Talk:Irish language/Archive 6

Bilingual official documents?

"All official documents of the Irish Government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (this is according to the official languages act 2003, which is enforced by "an comisinéir teanga", the language ombudsman)."

Don't think that this is the case....can we have some evidence?Eog1916 (talk) 10:51, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Not all, but many: http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2003/a3203.pdf ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.114.185 (talk) 00:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

This is in the official languages act, have you even looked at it? It is true, I bought a copy of this act in government publications in Dublin, maybe you should read the act before making such ignorant statements, read the act and you will be proven wrong194.46.234.121 (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Removal of pronounciation guides

The pronounciation of the word "Gaelic" is purely subjective. A scottish person may say ['gælɪk], but many others (such as americans) may say ['geɪlɪk]. The only reason that some people in Ireland say ['gælɪk] when referring to Scottish Gaelic is because they're imitating the Scottish pronounciation. If you were to say "The Gaelic of Ireland" or "The Gaelic of Scotland" instead, the word "gaelic" wouldn't change. What does anyone else think? Stephen Shaw (talk) 19:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The Americans I know say ['gælɪk] when they're talking about Scottish Gaelic and ['geɪlɪk] when they're talking about Irish Gaelic. The same goes for the Scots and the Irish people I know. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 19:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

In the same way, Many Americans (and Canadians) that I know would say ['geɪlɪk] throughout. As I've said before, it's subjective Stephen Shaw (talk) 12:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, "Gaelic" is not used much at all. Irish people call Irish Irish and Scots Gaelic Scots Gaelic ('geɪlɪk). --Gronky (talk) 21:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

In Irish Gaelic we say 'Gaeilge na hÉireann' for Irish Gaelic and 'Gaeilge na hAlban' for Scottish Gaelic. I think thet Scottish Gaelic speakers say 'Gàidhlig na h-Alba, and Gàidhlig na h-Eireann. So one would expect an Irish or a Scottish person speaking in English to refer to the Gaelic language of Ireland and Scotland as Gaelic. Their pronounciation of the word Gaelic would of course reflect regional accents.Eog1916 (talk) 16:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that we should acknowledge the use of the word "Gaelic" (it is actually used quite often internationally to distiguish between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. What I disagree with is telling people how to pronounce the word. There are many, many accents in English, and all would pronounce the word slightly differently. Take the word "potato". If we (for some strange reason!) wanted to talk about the potatoes of Scotland as opposed to those of Ireland, we wouldn't deliberately pronounce the word in a scottish accent. I know it's a dodgy analogy, but it's all that I can think of! Stephen Shaw (talk) 20:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Names of the Language: In English

The entry states that "Gaelic or the Gaelic is often used by the older generation and by the Irish diaspora but now rarely by Irish learners of the language themselves." Is there any source evidence that it is legitimately called "Gaelic or the Gaelic" in English by older people resident in the Republic? Because I have never, ever heard this term used here. It is Irish in English and Gailge in Irish. I understand how the name of the language was mangled into "Gaelic" in other English speaking countries via the diaspora and continues outside of Ireland today, but saying this term is used by Irish people in Ireland gives it a credibility that I do not believe it has.

Failing the emergence of the needed citation, I would prefer to edit this statement out. DarlingBri (talk) 11:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I've personally heard plenty of Gaelgóirí reference "Gaelic" when labelling the language in English. It may be a hard one to source, but I suppose under WP:VER it's probably required. Apart from my own experience, I would also offer this link. It is not offered as a verifying reference for inclusion in the article. Just as a support to my "anecdotal" comment above. Guliolopez (talk) 13:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

No, that's fine, and maybe it's a regional thing as well. Perhaps:

The official name of the language in English as framed by the Constitution is Irish. Throughout Ireland, the language is most often referred to as Irish by speakers, learners and in popular culture. Gaelic or the Gaelic is more commonly used to identify the language by members of the Irish diaspora and their descendants, and less commonly by native Irish speakers in Ireland. Linguistically, Gaelic more accurately refers to the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages, of which Irish is only one instance. DarlingBri (talk) 14:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

In The Aran Islands, John Millington Synge, himself an Irishman, uses both terms "Irish" and "Gaelic" interchangeably to refer to the language. The Gaelic League originated in Ireland but didn't call itself the "Irish League" in English, perhaps partly because that name would have made it less clear that the league's focus of interest was the language. And, anecdotally, the first time I was in Ireland (1995) I was in a bookshop and asked an older man (then probably in his late 60s/early 70s) if there were any books in Irish there, and he said, "You mean Gaelic?" —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 16:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Anecdotally too, I take statements such as "most Irish people call it Irish" with a pinch of salt, as I do with any statements where ideological issues are at stake. Most Irish people I personally know call it Gaelic very innocently and have been surprised when I've told them that [according to wikipedians] "Gaelic" is old fashioned. That said, these days I usually call it "Irish" or "Irish Gaelic", because "Gaelic" to me means Scottish Gaelic and its often necessary to avoid confusing the two. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm absolutely happy to be schooled - I really just want the entry to be clear and accurate and if possible, deal with the confusing fact that Gaelic is (or is more accurately, or is also) the grouping of Irish/Manx/SG. It seems that we have determined that the term is in use, is still current, and it is not the exclusive domain of older people in Ireland. Would my suggested rewrite above at 14:20 cover this adequately? DarlingBri (talk) 16:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the proposed change is fine. I would however change "and less commonly by native Irish speakers in Ireland", to "and also by native Irish speakers in Ireland". Cheers Guliolopez (talk) 16:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to see some kind of statistical evidence for such an assertion. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

"It is Irish in English and Gailge in Irish." In my experience, it is mostly called Irish, and less often called Gaelic, and I was fluent in Irish in the 1960s. May mum who was super-fluent, of Kinvara all-Irish school 1930s, mostly called it Irish, and sometimes "Gaelic". I believe they called it "Irish" (Erse) in Scotland up until about 1800 or so. So, when speaking English, it's either "Irish" or "Gaelic" or even "Gailge". After all, we were bi-lingual for many years, and officially still are. 78.19.42.188 (talk) 21:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

From about 1500 until 1750 Scottish Gaelic was often called Erse, yes. Not really relevant though. Statistical evidence is really necessary for this kind of claim and is the only way of verifying such info beyond taking a anecdotal straw poll on wiki. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I live in the Connamara gaeltacht and speak irish fluently daily and we never referred to it by anything other than Gaeilge NOT Gaelic...just wanted to add that if it helps with the discussion. When people moved over here from England and went to my school they said Gaelic at first but I believe that the majority of speakers (my gaeltacht at least) say Gaeilge when referring to the languageNisior (talk) 21:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Also I need to stress that it is Gaeilge NOT Gailge...that is just misspelling it!!!Nisior (talk) 21:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you call it "Gaeilge" even when you're speaking English? —Angr 22:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

When I speak English I call it Irish...Gaelic would remind me more of the Irish they have in Scotland rather than the Irish in Ireland. I'm not saying this is correct but it is what it reminds me of. My Granddad, a man who was born in the early 1900s and spoke Irish all his life, said that he hadn't heard the word "Gaelic" til well into the 50s when he went to ScotlandNisior (talk) 19:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The Irish government does not control the English language name of the language; English dictionaries largely reflect usage, rather than the "decision" of governments. Gaelic is sometimes used by native speakers to refer to the language, and Gaelainn is translated as "Gaelic" throughout in Cyril Ceirin's translation of Peadar Ua Laoghaire's Mo Sgéal Féin. It **is** Gaelic, but there are 3 varieties of Gaelic, and so the term Gaelic is a bit ambiguous, and, in order to play the green card, the Irish government refers to it as Irish, although doing precious little to help the language otherwise. The most correct term would be Irish Gaelic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.52.25.121 (talk) 12:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Indirectly, though, the government does control the English name of the language: by making sure that all English-language references to the language in schools, laws, and everything else they have control over uses the word "Irish", they ensure that ordinary people are most familiar with the name "Irish" when speaking English. —Angr 13:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Gaeltacht

In the Gaeltacht section it mentions the Connemara, Carraroe and Spiddal areas of the Gaeltacht in Galway but i'm not sure about this wording because both Carraroe and Spiddal are IN Connemara. Am I just over-analizing this?!Nisior (talk) 21:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

There seem to be broader and narrower definitions of Connemara around. Under the narrower definition of Connemara, Carraroe might not be included and Spiddal definitely isn't. Spiddal is in Cois Fhairrge, and in one of the books describing the Cois Fhairrge dialect, there's a sample sentence of someone telling the linguist "The Irish they speak in Connemara is different from ours", indicating he at least did not consider CF to be part of Connemara. But that was probably 70 years ago now, and maybe today people are more comfortable with the broader definition of Connemara as "the entire Gaeltacht of mainland County Galway". —Angr 22:40, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I accept that Angr has done a lot to the page, but many of his edits amount to Vandalism. Or he changes 10 things of which 2 were valid and the other 8 vandalism. It is not POV that the new spelling of Irish does not depict Munster pronunciation well. He asked for a source, but HIS OWN PAGE SAYS THAT BIA DOES NOT DEPICT THE MUNSTER PRONUNCIATION WELL, AS MUNSTER PRONUNCIATION ENDS IN A CONSONANT. This is just vandalism. If you want a source, see the Irish of West Muskerry for a description of Cork Irish, or see Teach Yourself Irish by Myles Dillon. My sentence saying the new spelling does not serve Munster well was followed immediately by an example. Crua: how does this show the Munster pronunciation of cruaidh? Bia: how does this show the Munster pronunciation of bidh? There are other examples: Laoire: according to the rules of pronunciation in IWM an "aoi" is pronounced with an /i:/ in Cork, but this word has /e:/. Why??? Because it was originally not Laoire but Laoghaire... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.52.25.121 (talk) 13:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Angr's edits do not constitute vandalism; he just disagrees with your edits. In terms of the different pronunciations, every language has many dialects and variations on pronunciation. It would be impossible to provide a pronunciation guide to all, so that's why the "standard" is usually provided. Kman543210 (talk) 13:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Your comment is a non sequitur. I know there are dialects in any language. Irish has not real "standard" - the government has no locus standi in the selection of standard forms, but has claimed the right to choose basilectal forms as the standard. That is NOT what my comment above was about. To reiterate for your benefit, my comment above was about how he deleted my sentence on the basis that there was no source, whereas an example of what I was saying IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED. Are you able to comment on this without another non sequitur? I don't know to insert citations, but I can put some citations in once I find out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.52.25.121 (talk) 13:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

He also deleted my correction of the Munster pronunciation of Gaelainn. I think the existing IPA refers to Kerry and my IPA refers to Cork. But his existing form had no source!! I can give a source for mine - the vocabulary index with IPA transcription of Teach Yourself Irish by Myles Dillon. Where is Angr's source? In fact, where is his justification even in Kerry Irish for transcribing Gaelainn as ...əɲ and not ...iɲ. Admittedly my source is for Cork Irish (the Irish of West Muskerry by Brian Ó Cuív), but my source shows that the neutral vowel before the soft consonant becomes an i. That is a natural development is you think about it too. 116.52.25.121 (talk) 13:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for adding sources, although I still think your additions about the inadequacy of Caighdeán spelling to reflect dialectal pronunciations is something of an off-topic rant. A general encyclopedia article about the Irish language does not need a lengthy complaint about standardized spelling that, whatever its disadvantages, isn't going away. As for the transcription of the pronunciation of Gaelainn, I was actually indicating the Cork pronunciation, because [ɲ] is the "slender ng" sound (see Irish phonology and Help:IPA for Irish). The "slender n" sound used in Kerry is [nʲ]. It's true Irish does not have a standard pronunciation, but it does have a standard written form, so we do stick to that when discussing non-pronunciation aspects of the language. —Angr 16:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Angr, if you take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_nasal, you will see that [ɲ] is not the slender ng sound, but a slender n sound. This is just wrong on the Help:IPA for Irish page. I am familiar with the IPA and so I knew in advance what this symbol stands for. I said it is "a" slender n sound, because there is a difference between [ɲ] and [nʲ], although it is not important for Munster, but in Connacht and Ulster varieties they do distinguish between the former (tense and slender n) and the latter (lax and slender n). I do not accept that the government's "Standard" Irish is at all standard - it has chosen ungrammatical forms as its "standard" - although I am not denying the Irish government has abused its position by foisting ungrammatical forms on the Irish nation's children. As far as I am concerned the CO is nonsense, as is the new spelling. What I wrote is just undeniably the case: it is just not possible to write down Munster words without veering away from the official spellings, because everything has been geared towards Galway. It is like making Cockney "Standard" English. 222.221.157.212 (talk) 14:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)The fact that the CO grammar and the new spellings are not entirely accepted is worth mentioning as an objective fact in any encyclopaedic article on Irish. You could not compare the situation to standard English for example, where a genuinely accepted standard exists. 222.221.157.212 (talk) 14:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

In the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Ailbhe Ní Chasaide uses [ɲ] to stand for the initial consonant of ngiall and [n̠ʲ] for the "tense" slender n of nigh and léinn (see Irish phonology#References for the full bibliographical info). This is because [ɲ] has the same place of articulation as [c] and [ɟ], which she uses for ciall and giall respectively. This has been discussed repeatedly at Talk:Irish phonology – the slender velars of Irish are consistently described as palatals or palato-velars in the literature, and using the symbols from the IPA's palatal row is appropriate. If you can find published sources discussing the non-acceptance of the Caighdeán, they can be added, but it must not appear that Wikipedia's editorial voice itself is coming out in favor of either side of the issue. (Incidentally, the Caighdeán doesn't reflect Galway Irish particularly well either. It's the nature of a good compromise that it leaves everyone equally unhappy.) —Angr 16:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

That is quite frankly rubbish. The IPA sounds are not sounds that vary as much as you say. Palato-velars do not have the same place of articulation as palatals - not unless you have a one-centimetre long mouth. You are implying t-like sounds and k-like sounds can share the same symbol; if so, then the IPA is of no value whatsoever. You just call into question your use of [ɟ] - the page you linked to shows clearly someone has told you before this represents the Hungarian sound gy, which is more of a soft g than an Irish slender g. It is not up to Ailbhe Ní Chasaide to make it up as she goes along. The Handbook of the IPA may contain her entry, but given few people at the IPA are native speakers of Irish, they probably have no idea whether what she is writing is correct or not. She is wrong to use any of those sounds unless the the sound in ngiall is the same as that in French signe and Spanish niño. Discussed repeatedly at Talk:Irish phonology?? Er, no. Just lots of paragraphs of you insisting you are right. That's not a discussion. Published sources on non-acceptance of the Caighdeán - well, if you speak Irish you must know that Standard Irish does not have the acceptance of other more natural standard languages. So I take what you say to be a politically charged opinion, trying to prevent reasonable setting out of the facts. Yes, there are sources that can be cited, eg the Irish News discussion quoted on Ó Duibhin's site at http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/mcq/ulsterirish.htm. Did you think I wouldn't be able to think of any sources? Sorry to disappoint you! Much of your content on the Irish language page is not verified by sources. I could add 50 tags asking for sources. Where are your sources to say Irish is taught as a second language in the Gaeltacht? But I don't want to vandalise the site by inserting tags to demand sources for things that everyone in the Irish learning field knows is true - I would just be getting you at it! Honestly, what a tart you are! You ask for sources to show the Caighdeán is not accepted, and then you have the brassneck to say "it is a compromise that is leaves everyone unhappy". Er.... er.... then you do know that the acceptance of Standard Irish is not the same as in other languages, as you just admitted so out of your own mouth! Could you say "Standard English is a compromise that leaves everyone unhappy?" You haven't a leg to stand on. On that site cited above, Ciaran Ó Duibhin is published in the press as saying: "Séamus Ó Searcaigh warned about this side-effect of standardisation in 1953, when he wrote that what will emerge will be Gaedhilg nach mbéidh suim againn inntí mar nár fhás sí go nádúrtha as an teangaidh a thug Gaedhil go hÉirinn (Irish which is of no interest to us, for it has not developed naturally from the language brought to Ireland by the Gaels)." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.221.157.212 (talk • contribs) 19:54, 5 July 2008

Why should Spanish and French get to decide what the symbol [ɲ] means rather than Icelandic and Turkish? Those languages use the palatal symbols to represent the same sounds as in Irish. And as I pointed out at Talk:Irish phonology, many sources describe the Irish sounds not as palato-velars but as straightforward palatals. No source describes the Connacht/Ulster slender nn as a straightforward palatal, only as an alveo-palatal. You take what I say to be a politically charged opinion? No, the politically charged opinion is yours. I don't care about the Caighdéan one way or the other, I'm just a linguist. I actually did expect you to be able to find sources saying the Caighdeán has met disapproval, which was a fact I was aware of long before you showed up here. I have never denied that the Caighdeán has met disapproval; saying "please add sources" doesn't mean "I don't think you'd be able to add sources". The point is you have to add the information in a neutral way - not saying "the Caighdeán is inadequate because of A, B, and C" and adding links to sources showing that the genitive of bia in Munster is bídh, but rather saying "the Caighdeán has met resistance/disapproval from native speakers" and adding links to sources that discuss that resistance/disapproval. —Angr 06:45, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. Spanish and French dont decide what any arbitrary symbol means. Neither do Icelandic. This is getting anthropomorphic. The languages are not people. Why do I have to explain this to do? Is "Icelandic" a sentient being? It is -- read this carefully -- HUMAN BEINGS who use symbols to mean things. Any symbol can mean anything. If you want to use [ɲ] to represent z, that is fine, but then IPA transcription will not mean anything if very different sounds are being used by people with the same symbols. There is broad and narrow transcription, eg r sounds can often be represente as [r], although in narrow transcription this is just for an Italian-style r, and for other r's in narrow transcription, you will want to use [ɹ], [ʋ], [ʁ] or [ɾ] and others. But the use of symbols [c], and [ɟ], [ɲ] to represent palato-velars in Irish negates their usage to represent alveo-palatal sounds in other languages. Quite symply, back palatal sounds sound like k, and front palatal sounds sound like t. So it is not a question of narrow or broad transcription, but of re-using the same symbols for very different sounds. It is just a matter of convenience which languages use which sounds, but once the symbol is widely used for many dozens of languages, it creates confusion to say "but for Irish we are going to use it for something else". You can see a whole list of languages that the palatal nasal is used for at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_nasal - note, you may want to vandalize that page, as someone has suggested that seinn in Scottish Gaelic uses this sound. Even worse, the distinction between a front palatal and back palatal nasal occurs in Irish dialects, so it is not just comparison between languages that is effected, but also comparison within the language. I am not going to add the Irish News links in -- if you feel so inclined, you now know where the source can be found.

The fact that you refer to the addition of information you personally disagree with as "vandalism" really tells me all I need to know about how serious you are about contributing to the encyclopedia. —Angr 12:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Classical Modern Irish

I am the unregistered user on palatal nasals above. I have registered now. Also see my discussion on your Irish syntax page. I have now realised that you are the Andrew Green whose PDFs on the Internet actually helped me a lot when I first started learning Irish. Can I say that of all the Irish pages here, the lack of anything on Classical Modern Irish is the most glaring gap, but there are not many resources on that from of Irish. I mean the Irish of people like Seathrún Céitinn. The only resource I know is the chapter in Irish on it in Stair na Gaelainne. Do you know of any sources for that? Djronnqvist (talk) 08:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

All we have on Classical Modern Irish is at History of the Irish language#Early Modern Irish. —Angr 21:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Reality Check

I know that this is a sensitive subject, but I'm not sure if the article gives a realistic picture. Certainly in my home town in south-east Ireland, Irish is never heard on the street. I asked a friend, who teaches Irish and speaks it fluently, what would happen if he spoke Irish in the local supermarket, and he replied in one word, "don't". There are Irish books in the library, but apparently only English people borrow them. The second language is Polish.

Somewhere in the article it's mentioned that there was government encouragement to speak English. That is not true. English is merely "an official language". Irish is The Official Language. To join the garda or become a lawyer you have to pass a test in Irish. Anyone arrested or on trial has a right to be heard in Irish. Oddly enough medical doctors have to demonstrate competence in English, not Irish.

Le dea-mhéin. Millbanks (talk) 08:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Polish is most certainly not the second language. I think you should have used some sarcasm tags there. I wouldn't assign your limited experience in the south-east a value greater than it has. Of course Irish is in decline but I think your exaggeration isn't helping anything. For the record I too live in the south-east. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.161.6 (talk) 14:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Douglas Hyde

The reference to Douglas Hyde's speech in his native Roscommon dialect is interesting, since Mr Hyde was not a native speaker of Irish. Millbanks (talk) 08:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Standardisation

The village I live in has three "official" Gaelic names, one used by An Post; one on maps; and one by the highways department on signs. It dosn't merit any brown tourist signs, but sometimes you'll see these on top of highways signs, but with different Gaelic spellings Millbanks (talk) 09:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced statements

I put in a few dozen {{fact|date=July 2008} links just to show just how many unsourced statements there are in this page. Angr seems to use demanding sources for well-known facts - facts that he often admits he knows to be true on the discussion page - to "control" editing of the page in any direction he doesn't like, but his existing page contains dozens of unsourced statements. Let's put in {{fact|date=July 2008} for every unsourced statement on the page. It would be a huge job to find sources for the large number of {{fact|date=July 2008} links already there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djronnqvist (talk • contribs) 01:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC) Many of the existing "sources" in this page are to other web pages... but that is not the same as providing an academic source for statements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djronnqvist (talk • contribs) 01:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC) Many of the existing "sources" in this page are to other web pages... but that is not the same as providing an academic source for statements. Many of the sources are just absurd: whatever it says on Ethnologue, 355,000 is a very high number for "fluent" speakers in Ireland, which makes you wonder what their definition of fluency is. Similarly many of the sources are.... other Wikipedia pages. Someone on Daltaí posted recently to say how he visited the Canadian so-called Gaeltacht, but found there is no one living there - construction has not even started. It is just a road leading to an empty field, but Angr has stated that Irish is "spoken" in this empty field in Canada, and his source? Why, a link to the Wikipedia page on the Canadian Gaeltacht! Well, that proves it then!!Djronnqvist (talk) 01:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC) You know, Andrew, I was going to help out improving all the Irish pages, incl Irish syntax and Munster Irish, but, you know what? I can't be bothered. I am not adding anything else. Delete what you like but you're on your own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djronnqvist (talk • contribs) 01:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

(1) What makes you think I'm the one who added the link to the Canadian Gaeltacht? I actually tried to keep that fantasy out of here, but when sources were added I gave up. (2) Requesting sources is fine as long as you're not just doing so to prove a point. (3) What makes you think this is "my" page at all? The vast majority of the material on this page was not written by me. Of all the text you added {{fact}} tags to, the only part I wrote is "Before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled Gaedhilge; originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in classical Modern Irish". (4) Why do you keep calling me "Andrew"? That isn't my name. You must be confusing me with User:AndrewCarnie. —Angr 06:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

"Angr" is right. When the "official version" was imposed in the 1950s and 1960s, in a well-intentioned attempt to homogenize and modernize the language, it had the effect of alienating older speakers who felt unable to help school-children with their homework. That helped the decline of the everyday use of the language; such is life. Can I provide a reference? No, but that was my primary school class's experience in the late 1950s.86.42.203.68 (talk) 13:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Munster conservatism

Much is made in the Dialects section of the supposed conservatism of the Munster dialect and the innovativeness of the Caighdeán Oifigiúil. Unfortunately, sources do not bear these observations out. For example, it is claimed that Munster still uses a distinct dative case, and that the Caighdeán's use of cara ("friend") in the dative in place of caraid is artificial and unknown in Gaeltacht usage. However, in Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne, Diarmuid Ó Sé says that in the Kerry variety of Munster at least, use of the dative singular is quite limited ("teoranta go maith") and use of the dative plural is very limited ("an-teoranta"; both on p. 85). On p. 131 he also lists cara as belonging to the class of nouns that are uninflected in the singular, indicating that this variety of Munster at least is less conservative than the CO in having "an chara" as the genitive singular as opposed to CO "an charad" (a more conservative form), not to mention using "don chara" (not "don charaid") as the dative singular. —Angr 07:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Bia(dh)

The rant in the "Orthography and pronunciation" about the old spelling biadh/genitive biaidh vs. the new spelling bia/genitive bia ("food") is true as far as it goes, but it's misleading. In Munster, the nominative is [bʲiə] and the genitive is [bʲiːɟ], which was adequately (if slightly imperfectly) represented by the older spelling, since word-final slender "dh" regularly represents [ɟ] in Munster. However, according to Diarmuid Ó Sé in Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne (pp. 116-17), the Kerry variety of Munster at least has other nouns whose genitives end in [ɟ] that were never spelled with final dh, such as sneachta "snow" and geata "gate". Even before the introduction of the Caighdeán Oifigiúil, these words were uninflected in the singular in standard written Irish, producing a disparity between written an tsneachta "of the snow" / an gheata "of the gate" and spoken Munster [ənʲ tʲnʲaxt̪ˠɪɟ] / [ənʲ jat̪ˠɪɟ]. (So much for Munster conservatism!) The current disparity between written an bhia "of the food" and spoken [ənʲ vʲiːɟ] is not really any worse than that. When writing in Munster dialect, it is of course always possible to deviate from the standard and write an tsneachtaidh, an gheataidh, an bhídh. —Angr 07:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)