Talk:Irish language/Archive 3

message: I'm not going to attempt to re-write the section on Irish in Education, but I think some one should.
I once attended a lecture given by a guy who's mother only spoke Castillian Spanish, and whose father insisted on speaking only Irish to his children. This guy drew attention to many ways in which Castillian and Irish are similar to each other and different from English. For instance, both have two verbs for "to be"; one for things which are temporarily true, and one for things which are always true.
Finish, Estonian and Hungarian are said by academics to share many features with Celtic languages which other European languages do not have, e.g. agglutination.
An Irish speaker of English would surely find it easier to manage a correct Irish accent than a correct accent for other languages.
While Hiberno-English is dying out, children would probably have some exposure to it, and that would surely aid in learning Irish.
:It's true both Irish and Spanish have different ways of expressing the verb "to be"; Spanish has two verbs, and Irish has one verb and one particle that isn't a verb (although most teaching grammars tell you it is). It is not true, however, that the Celtic languages are agglutinative in the sense that the Finno-Ugric languages are. It is true that Hiberno-English and Irish have had a lot of phonological influence on each other (in both directions!). It is not true that Hiberno-English is dying out, as it's the native language of the vast majority of the Republic of Ireland. (Ulster English doesn't necessarily count as Hiberno-English.) Angr (talk • contribs) 18:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh? Hiberno-English is, by definition, the dialect of English spoken in Ireland, so it is not going to "die out" unless English-speaking in Ireland dies out. I suggest you dry your eyes.--feline1 10:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Even if you use Hiberno-English to refer to vocabulary and usage rather than pronunciation, I still don't think it's dying out. I'm American and lived in Dublin for a few months in 2000, and the difference between the English I heard there and what I know from the U.S. and from Britain was very great, and it wasn't only pronunciation -- it was lexicon (wtf is a press as a piece of furniture? No one but the Irish know!) and usage (Do you not?, Amn't I?) as well. Angr (talk • [Special:Contributions/Angr|contribs]]) 23:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Dying out" not in that more people don't use any distinctive features, but rather that the average number of such features per idiolect is declining.  I doubt the number will ever reach zero: "sure", "amn't I", and "haitch" are proud totems.  Obviously, outsiders notice those that remain, not those that are disappearing.  And I would speculate that the vocabulary that survives is more likely to be Saxon/Norman rather than Gaelic(/Norse?) in origin. jnestorius(talk) 08:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well any time I'm back on the streets of Belfast at chucking-out-time, surrounded by LAALLLLLLLLLTAYYY! spides schlabberin away and knacking maey ballex in, leek, I thought be given the impression that even if Hiberno-English is "dying", this is only to produce a legion of unstoppable zombies...--feline1 08:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Is Irish more difficult to learn than other European languages?

message: It has been discovered on  WP:RFCU that , , , ,  and  , ,  are all socks.  has been engaging in sockpuppetry to further the wikipedian strength of his POV on this and other pages. Moreover,  is a suspected sock, but may be just, if Bluegold was telling the truth on the investigation page, Bluegold's work colleague trying to help him out. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 19:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confirmed Sockpuppetry 

message: Is that not just a pseudo phonetic rendering of the Scottish English  pronunciation  of the Gaelic?
An approximation of the Gaelic ] plus typical Scots use of the definite article. Gay lick being a spelling pronunciation?
84.135.251.67 22:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know, but the sentence was at any rate both misleading and irrelevant to an article about Irish, so I've removed it. Angr (talk • contribs) 22:28, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Gallic

message: Someone changed the sentence - "There are many more small sayings that have crept into the English language as spoken in Ireland." to "There are many more small sayings that have crept into the English language as spoken in Irish." 
This doesn't make any sense so to avoid confusion I changed it to "that have crept into Hiberno-English" with a link to the relevant page. Dave 22:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irish language today

message: Why is the UK listed in addition to Northern Ireland? Shouldn't it be one or the other, since the UK includes Northern Ireland (and clicking Northern Ireland brings up an article stating "Northern Ireland is one of the four constituent entities of the United Kingdom")? Perhaps the author was intending to convey the fact that the language is spoken in both the six counties and on mainland Britain, and got their terminology mixed up? At present, it makes as much sense as listing Massachussetts as well as United States. 81.104.160.179 04:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "United Kingdom"

message: I'd like to see a source for saying it is spoken in Australia. Honestly, if you're going to say that, you might as well just say the world, because I've lived here for twenty two years and I can't say for certain that I've EVER heard Gaelic in real life. 203.87.35.107 07:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, sounds incredibly fishy, maybe we should take it out to be sure Fabhcún 09:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok I had a look at the austrailian census and it appears that irish was not one of the language choises on the cenus in 2001, I don't see how we can justify Irish being spoken in Autrailia, I mean what counts, 2 people? Fabhcún 09:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

text: What about replacing Austraila with and other countries because i am sure these clubs exsist aroung the world Fabhcún 16:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think a list of countries where Irish is spoken should include countries where it's only learned as a foreign language. Otherwise English would be said to be spoken in every country on the planet, which is hardly useful. We should only list countries that have some nonnegligible number of people who regularly speak Irish at home. Angr (talk) 16:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia? 

message: Come on!  No article on a language is complete without a description of the phonology!  I want to see a chart of consonats and vowels! 65.102.39.98 21:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It has a separate article. See Irish phonology. User:Angr 07:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Phonology

message: For anyone with an interest in the history of the Irish language in independent Ireland, then Bunreacht na hÉireann: A study of the Irish text (PDF 4.3MB) gives a good background in the decision making during the early years of independence very much to to the present day; with an emphasis on the constitution and the law. The appendix includes the enrolled Irish text of the constitution in Gaelic script (as distinct from the standardised Roman script in popular editions), but be warned it contains old and new spellings in the enrolled text, the significance of which are explained in the report. Djegan 21:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, I typeset the Irish text. :-) Evertype 22:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bunreacht na hÉireann: A study of the Irish text

message: The article says that the Irish Language is usually referred to as "irish" in English.  I'm not sure about this, because I invariably hear "gaelic" where I live. AdamBiswanger1 23:41, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That isn't really true, is it? "Irish Gaelic" is still used quite a lot, although "Gaelic" in no context would most likely refer to "Goidelic" or Scottish. I should add, for what it's worth, that I have an Irish friend, early 20s, who almost always calls it just "Gaelic" (pronouncing it Gay'lik). Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 15:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since Gaelic originally means Irish, for the people of Ireland were na Gaeil,  would using the term Irish Gaelic be like saying Irish Irish? I think Irish people call it Irish or Gaeilge, or Gaelic in that order, never Irish Gaelic, that is unless they were discussing the different gaelic languages. --86.42.128.41 15:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Really? When did Gaelic mean Irish? Does this mean, then, that Gaeltacht means "Ireland" and Gaeltachtaí means "Irelands"? Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 16:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some say it's from Welsh Gwyddel, while others claim it's from the word Gallaecia.  Whatever the origin it referred to people from Ireland, I suppose.--86.42.133.26 16:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, and Gaelic-speakers from Scotland of course. The word Eireannach was not in the Irish language for no reason. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 16:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I miss your point, did they not come from Ireland.--86.42.133.26 16:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As a university student of Irish, in Ireland, I can say that in my experience the Irish language is invariably refered to as "Irish" by academics, students and the general public alike. As regards Gaeltacht meaning Ireland, no, it does not translate directly, the nearest English equivalent is when we refer to "Anglophone" or "Francophone" countries etc, in the modern context it refers to the language spoken and not as a territorial name. An Rinn is a gaeltacht, which does not mean it is an Ireland, it is merely a reference to language. hope that helps --Stevecull 21:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gaelic

message: I'm glad Djegan reverted the edits done here. I'm all in favour of bilingualism, but it has to be consistent. The pages on, say, French, German, Tibetan etc. would also need to have the titles in both languages. Unfortunately, the Irish in the translatations that Djegan edited out was wrong at least as often as it was right.  At the momemt I suggest we stick to using English titles in the English version. JdeJ 10:08, 06 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bilingual terms

message: It was announced in 2003, but I don't believe it was ever published. Evertype 06:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Qur'an in Irish 

message: A "broad" consonant is referred to in the article, but it is not explained.
Broad and slender consonants are a fundamental feature of the Irish language and could, in theory at least, lead to misunderstandings if misapplied, in a way that the difference between the T in the standard British and USian pronunciation of "tune" could not. 
In the British pronunciation of "tune" the T is followed by a yod (a hint of the semivowel normally represented by "Y") which causes it to be spoken with a narrower shaping of the mouth than the USian version. This sound is what would be referred to in Irish as a "slender consonant", while the USian pronunciation is closer (but not identical) to the Irish "broad" T (in which the tongue taps just behind the teeth rather than a little further back, as it would in English).
Broad and slender consonants (or consonant groups) must be both preceded and followed by a "broad" or "slender" vowel. Broad vowels are the back vowels--a, o and u and ao. Slender vowels are the front vowels--e and i. As a result Irish is liberally loaded with both broad and slender glide vowels, some of them barely audible to English speakers unfamiliar with Irish. An interesting example is the two variant spellings of the girl's name Níamh--also sometimes written Naoibh. They could both be crudely transliterated into English as "Neev", but they differ in that the Níamh starts with a slender consonant and ends with broad one, whereas Naoibh starts with a broad consonant and ends with a slender one. Exceptions to this rule are rare.
Mutations of final broad consonants into slender ones have an important grammatical role. For instance the Nominative/accusative case of the Irish version of the name James is Séamus, while the vocative is Shéamuis. The same thing occurs in Scottish Gaelic, which is very closely related. The pronunciation is almost the same, even though the spelling is slightly different: Séumas becomes Shéumuis. When giving this name to their sons, English speakers of Irish decent have tended to preferred to call them Seamus (pronounced "Shamus"), the nominative/accusative form, whereas those of Scottish decent tend to use the vocative form--Hamish.
I don't know what the correct technical term is for this broad/slender vowel thing is, but it obviously bears comparison with vowel harmony. If anybody could link articles on all these things together and explain exactly what the connection is, that would be good. Ireneshusband 09:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is discussed in excruciating detail at Irish phonology. —Angr 09:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broad and slender vowels and consonants 

message: I'm planning on making this the language of the month of October for Portal:Language. Which picture should I use? It's going to be small, but it has to be aesthetic and informative. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture for Portal 

message: Am I correct in thinking I heard that recently either the Falls or West Belfast had in some way become an officially-recognised Gaeltacht? Should this not be noted in the article? --Mal 00:23, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Falls/West Belfast