While I have time: if you hear someone speaking Irish and heavily pronouncing Rs like English language Rs, would this mean they learned Irish via non-Gaeltacht schooling? Or is that some modern change?

Grma

A

It started out as the former - anglicised pronunciation as a result of teaching in public schools by (enthusiastic but poorly trained) non-native teachers in schools - but now it is creeping back into the next generation of young native speakers who feel embarassed to speak properly at school in front of their non-native peers, who vastly out number them.

Some Galltacht speakers who don't want to "sound like hicks" feel they need their own dialect and mistakenly force their English accents into Irish pronunciation. This is sometimes called "Urban".

There is an alternative standard pronunciation called lárchanúint (literally "middle dialect"), which retains the native phonemes without dialect-specific markers but avoids anglicising the phonemes. A good example of this is found in Buntús Cainte (still available through bookstores and also as an online course).

Although lárchanúint is not popular among native speakers because of its "artificiality" and lack of blas, it is still considered more faithful to traditional Irish than Urban.

To anyone who doesn't want to learn a specific dialect but also don't want to sound like a school Irish speaker or a "foreigner" who learned Irish, I highly recommend learning (or re-learning) lárchanúint from Buntús Cainte (that way you'll only be a short step away from learning a real dialect should you choose to do so later. )

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

if you pronounce the "lárchanúint" with the proper Irish sounds, you'll still sound like a learner or a foreigner because the "lárchanúint", in its grammar, vocabulary etc, doesn't correspond exactly to any natural dialect
That's why, in my opinion, if you want to learn Irish, choose a dialect and learn it

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I agree that a real dialect is preferable to either lárchanúint _or_ Urban, but (until such time as a real dialect is formally established as a standard - and I don't like your chances of that ever happening) is it not better that people aim at least for retaining the native phonemes in the language instead of using English ones?

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

yes but if you do the effort of using the real sounds, why wouldn't you also use a real dialect? Why staying halfway?

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Lughaidh, it is called compromise. You'll learn about it as you get older.

We are talking about an entire country about to lose its language. The lárchanúint could be a stepping stone to the dialects. If you hypotheticaly moved all of the native speakers into one geographically location to interact with each other, they would naturally develop an intermediate dialect anyway. It is what happens naturally in cities normally and how most standards evolve from their natural dialects.

In Ireland's case, the dialects have been broken up and geographically separated before a lárchanúint could develop naturally. Now instead the three remaining dialects are being swamped by an ocean of English. If you don't compromise, you may as well kiss goodbye to the native phonemes and say hello to Urban.

But looking at it another way, the lárchanúint in Buntús Cainte is really just the Connemara dialect pronunciation that you were recommending anyway - or at least not far from it.

In the formation of any standard, there is going to be a little readjustment to a median form. Wouldn't it be better (relatively speaking) to have the lárchanúint as the median form than the anglicised form?

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Breandán, an seanduine críonna.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Why thank you, Bríd. I read somewhere "seanduine" is what they call the youngest male in the household, so I guess I am being put in my place.

Seriously, though, putting aside the proposal that everyone should speak native Connemara Irish (which I agree is the best solution of all), don't you think it is better (or at least less bad) when people try to use the traditional sounds instead of using the English ones?

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

As I already said, to me, only Gaeltacht dialects should be taught, there's no need of an artifical dialect.
They should have chosen Connemara Irish as standard language for the few things that are meant to be read by all Irish speakers, and then everything should be done to promote and to use the living dialects in as many contexts as possible.

Promoting and teaching an artificial dialect is just like saying "your Gaeltacht dialect isn't worth teaching or writing".



I'm not sure. We Bretons are well-known for being obstinate

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

All joking aside, do you think that people with the other dialects would have ever have agreed to this? My feeling is - as an outsider admittedly - that if one dialect had originally been chosen as the 'standard', the others dialects would have felt rejected, unworthy, whatever. Rather then do that, they treated all the dialects sort of equally i.e. irritated everyone.

I am wondering now, at this stage, would there be a greater chance that speakers from all of the dialects would agree to focus on one, rather than risk losing them all? It's may well be too late at this stage anyway......

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