Ciarán12 wrote:
It may well contain the “proper sounds” of Irish as it was spoken in that area. How would you know, you've never heard that kind of Irish before. I do take your point somewhat about using the correct sounds, I would just like to note here – I do make a distinction between broad and slender consonants, I do pronounce “ch” and “gh”as velar fricatives.
No Hiberno-English of Ireland represents the correct pronunciation of Irish for their respected areas, now they have accents that represent the Irish (to an extant but not the correct pronunciation)- this is something I argued from the outset when I said Dublin people don't have to change their accents to be able to pronounce Irish properly. I never implied that you can't pronounce Irish properly, I have never heard you speak Irish, I don't know, its great you were taught correct pronunciation- most others are not. I am just speaking from experience from growing up with the Caighdeán and how we weren't taught how to speak properly and from listening to learner-speakers from every part of Ireland on television and other media.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
That's like me learning Spanish and only using the sounds and features that I know from English and ignoring everything else because I don't want to sound to like a spanish person! What I am getting from your response is you would impoverish your own Irish rather than pronouncing things properly because you think its to Gaeltachtish because it doesn't suite your accent, which is in English????
Ciarán12 wrote:
It's not the same, and to say so is the same as saying that Dublin people's accents are no more Irish than English people's, which is why we get offended. If you spoke a kind of English that used a Spanish accent, then using that accent to speak Spanish would be fine.
Just to start off, Dublin English and accent is just as much a Hiberno-English dialect than any other)- but its exactly that, a dialect of English, even though it has some feature like "it does be", its completely different language to Irish. A Cork Irish learner (with the strongest possible Cork accent) who is not taught proper pronunciation will pronounce Irish incorrectly still just the same as any other person- because its natural to fall back on the cognates of your 1st language i.e English.
Ciarán12 wrote:
Like I said, I know what the differences are between broad and slender consonants and I know why they are important.
Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by this:
Ciarán12 wrote:
I know which phonological features I'm comfortable with say (without making it feel like I'm "putting on a Gaeltacht accent") and which ones I choose to retain from my native accent (to give my Irish a Dublin flavour). Maybe these would be different for other people.”
What exactly do you mean when you say which features you are comfortable with and which ones that don't suit you?
Ciarán12 wrote:
The Caighdeán surely has it's uses as a lingua franca amongst the dialects though, what's wrong with having a standard language that doesn't give priority to any one group of people? The problem isn't the caighdeán itself, it's the fact that it's being enforce on people who already have a native dialect of Irish or who have cultural connections to a specific dialect. I don't think the caighdeán should be given priority over the dialects, but I certainly don't think I should have to learn a dialect that has nothing to do with me.
Not for me it doesn't, as regards a lingua Franca, we can understand each other just fine without the Caighdeán, all that's needed is a bit more awareness between the dialects, which raidió na Gaeltachta provides and some other TG4 programmes like Comhrá. All the Caighdeán does is alienate the the dialects from each other, by not having any Dialectal Irish in circulation by standardising everything and so on.
Ciarán12 wrote:
According to An Lon Dubh it's “Conas 'tá tú?”. Not to far off “Conas atá tú?”, is it?
They must have spoken Swahili there so too
, no, in light what Lon Dubh said I entirely withdraw my statement. That's brilliant! I am delighted
!
Ciarán12 wrote:
Given what you've said about the censorship of the dialects in print, I can see your point, but everywhere I look I see people complaining about the lack of attention to the dialects, how they're “real” Irish (and by extention mine is “not real”), yet I've never come across anything but people who through the word “Galltacht” around like it's perfectly acceptable, who brag about how great the almight native speakers are, how we Dubliners are just a bunch of West-Brit Jackeens, and through about my education I only hever had native speakers who were expounding the virtues of their dialects, so forgive me if I can't see how it's actually them who're being discriminated against.
I consider you just as Irish as me!
The complaint of the lack of attention to Gaeltachts is well justified! They're going down the road of Leinster Irish. What people mean when they say "real" is the language has had an unbroken, natural transition from the time Irish was brought to these Islands to today, with, gradual influences taken in from Latin, Norman French, Norsk and English over a span of 1500yrs. These adoptions were carried out by native speakers of Irish. The Caighdeán is for a want of a better word a pseudo-language that was created in an office, its the language of the learning majority of Irish speakers. Its also the language of the current revival, there has never been as much literature written in Irish as there is currently (which is great), but much of what is written is just English in disguise, full of English idioms rather than Irish ones. It is inevitable that the Caighdeán would become full of English idioms and pronunciation as its the language of the learner, whose first language is English. I am also a learner so it is natural for me to make those mistakes as well, but I try not to and I try to make myself aware of them. (I am not suggesting you speak bad Irish either)
The language of native speakers found in books written in the 30s is just incredible, the way they express themselves, the language they use. In my opinion we have gone way back in regard to standards since then. Its the language of these people that should be the exemplary of modern Irish. Now while modern Gaeltacht Irish is still removed from the Irish of the 30s except from older native speakers, it is still way closer to 30s Irish than modern Irish. When people say "real" and "unreal" they are just expressing this very difference in standards- they are not trying to be disrespectful, just factual and sometimes the truth hurts, its hurts for me too because I am not a native speaker, but I have heard real older native speakers and I endeavor to rise myself to their standards.
You have to ask yourself at what point does Irish become just English in disguise. Many people, like me are romanticists who wish that the language these people spoke could be revived, this will never happen because most people don't care, or they don't know about it.
Ciarán12 wrote:
The problem is that there isn't enough Leinster Irish left to fully revive. We would need a structure to base it on, and I think the caighdeán could be useful for that.
Ok, I don't mind people using caighdeán grammar- was its correct and not just wish washed with English syntax and once the proper pronunciation of Irish is taught.
Ciarán12 wrote:
That's fine, I agree with you, like I said – I want the dialects to survive too, but talking about some Irish being “real” and others not and using terms like “Galltacht” is not helping endear your cause to people. The State should definitely stop trying to enforce the caighdeán on people who have their own dialect, but the vast majority of the country doesn't, so why should they want to learn a dialect?
I would actually think that people living in Connacht would like to learn a form of Connacht Irish, Munster etc... and Ulster etc... rather than learning an artificial language, which they have been doing, even being made think that they are learning Irish as it was spoken by native speakers, and when they come across something that is actually a feature of their original dialect they ignore it thinking- oh that must be a feature of a different dialect. I wouldn't shove my dialect down anyone's throat because that's one of the main reasons I have been turned off the standard. I bet, if you were given the choice now you would chose to learn a form of Leinster Irish, which has been revived through the use of manuscripts of the late 1600s (not early because you had Classical Irish before that- which was the standard of Irish used by Irish learned poets) 1700s and 1800s. You can learn the way they treat prepositions and features that are unique to Leinster Irish from these manuscripts. If I was a leinster person I would much rather learn that then the standard (which is basically mostly taking Connacht Irish (as its seen as the bridge between Munster and Ulster) and adding features of Munster and Ulster Irish (Ulster Irish is nearly void in the Caighdeán). Not just that but manipulating their concoction to the point where it becomes neither of the 3 remaining dialects.
Ciarán12 wrote:
Irish is wrapped up in identity. That's the reason most people want to learn it, which is what makes the situation completely different from when someone is learning a foreign language. Hiberno-English, through it's many dialects and sociolects, allows everyone in the country to have a way of speaking that is their own. The way I speak English shows that I'm not only Irish, but from Dublin and from a specific Socio-Economic group within Dublin. That's pretty specific. Irish can't be that specific. There's no form of Irish that I can speak that can carry all of that information. So we need to foster the growth of dialects that can, so that the Irish language can better fit the matrix of social and regional identities in the country.
Of course it can, I can differentiate in Irish between a Kerry speaker, a Cork speaker and a speaker from Ring very simply. There isn't a class strata as defined, as there is in Hiberno-English, because not enough people speak dialectal Irish for this to occur, but it did exist- for instance in Ring, when Michéal Ó Síothcháin was collecting samples for his comprehensive study of Ring Irish
Sean-Chaint na nDéise between the years 1906-1922 he noticed a slight difference in the "enunciation and tone" between the fishermen of Baile na nGall and the richer in comparison farming class. Though he puts this down to the idea that the fisherman could have come from further afield and the difference is just a representation of this. But it also could just as easily be remnants of markers of social difference.
Ciarán12 wrote:
Otherwise it's like trying to fit everyone into three groups (Munster, Ulster and Connacht Irish), and when that happens I get a pretty raw deal; I could scarcely be from further away from any of those dialects, so none of them represent me at all well. Maybe now you understand why it's aggravating for me to be told that I can't speak “proper” Irish unless I am willing to fit into one of those groups.
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I understand what you are saying perfectly well, however, you may be able to pronounce and speak properly but the vast majority of learners cannot-because they haven't been taught to and they are under the misconception that the way the pronounce is just their dialect! And, I say again you don't have to change your accent to a Conamara or any Gaeltacht accent so you can pronounce words correctly! The fact of the matter is learners Irish is very much associated with Béarlachas and poor pronunciation practices.
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Of course! Thanks Breandán!
Seems like a pretty aggressive question to me....... 