A chairde

When using Le:

Leis an ....

Le do ...

Le mo ....

Lena ....


How would you say "with our"

Le ár?

Lenár

Shíl mé sin

grma a chara, arís lol

Aonghus, is tusa mo fhoclóir pearsanta! lol

Bain triail as na cinn seo:

http://www.csis.ul.ie/focloir/

http://www.potafocal.com

(Message edited by aonghus on November 25, 2010)

quote:

A chairde

When using Le:

Leis an ....

Le do ...

Le mo ....

Lena ....


How would you say "with our"

Le ár?

Lenár in An Caighdeán Oifigiúil. In the south however, the n is not pronounced - lé ár/lé hár being used.

Note also in le bhur that the bh- is never pronounced in speech in any of the dialects. In the south, the vowel is lengthened to give "úr". Elsewhere, the vowel is reduced to a schwa or the final r is lost (Connachta). In Ulster the form mar or mur is used in speech.

Note carefully the following:

leis an mbó = with the cow
leis na ba = with the cows
lena ba = with her cows (or "lena cuid bó")
lena bha = with his cows
lena mba = with their cows

A common mistake for learners is to use "le na ba" instead of "leis na ba".

Rud a bheadh léanmhar....

Ailín - lenár is the form in PUL's works.

As I am learning the particular Irish of one person who lived 1839 to 1920, I would prefer the following forms:

leis an mboin
leis na buaibh etc.

One of the stronger older speakers of Irish in Cúil Aodha told me she was always unsure whether she ought to say "dhá bhoin" or "dhá bhó". Of course, I immediately assured her "dhá bhoin" was right...

Why?

dhá takes the dual rather than the plural.

Aonghus, boin is the dual. The dual is the same as the dative singular, so it is dhá bhoin (or was, originally...)

I see.

What would be the plural, then?

A few years ago, a native speaker from Béal Átha an Ghaorthaidh taught me to say dhá bhuin for "two cows".

trí cinn de bhuaibh (three cows)

quote:

Ailín - lenár is the form in PUL's works.

Is that the form used locally in speech or a classical form? I may be have been a bit hasty in my last post, as I see now that Donnchadh Ó Drisceoil has "lenár" as well as one CD speaker who I heard in a radio interview and also uses "lenár". Amhlaoibh Ó Luínse also has it.

quote:

leis an mboin
leis na buaibh etc.

Interesting. In CD, buaibh survives solely in the expression "Bíonn adharca fada ar na buaibh thar lear". Donnchadh Shéamuis Ó Drisceoil from Cléire uses dative singular "boin" but I've no examples of this from CD and Ó Sé makes no mention of it. In CD, with numbers greater than 2, the convention is to use the plural ba: féar trí mba, féar hocht mba, etc. Dhá bhó for two cows. "Beithígh" is also very common for "cattle". The Connachta word "eallach" seems to be unknown in CD but the form "na heallaigh" meaning "poultry" is found in the Déise. "Stoc" is also used in CD for "cattle". There are a myriad of other words in CD for cattle of different ages: forgach, seanfaíoch, gamhnach, ceartaos, etc

How close was PUL's Irish to that actually spoken in his own area in his own time? He seemed to be aiming at something very conservative or was he just writing how people spoke more or less?

Well, PUL's works were written to show the dialect - they were in as deep a dialect as he could do. But the use of some classical spellings partly mars the whole effect, but he wouldn't have written lenár if that is not what he said and Amhlaoibh Ó Luínse's use of lenár shows that this is the Cork form.

PUL specifically stated in Mo Sgéal Féin that he was aiming at showing you how Irish was spoken. In one passage he referred to a great monoglot speaker of the 1840s of his youth that he knew, and said he was writing in exactly the same type of Irish as that:

quote:

Táim ag déanamh mo dhíchil ar í chur
síos am' sgríbhinn díreach mar a fuair mo chluas í ó
dhaoine mar sheana Dhiarmuid ua Laoghaire agus mar
Mhicheál Dubh, agus mar Mháire Ruadh, agus mar a
h-inghean, .i. Peig.

Seana Dhiarmuid ua Laoghaire was PUL's great-uncle, his father's uncle. So probably someone born in the 1780s or 1790s. There are constant comments in Mo Sgéal Féin PUL is trying to give us exactly the Irish as it was spoken in the days before the famine when nearly half the population spoke Irish. The Peig he mentioned was the girl who told him the story Séadna when he was a child.

He wasn't bothered at all to use the classical spelling. But his personal spelling was a mix, and the hand of editors is clear in his books. But as far as he was conscious to do so, he was trying to deviate from the classical spelling to show the Cork pronunciation. This is why his use of spellings like coimeád is so incongruous - presumably he had the slender c here, and just forgot to dialectalise that in his books? Or maybe his editors preferred that? But his books are specifically intended to be in Cork Irish.

Aonghus, you are right. 1 takes the singular, 2 the dual and 3 and above the plural. As weefalorieman says trí cinn de bhuaibh is a good device to avoid using the nominative plural, but the plural was and is "ba".

bó amháin
dhá bhoin
trí ba etc.

Ailín has "féar hocht mba", but PUL had "féar seacht mbó" in Mo Sgéal Féin, with the genitive plural. Maybe speakers in CD today avoid bó as the genitive plural, as it sounds like the nominative singular, and say "ba" instead? I am not sure why there is h-prefixation in Ailín's example. Féar ocht mbó would be right as far as I know.

nominative singular: bó
genitive singular: bó
dative singular: boin
nominative plural: ba
genitive plural: bó
dative plural: buaibh

nominative dual: an dá bhoin
genitive dual: an dá bhó
dative dual: an dá bhoin

Just to be thorough, the dual is like the dative, except in the genitive. Grass for two cows: féar dhá bhó.

See my file on the genitive dual at http://www.corkirish.com/wordpress/genitive-dual

(Message edited by corkirish on November 25, 2010)

quote:

Ailín has "féar hocht mba", but PUL had "féar seacht mbó" in Mo Sgéal Féin, with the genitive plural. Maybe speakers in CD today avoid bó as the genitive plural, as it sounds like the nominative singular, and say "ba" instead? I am not sure why there is h-prefixation in Ailín's example. Féar ocht mbó would be right as far as I know.

I see what you're saying, that the bó in féar seacht mbó is in the genitive but in terms of inflecting the noun for genitive plural following a numeral in the modern language, I don't think that that is a productive rule any longer. As for hocht mba, we may well be looking at a genitive plural form or just a plain nominative plural form; as Ó Sé points out, there are many commonly used words which take a nominative plural form following a numeral in all situations.

As for the h in "hocht mba", "hocht" is the form used in all scenarios in Corca Dhuibhne, not "ocht". The h has become calcified if you like. No differentiation is made between the basic form hocht used in plain counting and that used before nouns.

Anyway, the numerals in Corca Dhuibhne are complicated to say the least! I think that is why the CO goes with Connachta. The system outlined in Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge: An Deilbhíocht seems to be much simpler and so that was the system chosen when the CO was first drawn up.

I would even hazard a guess that the system as a whole is gradually becoming more simplified towards numeral + nominative plural but at the moment we have a chaotic mix of older and newer forms leading to complication.

Irish number-system a mess... Irish bhankers' excuse for the financial mess Ireland's in?

quote:

I see what you're saying, that the bó in féar seacht mbó is in the genitive but in terms of inflecting the noun for genitive plural following a numeral in the modern language, I don't think that that is a productive rule any longer. As for hocht mba, we may well be looking at a genitive plural form or just a plain nominative plural form; as Ó Sé points out, there are many commonly used words which take a nominative plural form following a numeral in all situations.

Ailín, I am sure you're right that that is what they say in CD. But that is not what was historically correct, if that counts with anyone - probably only counts with me and that's why I'm learning PUL's Irish.

If you listen to the way English "is spoke" nowadays, it is clear children at school in England, and its probably the same in Ireland, are not learning formal grammar and reading the great classic works of literature. "There's" is now plural. "I brought it in the shop", is now the past tense of "to buy". "If I was you" is now frequently heard with no subjunctive. That doesn't matter if the language is only to be a colloquial vernacular and not the vehicle for culture and literature. But parents often want their children to read Dickens, Austen and Hardy, and in the Irish context, Yates, Ulysses and all sorts.

It is clear that if the people of CD say "féar hocht mba", then they are speaking a fast-moving colloquial dialect that is mainly an oral vernacular. Nothing wrong with that but they are not getting a proper formal education in Irish. Irish is not a language, as many minor tongues are in the world with no script and no literature. You have your equivalents of Dickens, Austen and Hardy, and the children of CD have been utterly shortchanged to attend schools where they read a few texts in Standardised Irish, a constructed form of the language, and not exposed to the great classics.

"Féar hocht mba" occupies the same slot in the Irish language as "I brought the sarnies in the shop", "you was" and "if I was you". It doesn't matter if colloquial language is all that counts. But in terms of the literary heritage, and given that there are schools in CD, and the children are meant to be learning Irish literature to a level as indepth as English literature is learned, it is simply worrying.

Even at the secondary level, children in the Gaeltacht ought to be exposed to a range of literature from 1600 to 1900, as well as carefully chosen works from the modern period. The decision in 1999 to replace Peig on the curriculum by "Gafa", a novel about being hooked on drugs was simply awful.

(Message edited by corkirish on November 25, 2010)

quote:

Ailín, I am sure you're right that that is what they say in CD. But that is not what was historically correct, if that counts with anyone - probably only counts with me and that's why I'm learning PUL's Irish.

Fair enough. That's your own choice. For me, though, the historical forms are interesting, certainly, but precedence must be given to the Irish spoken by strong Gaeltacht speakers today, in our own period. I'm not entirely sure that everything written by Peadar Ó Laoghaire was exactly as spoken in the vernacular. If you wish to focus solely on one author, that is your right to do so, but I think it better to focus on the language of a particular community as a whole.

quote:

If you listen to the way English "is spoke" nowadays, it is clear children at school in England, and its probably the same in Ireland, are not learning formal grammar and reading the great classic works of literature. "There's" is now plural. "I brought it in the shop", is now the past tense of "to buy". "If I was you" is now frequently heard with no subjunctive. That doesn't matter if the language is only to be a colloquial vernacular and not the vehicle for culture and literature. But parents often want their children to read Dickens, Austen and Hardy, and in the Irish context, Yates, Ulysses and all sorts.

You're entitled to your opinion but I disagree. To me, the idea that native English speakers in our own time should only use grammatical forms and expressions gleaned from "great classic works of literature" is absurd. Again, it comes back to the bizarre notion that native speakers are incapable of speaking their own language and lack "grammar", or more precisely "standard grammar". Every form of spoken English has its own internal grammar which native speakers learn and pass on and regulate among themselves. The notion that the colloquial vernacular cannot be the "vehicle for culture and literature" is equally absurd. Which came first; the spoken vernacular or artificial standard languages invented by the élite? Without the spoken vernacular, there wouldn't be any literature! The idea that the vernacular language cannot be a vehicle for culture is very strange indeed. What exactly do you mean by "culture"? The man in the street is incapable of creating "culture" and must be told by his betters how to do so?

I don't wish to sound aggressive or antagonistic here but this is something I believe strongly in.

quote:

To me, the idea that native English speakers in our own time should only use grammatical forms and expressions gleaned from "great classic works of literature" is absurd.

Ailín, they should at least have read those works, whatever forms they use in their speech. It's called "getting an education". A deliberate decision was made in Ireland to take famous works written in traditional Irish off the curriculum.

quote:

The notion that the colloquial vernacular cannot be the "vehicle for culture and literature" is equally absurd.

The great books of English literature were written in whatever type of language they were written in. They were not all in the Victorian Standard English. Anyone reading Shakespeare is likely to notice that Shakespearean English differed from that of Dickens.

Similarly, Irish children, if they were to become as educated in their language as English children are in theirs, would need to read books in traditional Irish as part of the mix.

I am not saying that modern language "cannot" be a vehicle for great literature. What I am saying is great literature has to be read in order for one to be an educated person. And that literature was just written in whatever form of language it was written in.

Irish people have a culture and a literary history. Irish literature did not begin with the Caighdeán Oifigiúil. But children are leaving school in Ireland not having been exposed to any of it.

quote:

It is clear that if the people of CD say "féar hocht mba", then they are speaking a fast-moving colloquial dialect that is mainly an oral vernacular. Nothing wrong with that but they are not getting a proper formal education in Irish. Irish is not a language, as many minor tongues are in the world with no script and no literature. You have your equivalents of Dickens, Austen and Hardy, and the children of CD have been utterly shortchanged to attend schools where they read a few texts in Standardised Irish, a constructed form of the language, and not exposed to the great classics.

If the people of CD say "féar hocht mba", where exactly is the problem? If they even choose to write that, again, where is the problem? Why should the modern language spoken by good native speakers be straitjacketed by the conventions of "classical literature"? Should people be made use grammatical forms that haven't been used in the language for a hundred years or more? By all means, I agree with you, people should read and study the classical texts but they are exactly that - classical texts.

quote:

"Féar hocht mba" occupies the same slot in the Irish language as "I brought the sarnies in the shop", "you was" and "if I was you". It doesn't matter if colloquial language is all that counts. But in terms of the literary heritage, and given that there are schools in CD, and the children are meant to be learning Irish literature to a level as indepth as English literature is learned, it is simply worrying.

"Féar hocht mba" occupies the same "slot" as "I brought the sarnies in the shop" and "if I was you". Sorry, why exactly is all of this worrying?

quote:

Even at the secondary level, children in the Gaeltacht ought to be exposed to a range of literature from 1600 to 1900, as well as carefully chosen works from the modern period. The decision in 1999 to replace Peig on the curriculum by "Gafa", a novel about being hooked on drugs was simply awful.

I'm not familiar with "Gafa" but I think the only criterium that we need to apply in choosing such texts is that the language used in them conforms to native speaker grammar and syntax and is free of crude béarlachas and forms calqued onto English expressions.

quote:

If the people of CD say "féar hocht mba", where exactly is the problem? If they even choose to write that, again, where is the problem?

Well, as I said, it occupies the same place in the Irish language as "you was". What exactly is the problem with people saying or writing "you was"? Not everyone would agree there was a problem with it at all.

quote:

Why should the modern language spoken by good native speakers be straitjacketed by the conventions of "classical literature"? Should people be made use grammatical forms that haven't been used in the language for a hundred years or more? By all means, I agree with you, people should read and study the classical texts but they are exactly that - classical texts.

Well, if they read those books, it would influence their language subliminally. They probably wouldn't speak 100% like PUL, but they probably would have more of the old forms. Just like in English, where "to whom" is not the majority choice, but as we do read it in old books, the consensus is that "to whom" is still correct, even if "who to" is the norm nowadays. But to have the choice in the first place, you need to read the books - and the government has decided to move heaven and earth to ensure that traditional Irish is not read by Irish schoolchildren, unfortunately.

quote:

I'm not familiar with "Gafa" but I think the only criterium that we need to apply in choosing such texts is that the language used in them conforms to native speaker grammar and syntax and is free of crude béarlachas and forms calqued onto English expressions.

Well, obviously opinions do vary - and I accept that, and feel it is healthy. But it is the easy option nowadays to support "dumbing down", because that is the stance of the elite in most Western societies. It demands more of people to resist that and choose to "wise up". I am not saying all books in traditional Irish have literary merit - it is widely thought that many of PUL's works were a little pedestrian - but they have linguistic merit, and did help to create the modern literary tradition. If you see the list of books at the back of Alan Titley's An tÚrscéal Gaeilge, did you notice that most of them are not in print and not available today?

Anyway, I am sure you know that there is a conservative argument for good language, as in precise diction and precise use of the language. I watch a show sometimes called the Jeremy Kyle show - can you get ITV in Ireland? - and I struggle to understand many of the people on the show, who are generally extremely inarticulate. They are English, and so am I, and yet I can't understand what they are saying!! Yes, I do think that good use of morphology, syntax and vocabulary is important. It cuts people off from their heritage when they are fobbed off with a form of teaching of their native language that is restricted to the colloquial register. For a start, they find their literary heritage hard to master.

But I know that most people--influenced by the views of the social elite-- would not agree with me. Is it possible to get on with people with whom you differ on an important topic? I think so!

David give this article a read and tell me what you think:

http://ling.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/MAVENS.html

quote:

But it is the easy option nowadays to support "dumbing down", because that is the stance of the elite in most Western societies. It demands more of people to resist that and choose to "wise up".

Sorry, David, the stance of the élite has always been to sneer at the little people who don't speak Standard English, an artificial form invented by the same élite and used by them to keep the masses in check. Anything pertaining to the masses can be conveniently dismissed by labelling it as "dumbing down".

I'm familiar with Jeremy Kyle but never watch him as a matter of principle. I see nothing entertaining in parading poor people with emotional problems like circus freaks before television cameras.

quote:

Anyway, I am sure you know that there is a conservative argument for good language, as in precise diction and precise use of the language

The precise diction of the moneyed and the well-heeled classes, David? Is that what constitutes "good language"?

Anyway, I'm sure you're aware of the fact that for linguists, the idea that native speakers are incapable of speaking their own language is a nuisance when carrying out research.

Seo croí na ceiste, sílim:

quote:

The contradiction begins in the fact that the words "rule," "grammatical," and "ungrammatical" have very different meanings to a scientist and to a layperson. The rules people learn (or, more likely, fail to learn) in school are called prescriptive rules, prescribing how one "ought" to talk. Scientists studying language propose descriptive rules, describing how people do talk. They are completely different things, and there is a good reason that scientists focus on descriptive rules.

Tá áit don dá rud; ach sa mhullach ar sin tá réimsí cainte ann freisin. Gan trácht ar scríobh agus labhairt.

quote:

Anyway, I'm sure you're aware of the fact that for linguists, the idea that native speakers are incapable of speaking their own language is a nuisance when carrying out research.

Well, in the interests of FRIENDLY debate, linguists who take that view are arguably academic frauds, as I have pointed out to Lughaidh many times.

Lughaidh has frequently said things like "linguists don't believe there is such a thing as 'language quality'; if communication is achieved, language is working as it should, period".

Academic linguists who make that point are making the error of straying away from linguistics into politics. While it is true that linguists are interested in all forms of language, and communication is the basic function of language, linguists do not "own" language. In particular, language is used for things other than basic communication. It can be used for poetry for example.

If a nutritionist told you that "the basic function of food is nutrition, and so there is no such thing as gourmet food - a tablet containing all the nutritional elements would be just as good", what would you think? The nutritionist's job is to analyse the nutritional properties of food, not to tell us the social and other aspects of a good meal are illusory. Food is not just nutrition; it is also culture; it is also recreation; it is also social interaction. And none of those things are things a nutritionist is qualified to make expert pronouncements on.

Language is for enjoyment too. It is for poetry, and beautiful speeches too. Our literary heritage is also written in language. While someone can come along and say "oh! Shakespeare should be redacted into modern colloquial English to improve communication", or "the Bible in slang is better than the 1611 King James Bible, as it is easier to understand, they would be missing the point that there are social and cultural values to language that linguists do not have a final say on. If I like a poem, because I think it is beautiful, it would be charlatanry for a linguist to come along and tell me the language is not beautiful, as the only function of language is communication.

Is there such a thing as a beautiful painting? Or would a colour chemist be entitled to "pronounce" that colours on a canvas are all the same - a beautiful painting is just an arrangement of basic colours.

(Message edited by corkirish on November 26, 2010)

quote:

the only function of language is communication.

You should read Roman Jacobson on language functions. As far as I know, that's one of the earliest attempts to approach this issue. It fact, I'd say very few linguists (if any) would subscribe to the view that natural language is for communication only.

As for prescriptive vs descriptive, I would say that there is some debate in linguistic circles. The theories of Chomsky hold the day, essentially that grammar is innate and that each native speaker produces the language perfectly. But in the linguistic community they are not always as unbiased as they would have it out to be. For instance, I argued with professors and students about the wholly unnatural shift foisted on people toward "inclusive language" which is in fact excluding. This was not natural at all but a reaction to dictates on high and political pressure, but it is cited as a natural change that we would then describe. Of course the "description" would then aid the a new prescribed form.

As for language function, it is only communication if you interpret that word in the widest possible way. The fact that humans can communicate non-verbally says that language is more than just "communication". Flipping someone off proves this wrong. But I think that all human actions are linguistic. That is, every one of our thoughts, words, and acts is expressed within our mind as language. That is what defines us as humans and our rationality.

A point on the debate on the classics etc. In some ways it depends on your register and who you're speaking to. I would think it wise to have your language informed by the classics. It seems practical to use the language of today if you wish to be understood. Or you have a one man dialect. Dave, what your describing is language change, "there's" plural (think of Irish and Spanish!), "if I was" instead of "if I were" (the slow death of the subjunctive!), etc.. Prescriptivist rules would help slow the change, or stop it, but not every language change is dumbing down. In addition I think the problem is not with where the language is as such, but with the heads. That's why I say informed. I would say that the quality of your mind and what you occupy it with is paramount. And this is not an elite thing. A man who is quite ignorant of "classics" may still be informed by them through the culture, and have good language -- reflective of clear thought. Anybody who has studied rhetoric would know that language has quality, and certain trends are reflective of or causes of muddled thought. We've got to be careful here because judging one's dialect or register is different than the idea of a mind imbued in the good and the beautiful. I think David maybe decrying the degrading of our cultures in terms of our love of and search for the good and the beautiful, and hence muddled thought. Language is only reflecting this.

quote:

Lughaidh has frequently said things like "linguists don't believe there is such a thing as 'language quality'; if communication is achieved, language is working as it should, period".

I've never said that...

Also keep in mind that grammar's purpose is to clarify meaning and most prescriptive rules are aimed at clearing up confusion and ambiguity. Just because there have been some bad recommendations (many cited in Carmanach's link), doesn't mean that the rules aren't valid. Also every rule break is not an assertion of dialect. It can be simply that people don't understand the rules of their language and make mistakes. Even though we possess language inherently, our individual spoken language is learned and liable to mistakes and misjudgements.

As for vernacular language, just look at vernacular Latin which flowered into the great vehicle of Christian culture. Probably the best example of a vernacular "taking the world by storm".

I'm confused. David dislikes forms such as "hocht mba" but seems to have little problem writing "tá sé ag cur sneachtaidh" in an another post when speaking of the weather. "sneachtaidh" /ʃn'axtɪɡ'/ in the genitive is neither a classical nor a historical form. The classical poets would be literally choking on their cornflakes if they saw such a form in writing. Other gentives in Munster such as geataidh, barraidh, etc have evolved in the colloquial language on the analogy of nouns such as cogadh ending in historical -adh /ə/ and having a genitive ending in -(a)idh /ɪɡ'/.