Here's a link to the NPR radio program on the UCSC tongue study, for which I was briefly interviewed and sang a song. I haven't had a listen yet, so I hope I didn't murder things too badly!

http://kazu.org/post/ucsc-linguists-use ... t-language

I listened and you sound fine, Red. The show does make Irish sound a bit more like one of those native American tongues that have three elderly speakers left than it should, but it's good for it to be discussed at all I guess.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

One thing I found funny is they apparently used some kind of voice-recognition software to render the printed article...it's the only way I can think of that the words "beo" and "bó" and the woman's name (I don't know what her actual name is, but I'm guessing from the pronunciation that it's something like "Ní Chosáin") could have been so mangled ("bule," "bul," and "ni chosen," respectively).

Redwolf

One aspect of the interview that I found rather odd was the assumption that one could just translate traditional songs to English (most of that conversation got left out of the broadcast). It surprises me how few people seem to realize how much you stand to lose when you translate poetry from one language to another. Yes it can be done (I've heard a decent, singable version of Éamon a' Chnoic in English, for example), but it's not a minor thing, and the particular idioms used in the original are often completely lost, and with them, the song's link to its Gaelic roots grows tenuous.

Another thing we talked about that didn't make it into the broadcast is why people who don't live in Ireland would want to learn Irish (I mentioned heritage as a major reason).

He also asked me how difficult the language is to learn (that's always a hard one to address!) and if much of its presumed difficulty is due to the broad and slender sounds that the researchers are studying. I told him that, in my opinion, those sounds aren't the biggest challenge (I mentioned that all languages have sounds that may not occur in one's native language and that, with practice and a lot of listening, students eventually get them down). I said that, in my experience, the first thing new learners worry about is spelling and pronunciation. Once they get fast the initial "how do you get that sound from those letters?" reaction, the next thing that scares them is verbs (primarily because of the whole "yes/no" thing). I concluded by saying that, in my opinion, the most challenging part of learning the language is learning correct idiom, because Irish uses modes of expression that are very different from what we're accustomed to in English.

Redwolf

Well done Redwolf, can well imagine the recording apparatus putting some people off. Just being interviewed puts the blood pressure up. What an amazing study they have undertaken. Thanks for making yourself available to them.

JulieA

There's a few things off with this:

a) 'Ancient Language' and nearly '2000 years' old -it's a modern language and is the same age is English, Russian etc

b) UCSC researchers are 'trying to save it' -how can they save it by doing a little research on it?

c) The guy's example of 'beo' is more like 'bey-o'

d) The BBC example doesn't include a native speaker...

e) Although they don't imply this, you might get the impression that the sound contrasts are not currently understood

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

I've never completely understood the reason for the UCSC study, personally. Unless they plan to make this data available to learners, it doesn't do much more than document the details of pronunciation. It certainly doesn't do much to "save the language"...if they want to do that, they should be LEARNING the language, and interacting with other Irish speakers, both in Ireland and elsewhere.

It's an odd situation. We have a few Irish speakers (and quite a few Irish learners) here in Santa Cruz County, and there's quite a thriving Irish language community over the hill in the East Bay and San Francisco areas, yet the people who study Irish at UCSC never really engage with us. I sometimes get the impression that they think of Irish as a museum piece to be studied for historical purposes rather than a living language.

The "contemporary language" argument is true, but if you take the Old and Middle Irish periods into account (and for English, the Old and Middle English periods), Irish is considerably older.

Redwolf

Only in writing. But writing != language. All of the Indo-European ages are equally as old, if you wanna be honest: they all come from Proto-Indo-European.

Can you explain?

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

That's an awful shame. I have never understood the idea of an adult learning a language and then never jumping at opportunities to use it in 'real life'. Our local scheme Cill Dara le Gaeilge (http://www.cilldaralegaeilge.ie) is trying to encourage people to use whatever cúpla focal they have and there are now three weekly ciorcal comhrá(s) in Naas. How cool is that!

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