http://www.gaelport.com/sonrai-nuachta?NewsItemID=5352

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The Irish-language groups behind the project are now planning to open the game to a worldwide network of Irish-speaking players by developing a computer application or ‘app’ to allow gamers to compete against each via the internet. Scrabble can be currently played online in up to six languages through social networking and specialised websites and it is expected that an app to allow people to play Scrabble as Gaeilge will be available within the next year.

Tá sé seo iontach

Tá sin go hiontach ar fad! I was very excited when Irish Scrabble came out, until I realized that I didn't have anyone to play it with! Online takes care of that problem.

Ar fheabhas ar fad.

I'm interested to see the rules to this. Will words with séimhiú or urú be legal? I'm guessing that letters like V won't be included so loanwords using it wouldn't be possible (i.e. vóta).

Also will there be different tiles for 'e' and 'é'?

Does anyone have the game?

@Paploo : I do, and yes, there are separate tiles for short and long vowels. Words with initial mutations that couldn't stand alone aren't allowed, according to the rules... And no, there aren't any loan-letters, i.e., no j, k, v, w, x, y, z.

Not all words beginning with v are loanwords. From which language does "vácarnach" come, for example?

Dea-scéal

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Not all words beginning with v are loanwords. From which language does "vácarnach" come, for example?

I'm not familiar with that word but I was just wondering if the letters were included or not.

Wikipedia said:

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The letter v also occurs in a small number of words of native origin in the language such as vácarnach, vác and vrác, all of which are onomatopoeic.

Typically in the English version of scrabble, I believe onomatopoea words aren't legal moves.

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Typically in the English version of scrabble, I believe onomatopoea words aren't legal moves.

So, words like "cuckoo", "sizzle", "babbling", "shoo" are not permitted?

I don't have my Scrabble dictionary to hand, but I believe such words are allowed. I wonder how challenges in the Irish version are handled? Is there an Irish Scrabble dictionary?

Ó Dónaill, I'm sure.

A lot more words than we realize are onamatpoetic:

mar sampla, what does a cough sound like? Or a laugh? If someone falls flat on his face, how's that sound?

Well, if it ain't based on Ó Dónaill, it aint worth squat in my book.

Ailín said, "Well, if it ain't based on Ó Dónaill, it aint worth squat in my book."???

but you have been telling about "níl fhiosa" and things like that??? Are they in Ó Dónaill's dictionary?

You give that dictionary an authority that it doesn't have. Dinneen's dictionary is more authoritative in terms of showing the historically correct spellings used by ***native speakers*** when Irish was used as a matter of course by much of the population.

I know people find it boring that this issue rears its ugly head all the time. But the CO is a form of Irish that was invented by a committee. Ó Dónaill's dictionary was compiled by a group of people, doubtless expert on their own dialects, but willing to be pliant servants of the state when it comes to creating a made-up conlang out of Irish.

True, snatches of all dialects are found in the example sentences, but then again - that just shows the lack of authority of this dictionary. "You was" is found among many English speakers, but authoritative dictionaries don't give examples of its usage.

I would say that Ó Dónaill's dictionary was close to being trash. How did they decide on which forms to include? How did they decide on the genders? And the morphology? Was it all taken from the largest real dialect, Galway? No. From Chorca Dhuibhne? No. From Múscraí? No. From Tory Island? That would be a no. Are they chosen on the basis of what was traditionally regarded as correct? That would be a no. In fact the forms seem to have been chosen to fit in with the published CO of 1958. There are numerous words that are incorrectly spelled in the dictionary. How about tráigh? It is found as trá? And the justification for excluding the final consonant, heard in Munster???? Well, what is it? What is the justification for stating that tráigh is correctly spelled trá?

Why is teinn spelled tinn in that dictionary? I could go on - the number of words incorrectly spelled in that dictionary number in the thousands probably. Because it is a dictionary of the national language - and even if some distinctions are not needed for some dialects, they are for others. Not all English speakers pronounce smith as /smiθ/. A large number say /smif/, and apparently the Irish have a "t" there... So if the Oxford English Dictionary decided to "update" the language, and make the spelling smiff, would that be correct? All the pronunciations may be derived from "smith", whereas writing all θ's as f's would mean the pronunciation of a large number of words could not be derived from the spelling, except where the word is pronounced smiff.

The dictionary is a dictionary for use by the people who Feargal Ó Bearra called "lucht an Bhéarla". I realise there is more than one point of view on the subject, but would other people do me the same courtesy? The reason my Dictionary of Cork Irish gives seana-chlódh for each entry is that, in fact, those were the correct spellings.

The role of a dictionary is not to change the standard language, and I am sympathetic to those who believe it should be not fully prescriptive, but descriptive too - probably taking a middle approach of showing how the educated classes write the language and not prescribing things they no longer use. But the CO when it came out did not "codify" the language as it was then being written, as proper grammars do, but sought to change it in line with a dog's breakfast of conflicting rules. Maybe by the time Ó Dónaill's dictionary came out, the CO had been sufficiently propagated for the compilers to "codify" what was being written at the time in 1977 - but that would be what was being written, mainly by learners, and mainly by writers of the CO...

Maybe Ailín can explain why it is "authoritative" for Ó Dónaill's dictionary to give Gaeilge as the nominative of the name of the language. Given that the spelling change removed "dh" in this word, this is Gaedhilge in the old script, with Gaedhilge pronounced /ge:lʹgʹə/ in Galway and /ge:liŋʹi/ in Cork, and variously elsewhere. It was in that spelling seen clearly as a genitive form everywhere, as the nominative, pronounced /ge:lʹgʹə/ in Galway and /ge:liŋʹ/ in Cork, was written Gaedhilg. So why is it "authoritative" to say that the nominative is "an Ghaedhilge" /ə(n) ɣe:lʹiŋʹi/? This dictionary is not the product of great scholarship at all, but of an attempt to dumb down the language.

Thank you for the chance to say my piece on this subject so dear to my heart. I will refrain from answering in this thread, as I have made my point, and don't want to offend Aonghus, Ailín, Seánw, and indeed many others, but particularly those who have attempted to help me so greatly.

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but you have been telling about "níl fhiosa" and things like that??? Are they in Ó Dónaill's dictionary?

Er, no, they're not, and your point being?? I don't have the same contempt for An Caighdeán Oifigiúil which you clearly have. As I've said before, I believe that the CO is necessary for official documents such as legislation which are aimed at as broad and diverse an audience as possible. I never use strict CO outside of that, here or in emails, for example. Indeed, the CO gives me the leeway to do so, to use non-standard but nonetheless historically correct form or forms or forms which are proven to be in use in a Gaeltacht area. All of this is stated in the introduction to the CO, if you or Taidhgín ("we should have respect for the CO on this forum . . .") in particular bothered to read it: "Tugann an caighdeán seo aitheantas ar leith d'fhoirmeacha agus do rialacha áirithe ach ní chuireann sé ceartfhoirmeacha eile ó bhail ná teir ná toirmeasc ar a n-úsáid". It further states that the forms chosen in the CO all conform to the norm of good speakers in some part of the Gaeltacht, apart from a few forms in the numbers. Among the basic directions adopted in choosing the various forms are that no form that does not have any standing in the living language of the Gaeltacht should be adopted, to choose among the most widely used forms in the Gaeltacht, to acknowledge the historical and literary forms and their importance, and to seek regularity and simplicity.

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You give that dictionary an authority that it doesn't have. Dinneen's dictionary is more authoritative in terms of showing the historically correct spellings used by ***native speakers*** when Irish was used as a matter of course by much of the population.

And Dinneen's spelling copied more or less from the classical poets was overall much less reflective of actual native speaker pronunciation than the current one is!

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Ó Dónaill's dictionary was compiled by a group of people, doubtless expert on their own dialects, but willing to be pliant servants of the state when it comes to creating a made-up conlang out of Irish.

"Made-up conlang"?! Oh, come off it, please!

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True, snatches of all dialects are found in the example sentences, but then again - that just shows the lack of authority of this dictionary. "You was" is found among many English speakers, but authoritative dictionaries don't give examples of its usage.

Now I really am confused. You're constantly on here telling us how you're adapting Ó Laoghaire's texts so that they don't stray too far from the CO which the average reader is familiar with and here you are lambasting Ó Dónaill. A little bit of consistancy in your reasoning mightn't go astray. You then complain about such colloquial forms as "You was" while writing "tá ag cur sneachtaidh" in another post. As I said before, forms such as "barraidh", "geataidh", "sneachtaidh", "pludaidh" ("-ig") are all entirely colloquial and arose from native speakers making analogies with forms ending in historic -adh giving -(a)idh in the genitive ("-ig"). The classical poets would have a seizure if they saw such colloquial "vulgarities"!

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I would say that Ó Dónaill's dictionary was close to being trash. How did they decide on which forms to include? How did they decide on the genders? And the morphology? Was it all taken from the largest real dialect, Galway? No. From Chorca Dhuibhne? No. From Múscraí? No. From Tory Island? That would be a no. Are they chosen on the basis of what was traditionally regarded as correct? That would be a no. In fact the forms seem to have been chosen to fit in with the published CO of 1958. There are numerous words that are incorrectly spelled in the dictionary. How about tráigh? It is found as trá? And the justification for excluding the final consonant, heard in Munster???? Well, what is it? What is the justification for stating that tráigh is correctly spelled trá?

"Trash"?! Let's see. Among those who worked on Ó Dónaill's dictionary were Séamas de Barra, Seosamh Ó Dálaigh, Séamus Ó Grianna and Pádraig Ua Maoileoin. Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Seán an Chóta, Seán Ó Ruadháin, Seán Ó Criomthain, Muintir Dhálaigh na hInise and others provided advice and assistance. So these people's work can be reduced to the level of "trash". Neither I nor you would be fit to stand in the shoes of any of those people!! Any standard spelling system is by necessity a compromise between varying forms. Ó Dónaill was no different. You ask about "trá". Well, "trá" is pronounced "trá" in two out of the three major dialects and so the CO did the logical thing and chose "trá" while giving "tráigh" as a variant form. "Tráigh" isn't always "tráig" in Munster particularly in placenames: Trá an Fhíona, Fionntrá, etc. As the CO states, they chose forms from all of the Gaeltachtaí.

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Why is teinn spelled tinn in that dictionary?

Same reason again. The CO is a compromise spelling system. It's /t'i:n'/ in two out of three of the main dialects.

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The dictionary is a dictionary for use by the people who Feargal Ó Bearra called "lucht an Bhéarla". I realise there is more than one point of view on the subject, but would other people do me the same courtesy? The reason my Dictionary of Cork Irish gives seana-chlódh for each entry is that, in fact, those were the correct spellings.

Yes, if you would show some courtesy to the individuals listed above! Recte: those were the historic spellings of the classical poets but this is the 21st century not the 15th!

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But the CO when it came out did not "codify" the language as it was then being written, as proper grammars do, but sought to change it in line with a dog's breakfast of conflicting rules. Maybe by the time Ó Dónaill's dictionary came out, the CO had been sufficiently propagated for the compilers to "codify" what was being written at the time in 1977 - but that would be what was being written, mainly by learners, and mainly by writers of the CO...

What are these conflicting rules you speak of?

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Maybe Ailín can explain why it is "authoritative" for Ó Dónaill's dictionary to give Gaeilge as the nominative of the name of the language. Given that the spelling change removed "dh" in this word, this is Gaedhilge in the old script, with Gaedhilge pronounced /ge:lʹgʹə/ in Galway and /ge:liŋʹi/ in Cork, and variously elsewhere. It was in that spelling seen clearly as a genitive form everywhere, as the nominative, pronounced /ge:lʹgʹə/ in Galway and /ge:liŋʹ/ in Cork, was written Gaedhilg. So why is it "authoritative" to say that the nominative is "an Ghaedhilge" /ə(n) ɣe:lʹiŋʹi/? This dictionary is not the product of great scholarship at all, but of an attempt to dumb down the language.

Again, the CO had a choice, and they went for "Gaeilge", being the Connachta form and, yes, was originally a genitive but now fossilised as a nominative in Connachta but that wouldn't be the only such genitive to be used as a nominative in the modern language. As I said, the CO allows me to write Gaelainn if I so wish. As for the lost "dh" are you seriously suggesting that we start writing "Gaedhlainn" again?! You're not serious, are you?

Does anyone know how the -dh- in Gaedhilg was pronounced?

Caithfidh mé a rá, ar eagla ar heagla - Niall Ó Dónaill was of course a native Irish speaker.

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(Message edited by brian_leisciúil on December 11, 2010)

Why Taidhgín should be included in this sentence by Carmanach escapes me:

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All of this is stated in the introduction to the CO, if you or Taidhgín ("we should have respect for the CO on this forum . . .") in particular bothered to read it:

Obviously people take this forum too seriously. It is only recreation among strangers for goodness' sake.

I have many copies of An CO and indeed of the descriptions of my favourite dialects. Do I refer to them? Of course I do. Am I familiar with the "teir ná toirmeasc" sentence? Of course I am. Will I scream in capital letters like a spoiled child if someone disagrees with me? Not a bit of it. Do I use dialect? Of course I do. For one thing I make a point of using every word learnt at home from my parents whether they appear in An CO or not. Some are neither in Ó Dónaill nor Dinneen. Secondly my pronunciation is as close to a particular dialect as I can get. It is not perfect but cé go ndeirim féin é it's good. I wish it were better but I'm working on it.

I am reminded of the late night "Adrian's Phone Show" on some radio channel or other where people argue to no purpose and abuse each other (in delightful Dublinese) until invariably someone says: "How can you say that about me? You don't even know me."

Those of us who have spent our lives speaking Irish don't need to be lectured by exponents of one particular form of Irish or another. However if people deliberately "muddy the waters" or "poison the well" by writing gibberish and presenting it as acceptable Irish from God knows where then I disagree with that. We should indeed have respect for the CO on this forum but also for our chosen dialect if we choose to write in dialect. I love the genuine article which is why I will never part with such books as "Seanchas an Táilliúra" -- "Na Rosa go Brách" -- Na hAird Ó Thuaidh -- Caint an tSean-Shaoil --(I know -seana-shaoghail) or Scéalta John Henry, Chill Ghallagáin, and scores of others.

Regarding the studies on which Ó Dónaill was based the work of an tAthair Colmán Ó hUallacháin should not be forgotten. Others will know better than I how he conducted a survey of the living Gaeltacht dialects to establish the most frequently used grammatical constructions etc and then the Department of Education got one of the Cigirí to produce Buntús Cainte, Bunsraith Gaeilge, and Téanam Ort.

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Why Taidhgín should be included in this sentence by Carmanach escapes me:

Er, because they are your own words, Taidhgín.

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I have many copies of An CO and indeed of the descriptions of my favourite dialects. Do I refer to them? Of course I do.

Your "favourite dialects"? But, only a few days ago you were telling us that you had no interest in the dialects nor in the historical development of the language but solely in "communicating". How many copies of the CO do you have? I have just one. I don't normally buy more than one copy of the same book, however stimulating it may be.

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Do I use dialect? Of course I do.

See above.

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Secondly my pronunciation is as close to a particular dialect as I can get. It is not perfect but cé go ndeirim féin é it's good. I wish it were better but I'm working on it.

See above. ". . . no interest in the dialects . . ." etc.

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Those of us who have spent our lives speaking Irish don't need to be lectured by exponents of one particular form of Irish or another.

Pray, do tell us, what are these forms of Irish in relation to which you are being lectured?

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However if people deliberately "muddy the waters" or "poison the well" by writing gibberish and presenting it as acceptable Irish from God knows where then I disagree with that.

"Gibberish"? "God knows where"? What do you mean exactly? I could be mistaken here, but it sounds to me like plain old anti-Gaeltacht bigotry.

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We should indeed have respect for the CO on this forum but also for our chosen dialect if we choose to write in dialect.

"... no interest in the dialects . . .", "gibberish", "God knows where".

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I love the genuine article which is why I will never part with such books as "Seanchas an Táilliúra" -- "Na Rosa go Brách" -- Na hAird Ó Thuaidh -- Caint an tSean-Shaoil --(I know -seana-shaoghail) or Scéalta John Henry, Chill Ghallagáin, and scores of others.

"... no interest in the dialects . . .", "gibberish", "God knows where", etc. etc.

Groan ... Osna ...