation as Irish re: standard and dialectal forms and have decided on the standard for newspapers and TV and the dialect as the spoken form which I believe is the correct approach. If people want to read Irish in the various dialects then they can always read books in those dialects. All the best to Gaelscéal!

Absolutely, all the best to Gaelscéal. I do wish them the very best, but that almost goes without saying.

Also to unregistered guest- I am aware that some dialects do say 'sa bhaile' (e.g. Donegal). The point I was making was that if all the dialects are included in the paper the learner will have a better chance to see these differences, and then hopefully this would lead them to seek out the dialect for themselves! This will keep Irish alive and thriving.

Re. hearing someone speak in my head- I hear Conamara Irish in everything as I listen to it for hours during the week and it is the dialect that I am learning to speak in. But I love listening to all the dialects, I just simply want relevant fresh news in Irish written in the dialect so I can hear all the dialects as I read without having to impose it on myself.

When I read Daithí Ó Sé's article in Foinse, I hear him speak, it's so clear in the language he uses.I'd love to see more of this in Gaelscéal. I think Foinse are doing a grand job considering how small the paper is.

But hands up, I'm a purist and an idealist.

(Message edited by sineadw on March 25, 2010)

Speak dialect, write (more or less) standard. And be flexible: use dialect when the situation is suited to it and tend more towards CO when the situation requires it. What's the big deal?

quote:

Standard English was not suddenly introduced after being drawn up by a committee - there never was a point when it was "new". If there had been, it wouldn't have worked. While changing over time, at each point it was a summation of English as it had come to be written.

It's probably amazing it wasn't drawn up by a committee considering how autocratic the rulers were in England and the trend towards language bodies dictating standards. "Standard" English has been riding the wave of the Anglo-American empire. Who needs to dictate a standard when it's considered a given. (Everyone dresses like the English now too!!!) One may imagine what Irish would be like if there was a complete laissez–faire attitude toward it. I actually think there would be more bickering and less progress. Maybe it was good for the CO to come in and be the eternal punching bag so there would be some inroads into the Galltacht. The trend was going toward standardization naturally, and the CO was a natural product of that, even if you think there are unnatural aspects. Now that it's here, and some progress has been made, maybe they'll slowly loosen the grip as people naturally gravitate toward certain uses.

By the way, the CO is simply a product of the power center, Dublin. Since Dublin had no living dialect, the CO was devised. Now that that is here, I imagine the communication streaming from Dublin will form the language standard. This occurs locally too. Each area is gravitating toward a power center, which will exert stronger influences on the dialects.

Seanw, now that is scary.. I never considered that but there is a good chance of that being the case :( But you are making sense re. the need for a CO. I don't necessarily dispute that, but to have an all-caighdeán policy in the biggest Irish newspaper is sad.

Ormondo, the "big deal" is the future of the Irish language and the onus on us to do everything we can to help it survive in the best health possible. I won't bore anyone with any more repetition- sorry it's very close to my heart.

(Message edited by sineadw on March 25, 2010)

quote:

In Switzerland the newspapers are in standard German

Predominately, but not entirely. As I said before, dialect is confined to such features as opinion columns and classifieds, but it's present all the same. (I was charmed to see that, for instance, the name for the Pets section of the Bündner Woche is "Tiarli-Egga".)

The difference, I guess, is that Switzerland's German-speaking population isn't overwhelmingly composed of L2-speakers who feel inadequate in the presence of anyone who speaks with a native accent.

The C.O. may well be broad and permissive but it's the "reformed" orthography that's restrictive.
Spellings like "trá", "léim" (for "léighim"), "deá-" or "iomaí" give no indication whatsoever of the rich variety of pronunciation that exists in the various living dialects.
And what's worse, the "spoken standard" (as opposed to the written standard) which seems to be growing at the expense of the genuine dialects is based to a great extent on these spellings, which in many cases are at odds with the actual pronunciation in almost all Gaedhealtacht areas.

One word whose spelling bugs me is leá (melting) - which was leaghadh in the older orthography. Looking at leá, who could believe the Muskerry pronunciation, at least as given in the Irish of West Muskerry is /lʹəi/? I think everyone has his "favourite" example of this sort of thing.

(Message edited by admin on March 25, 2010)

>>For what it's worth, present and future relative forms are included in the current CO.

Abigail, are they included in a footnote or something? The comment on the relative forms in the Christian Brothers' Grammar implies they are not Standard, but are still commonly found (= commonly found among native speakers - it would be interesting to know what % of learners use them).

Of course, the Cork Irish doesn't use the relative forms, but interestingly there are the odd phrases that require it, and I am thinking of one that cannot be properly spelled in Cork Irish: taithí a neas máistreacht. That's how it is spelled in An Teanga Bheo Chléire. But what the **** is "neas"?

You could put it into more Cork-like Irish: taithí a dheineann máistreacht. But really "neas" is "ghníos" in
the old spelling, where deineann is the Cork corruption of "do-ghníonn". I don't think "neas" makes full sense in anything other than Donegal Irish today...

The Clare Library site has another page at http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/literature/scribhneoiri.htm , giving more info on Clare Irish writers, up to the present day

Guevara,

You are missing the point. French, German etc have accepted standards of long-standing. Irish has a standard composed in the 1950s by the government. While the Swiss-German dialect speakers can maybe be persuaded that the Standard German is the "proper German" or "the literary form of the language", it is difficult to make the equivalent case in Irish (which is why the Minister is seeking to update the CO). Lughaidh has repeated made the point here that in the case of Irish it is the Gaeltacht Irish that is the "proper" Irish. The Minister has opened up a debate on the subject, which is it is right and proper for people interested in the language to engage in, and he would be well advised to pick an actual Gaeltacht dialect as the new standard. I believe in Germany, Standard Irish is more or less what is spoken around Hannover--I would have preferred the standard Irish to be Muskerry Irish, as it was in the first 70 years of the Gaelic Revival, but owing to the decline of the Cork Gaeltacht that would be politically untenable now. The logical thing would be to make Galway Irish the standard - ie, an EXACT copy of the Irish in Mícheál Ó Siadhail's Learning Irish, with vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and spelling all chosen to fit that form of Irish like a glove. I wouldn't swap over to Galway Irish myself, but it would be the logical approach.

Looking at the CO as it is, I am wondering if it is kind of based on Clare Irish, or at least has some Clare forms in it? Or is a mixture of Cork noun forms, Galway verb forms and some Clare compromises thrown in? The form "conas atá tú?" would not be proper Munster Irish of today (see: conas tánn tú?), but the book by Holmer, on Clare Irish showed on p129 that conas athá tú? was the Clare form. It is spelled "cionnas a thá tú?" in that book, with IPA of /kənəs ə hɑ: tə/. But on p126 of his book it shows bhíomar was Clare Irish. The táimid form was not Clare Irish - but neither were tá muid or táimíd - as Clare Irish had támuíd (spelled támaoid in that book - a form for which there is a long written history).

Given that it is seems likely that all Gaeltacht dialects will eventually become defunct, from the point of view of the future, it wouldn't make any difference if the standard Irish were "defunct Clare Irish" or "defunct Galway Irish" or "defunct anywhere else Irish" - at least it would have been a form that had been genuinely spoken natively at one point. They could cull as much info from Holmer's book, and from the translation of the New Testament by Riobeard Ó Catháin into Clare Irish in 1858, and make a CO that was something of a mid-way point, without being "made up". A romance by Mícheál Coimín in 1749 (see http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/literature/clare_poets/micheal_coimin.h tm) and Brian Merriman's Midnight Court also provide sources for Clare Irish. And a list of other Clare writers is at http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/literature/clare_poets/clare_poets.htm .

It would actually be exciting to make Clare Irish the standard - a genuine compromise dialect being done properly by the Ministry. Another option, mentioned by Romanas on another list, would be South Kerry Irish. I don't know anything about it myself, but he said it was also something of a mid-way point.

Let's go for authenticity!

Bhuail mé isteach go hEasons níos luaithe ach ní raibh Gaelscéal le fháil.

quote:

I believe in Germany, Standard Irish is more or less what is spoken around Hannover

Nárbh iontas sin!

It's a common myth that the "best" Standard German is spoken in Hannover (just as the "best" Spanish is that of Burgos and the "best" French comes from the Loire Valley), but the claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I have it on good authority that Hannoverians "stolpern über den spitzen Stein" (that is, "s" is [s] in those words rather than the normative [ʃ]), and I'm sure that's not the end of their regional peculiarities.

Any standard language of less than recent vintage is a true koiné and trying to locate it in the natural spoken vernacular of a particular spot is a mug's game. Standard Irish is largely a compromise between Munster and Connacht; due to its geographical position, Clare Irish also represented something of a compromise between Munster and Connacht, but it hardly follows from that that both of these represent the same compromise (or should, for that matter).

(Standard German actually owes its origins to the chancellery language of Meißen, but it never represented the natural vernacular of the area even when it started life and certainly doesn't now.)

A Chilleasraigh, ar éirigh leat an nuachtán san a cheannach? Ná fuil ach creap atá ann nó rud eile?

Níor éirigh fós. Ní raibh deis agam éalú as an oifig ag am lóin. Bainfidh me triail as mo iarfhoinse iarFhoinse amárach agus scríobhfaidh mé mo léirmheas chomh luath agus is féidir liom. Caithfidh tú bheith foighneach!

Gaelscéal was covered on Adhmhaidin today:

http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2010/pc/pod-v-260310-11m15s-adhtrevorbreandan.mp3

When Foinse was 'reborn', there were many articles about it in the English language media. Since then, not a peep. How is it? And how does it differ from the previous Foinse?

I see that Éamon Ó Cuív is no longer Minister responsible for the Gaeltacht.

Pat Carey is now minister for the Department of 'Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs'.

Once Fianna Fáil loses power after the next election, will all these recent iniatives (Twenty Year Language Strategy, updating the CO etc) be scrapped? One wonders...

I wonder did Éamo panic and then flee after reading too many of your postings? ;-)

Tá deis agat anois Gaelscéal a léamh ar an idirlíon, ríomhaire glúine ar ghlúin amháin agus an FGB ar an nglúin eile.

Agus, um Himmels willen, déan é!

(Message edited by ormondo on March 27, 2010)

I know there are some distribution gaps right now. On the homepage (www.gaelsceal.ie), go to "Leagan Digiteach" and read the online version.

quote:

You highlighted sa mbaile vs. sa bhaile and indicated that native speakers actually say "sa mbaile". But in fact, native speakers vary - Cork Irish is sa bhaile, so is Kerry Irish, and I think Donegal Irish.

Actually, in Kerry Irish they say ''aige baile''. I dunno why.

Domhnaillín, you're right. I didn't appreciate that about German. There is a similarity with the Chancery Standard in English.

By the way, in case it helps anyone, I couldn't get Gaelscéal to work with Firefox but it worked fine with Opera. I think this relates to some kind of problem installing plugins in Firefox?

An bhfuair aon duine Gaelscéal i siopa?
Did anyone find Gaelscéal on sale in a shop? Have they been left unsold in a heap outside the printer's? Eason's knew nothing about it. A chap phoned their distributors and they hadn't heard anything either. Same in Tuthills. Did anyone find a hardcopy?

Had no luck myself finding Gaelscéal sadly and nobody I asked in the shops knew about it but even on RnaG they were saying nobody could get it in their part of the world (this was Seán Ó Duibhir from Donegal).

Chances are I'm over thinking this but I'm starting to wonder did they know this would happen?

I mean- would the fact that the old Foinse journalists took them to court and put pressure on them to publish before the end of March be anything to do with this?

Maybe they hadn't time to get everything sorted, so just focussed on getting a copy published, regardless of it not being available all over the country...

Just seeing the digital edition now via Gaelscéal.ie.

Fantastic surprise :D Not restricted one bit to the caighdeán!

Well done Gaelscéal!

It's great, design is something like The Guardian, but doing its own thing even so. Really giddy now, so so pleased it's not restricted to the caighdeán.

Woo hoooooooooooooooooo!!!

Sineadw, when you say they're not restricted to the caighdeán, the CO is much wider than many people think, as Abigail has mentioned frequently.

Things like sa mbreis, ná fuil, etc. are all present.

What did you think of the first edition yourself?

Obviously the paper is ready because the thing is there digitally. I wonder where the problem came up in getting it out. Somewhat a shame because you've got to capitalize on the energy of people's excitement. How many people were just frustrated when they went to numerous places to get it? Hopefully they'll have this ironed out very soon!

It was the distribution problems I meant. It makes sense in a way. The journalists from the old Foinse were putting pressure on them to publish before the last day of March as per the conditions of contract. And let's face it they didn't publish until the last Friday in March..

I'm thinking that they did not have distribution sorted in time (which is of course fair enough given the time they had to sort everything)-- but were happy with getting it out albeit in a limited number of shops and they therefore could not be sued / brought to court again by old Foinse journalists.

It's just my own theory.

Yes, as you say, Sineadw, sa mbreis and ná fuil are both Cork Irish.

Well, Sineadw, I just read the article about my dictionary of Cork Irish on page 7. They had agreed by email to correct anything I wrote in Irish, but in the end quoted me making mistakes in Irish (I think this is an issue that any Irish-language publication should address--I don't think it is OK to have done this) - in addition to making several mistakes themselves in the article (eg "na Ghaeilge"). It is possible to be "picky" - but isn't there a grammar checker that can be used? As far as lay out and general look, it looked fine - but I would prefer a straight PDF rather than Shockwave embedded object - or some such format that the magazine was in, because I could not get the plugin to work properly with Firefox and had to use Opera.

I use Firefox and it came up fine. So you might have to look at your settings, or update your software.

So did anyone on this forum end up finding a paper copy?

Foinse seemed to have similar problems when it was reborn last year. People in Belfast couldn't find it anywhere IIRC. I assume that has been sorted...

Bhí mé ar an gCeathrú Rua don deireadh seachtaine ní raibh Gaelscéal ar fáil sna siopaí. Not even available in Conamara.

It's true it wasn't available in Conamara but I'm sure they'll sort this out.. they want people to email them or call them and let them know where they want to buy it.

Hey David, I saw the article about your Cork dictionary! It was a good plug nonetheless. How did that come about? Did they contact you via your own website? It's great that the news is getting out though about your work.

I use Firefox as well and it worked grand for me on the pdf reader. Shame they didn't correct your grammar when they had said they would eh, but there wasn't too much to be corrected at least :)

Probably a generational thing here, but I can't stand digital versions of books and newspapers. I found it difficult to read Lá Nua as well in the digital format.
Really disappointing not to be able to buy the hard copy of Gaelscéal. I like to underline words, scribble etc on my own books and newspapers. Thank God for nightclasses and their old fashioned handouts!
DMD

quote:

Not even available in Conamara.

Not a good start...

DMD,
You're not the only one. Computer screens strain the eyes, and generally most people read slower on a computer. The computer, ebook, and anything else that isn't plain paper will have along go before it surpasses paper, if ever. As for Gaelscéal, let's see how next week goes.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html

Hate to disappoint you guys but gaelsceal was available throughtout conemara but sold out by Friday afternoon

Sineadw,

They contacted me via email - yes, it was a good plug, but I would not have consented to the article going in in the form it did. Treasa Breathnach agreed to correct any Irish I gave her - and I didn't realise her own Irish would contain a number of errors too. They really MUST employ a copyeditor. The article also included a large plug for the Caighdeán Oifigiúil in the middle of it - containing what I thought were questionable assertions about the extent of the input of native speakers into the CO 1.0 (although they are asking for input for CO 2.0). Maybe her schoolteacher told her that was how the CO was arrived at? What pained me most was my saying "is feidir le daoine... baint úsáid as" instead of "úsáid a bhaint as". This is a classic howler, but one I have made on many occasions.

I have taken a PDF screenshot of the article in question, and placed it on my website at http://www.corkirish.com/dictionary/gaelsceal.pdf

Dmd, the value of an online version of a newspaper would be greatly enhanced if it were connected to a dictionary database - like "Irish for Life", where you could click on a word to get the definition. It would be possible to do that.

I haven't scanned their website much, and it is developing, but they should just have the articles online also with some hard ones highlighted, like Beo does.

Quote: "Dmd, the value of an online version of a newspaper would be greatly enhanced if it were connected to a dictionary database".

I take your point David, but what I meant was that I prefer the hard copy of books and newspapers anyway. I feel the same about on-line courses, you are basically left without a copy of your own, unless, like Beo, you want to print it off.
I look forward to next weeks edition of Gaelscéal, in the shops that is, not on line! Hopefully the distribution problem will be sorted.I'm sure it will.
DMD

I think the look of the paper is very fresh and attractive but you don't get the sense (yet) of being fully in the hands of professionals as you did with Foinse. Some of the articles were very simplistic (for example the polemic on the Passport Office and the 'make a case for your own existence' questionnaire to Irish language organisations).

However, it's early days yet and the mission statement expressed a desire to get better and to improve the standard. I will be reading it every week (hopefully they can spare a few copies for us Dubs) and I hope it proves successful.

Another point - the contact email address listed at http://www.gaelsceal.ie/teagmh-il have not been set up yet - none of them work. You get a "no such mail box exists" reply. They'll probably be set up at some point...