Alex,

I've never said that the rest of the course was bad. In fact, I've praised it and said it was perhaps the best chance we have at reversing the trend of Irish; it's really come a long way. However, I have a major issue with the audio, and that's what I've repeatedly said. Also, before today, I did not know that you (or any of the moderators) had no input on the audio (apart from saying, at one point, that she "sounds native"... which is where the basis of my "ignorance" comment and the questioning of you being a native speaker came from, because I personally think it's quite clear she's not a native), or I would have laid off of pestering y'all about it; it was really never even alluded to. Lancet's comments in the first one made me think y'all had input over it. That is honestly my mistake; I thought you had more input with that, and now I'd like to hear feedback from Duolingo. I just wish they'd be better themselves at communicating with us.

As for native, I remain skeptical, but that's more due to the issue with heritage speakers calling themselves native than anything else.

TL;DR: I really had no idea you didn't have any input in the audio. Nor have I trashed the course in general, outside of the audio. Now, I just wish Duolingo themselves would respond.

You are very welcome Lancet.

The forum is for everybody who has an interest in the Irish language or culture.

I don't want to add more fuel, but I have a few questions and a few opinions


The issue people are talking about is a lexico-grammatical one, not an audio or technical one. It seems like your hands are tied but you feel it would be more difficult to say so. Maybe it would be awkward to admit a mistake was made. I don't know. I don't have to worry about the feelings of a mass of people.



Do you mean native of any language or of Irish itself? Given the woman employed is not pronouncing things native or naturally, doesn't it mean ignorance, incompetence or negligence on the part of a few people. I'm not attacking your project and it's none of my business, but since it's on here, well one can comment (I haven't taken to Duolingo to say anything)


-Wikipedia "Irish Phonology"
It's as obvious as the difference between a supermodel and a burns victim the difference, so neglecting to get the right person was an oversight. I can also imagine the voice artist -young, urban aand confident and believing herself a 'native' and no idea the difference existed either.

Below are an example of words. Not all are everyday words, but when Irish was in a healthy state, with 4 L sounds and 4 N sounds, masculine (red) and feminine (blue) and verb (orange) would be easily separated (by fortis and lenis as well). (It's true the vowels can be a bit different, but shorts vowels are not so important, it's the consonants that are key)
lann -blade. lonn -fierceness. lonn -anger, rage. lon -ouzel family (lon dubh etc) [separate f you have a fourth n]
lionn -body humors (ancient medicine). leann, lionn -ale. lean -follow [separate f you have a fourth n]. leann -mantle/coat of mail
lainn -keen; severe. loinn -joy, gladness [only in phases, likely feminine)
linn -pool

Now I know, not a list of everyday words, nor would learners be expected to be that sensitive and native dialects show lengthening (Connemara) and diphthonization (Munster) before some of the consonants, but it is an example of purely dictionary seperation, never mind actual speech(vocatives, genitives and plurals)


-Liamog on DuoLingo
Actually, it's not. There are ample records from Ulster of the wearing away of the broad fricative as well as the slender variety (Tyrone especially) and in Mayo, initial ch could be seen to be replaced by 'f'. For example, chuaigh Muiredeach go dtí an loch maith [xuaj mur'@d'@x g,d'iNLox max'] could be huaigh Muiredea' go dtí an la' with no great loss in meaning, while with 'don bhfear' and 'don bhfir', confusion would be a bigger problem. You could say there is a difference between saliency and notice-ability . Broad and slender are not as obvious for everyone but are more salient as compared to the more noticeable broad ch and broad gh people sometimes worry about

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

One other thing, placing the job of reviving Irish on DuoLingo is a lot of expectation, as some people seem to say, is a bit too much surely!

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

The video is full of buzzwords and he strikes me as the enthusiastic type that in another time would have entered the priesthood hoping to 'make a difference'. It's all positivity and little practicality. Never mind that a school that purported to teach Spanish or Russian would fail in doing that and leave the students to make their sort of prison cant is completely incompetent while conflating natives, heritage speakers, learners and Gaelscoil kids together seems rather pointless and is the cohort is what? A false, heterogeneous and nebulous 'entity' whose sub-groups have little intercontact.

I think Gaelscoil is interesting in itself and on its own merits, but it can't be the same an teanga dhúchasach, and I chose that adjective deliberately -it's not just native but the natural 'leader' and model to follow, IMO.

Of course, each to their own opinion

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

No need for that.

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Ah, you're right, really. But I think Duolingo could be a good resource to get people the basics of the language, especially if the pronunciation was fixed. From there, they can actually converse; it'd be great to use in schools for this reason.