And as I already said, what's taught in the recordings in Buntús Cainte is already very close to what is used in Connemara. I'm only talking about the relative difference, i.e., Buntús pronunciation is closer to native Irish pronunciation than Urban. Urban is two linguistic steps away from native Irish (foreign phonemes + artificial grammar). Buntús is only one step away (artificial grammar).

The language is currently diverging away from the native dialects under the influence of English. It is true that there are plenty of other problems with the standard, but at least increasing people's awareness of native pronunciation and encouraging them to use the proper sounds is a first important step to stopping the divergence. Once that is achieved, we can then move towards fixing the other problems, including working toward the establishment of a living dialect as a standard.

Galltacht speakers and other learners need stepping stones and bridges to encourage them to approach the native language as well as to keep them from diverging towards English. By denying the validity of the middle ground, you risk alienating those learners from eventually seeking to learn the dialects with their wealth of culture and history.

(Crossed with Saoirse - and Lughaidh, I think the standard vs dialect discussion is getting us off topic, we are supposed to be talking about r's here. )

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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).

I suppose it's never too late till the last man out shuts the door, but let's face it, the Irish are not noted for doing anything right, just take our government and politicians, the health service, and all the rest of it, not to mention the language. Shambolic.
We must be honest about these things. I'll bet your average foreigner on here (I hope that word doesn't sound 'racist') must think we're a bunch of idiots with the mess we make of the simplist of things. Why not just get on with it ? I've been asked on more than one occasion by foreigners learning the language and wondering what the big problem is. The problem is us. We just don't have the Germanic, or American 'can-do' attitude. If we had have any sense we'd have hired the Israelis to do the job !
In my opinion the caighdeán BS was an unmitigated disaster from the get-go. It certainly isn't too late to ditch THAT ! It's occupied the waking hours of the powers that be for well nigh a century, and all for what ?
There should never have been a 'standard' invented, the dialects are not so different as to have had to do that. Some dialectical no-no's that were banned for years, have now recently been
okay'd. What a laugh, except who's laughing ?

I wouldn't mind if Donegal or Munster was chosen as a standard for learners or official documents. But obviously I think Conamara Irish should be taught in all schools in Conamara. The way it is now few are happy with it.

I can't really comment on the Lár-chanúint as I don't know how different it is to native speech.

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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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Isn't it better to learn a kind of Irish that is simply native Irish (zero step away from native Irish ).

I mean... Why has the Lárchanúint be created at all?

(btw in native Modern Irish it should be called "an chanúint láir"... even the name is artificial )

Concerning the r's : almost all native speakers use the one-tap (or sometimes several taps) alveolar r. And if English had never been spoken in Ireland, I guess no Irish speaker would ever had pronounced the Irish r's as the English ones (except English or American people who would be learnint it ).
And pronouncing one-tap alveolar r's makes Irish clearer and more beautiful.
3 good reasons to use this sound

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

It's great to speculate, but there are plenty of people from Munster and Donegal who already complain that that the standard is too Connemara-based (just as many Japanese people complain that standard Japanese is too Tokyo-based.) So although possibly better than an artificial standard, I'm not sure that adopting one dialect would be the cure-all some people think it would. You'd still have to find a subdialect that was acceptably accessible to all the other dialects.

I do agree that whatever the form of the standard, it shouldn't be used to the detriment of the surviving dialects and regional diversity. However, that problem could be just as bad with a native dialect as the standard as it is with an artificial standard. Optimally, regional dialects (and subdialects) should be taught in their respective regions but courses would have to be compiled to teach the specifics of those dialects and that would require a lot of resources that aren't availabel at the moment.


Here's a random sample from Buntús Cainte:

http://www.awyr.com/ILF/saewndfaylz/_BC/Ceacht_45.MP3

There's a sample conversation at 1:20. It's not pure native dialect but would you not agree it sounds much closer to native Irish than Urban?

Perhaps lárchanúint actually refers to something else?

All I know is that Buntús Cainte has the native sounds. Amongst standard courses that already exist and are easily accessible it doesn't feature Urban pronunciation. Although a native dialect is the best alternative, those courses don't exist except for certain less accessible subdialects. Until they do, we need to work with what we already have available. I feel that using the pronunciation in Buntús Cainte (whatever it is called) is preferable to using Urban.

What Lughaidh proposes are great overall long-term objectives but they can't realistically be achieved overnight. What I am suggesting is a small change in awareness that can be effected now within the existing infrastructure as a first step towards those longer-term goals.

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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 at least it would be a Gaeltacht dialect, so Gaeltacht people wouldn't think "those guys who translate stuff into Irish despise Gaeltacht Irish".



creating the caighdeán and putting it everywhere wasn't achieved overnight either. Sometimes we can even see people who write more or less in the old spelling.
I remember having seen in Gaoth Dobhair some handwritten sign saying "if the bookshop is closed, knock on the door of the next house" (it was in Irish but I can't remember the exact words), and the word "house" in the genitive was "toighe", and the guy who lived there was about 30 y.o. (I guess it was him who wrote that)...

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

I think that, if we insist on retaining pure and distinct dialects as all being "standards", we will lose the language as an entity, other than as a museum piece (or find ourselves with three distinct languages...which will, ultimately, result in the same thing).

The natural course of a language that hasn't been interfered with is for some kind of "middle dialect" to arise as a "standard" (with regional dialects being retained within their region).

I would prefer to see a mixture of dialects with, as Breandán has said, phonemes that are natural to the language, to (for want of a better word) "Gaeilgish."

What tends to be a good middle ground here in the U.S. (where many dialects of English exist side-by-side) is for the standard to be taught as precisely that -- a "standard" that is mutually intelligible and provides a common ground, and is thus useful -- without condemning regional variations.

Redwolf

that middle dialect is called Connachta Irish



What is true in the USA aren't true in Ireland, because the Irish dialects are in danger, I guess the American dialects of English are not. In Ireland, if they don't support the dialects and the Gaeltachtaí, the dialects might die because not all parents speak Irish to their children, and not all children want to speak Irish. And what they learn at school is not their dialect.

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

I don't think the standard itself is the problem. The real problem is dialect awareness, or the lack thereof. While I am all for Connacht Irish being the standard , it would kill the other dialects just as surely as the present CO if the other dialects are not also taught to students in general.

Likewise, I agree that students in a particular dialect region should be taught predominantly in their own dialect, but unless they are also given plenty of exposure to the dialect of the standard and to other dialects, and children/learners from other regions exposure to theirs, they'll end up finding their own dialect only "works" locally and probably drop it anyway, as happens in English.

One very real problem with the present CO seems to be that you can't use your own dialect in an examination situation. That problem would be just as bad if the present CO were replaced by a specific dialect. (That is not to say that replacing the present CO with a natural dialect wouldn't solve other problems such as unnatural word formation and anglicised idioms.)

But in the meantime, as I have said several times, that's a hypothetical. The reality for the present is that we have to deal with an artificial CO, and we have to work with the materials we have, but at least if we work to keep the CO pronunciation in line with the natural dialects, it won't diverge into a separate language and Saoirse's goal of priming the next generation to make the language their own won't be at odds with the goal of preserving the natural dialects.

Which brings me back to the point I have been making - that within the scope of the ever-so-unpopular CO - at least Buntús Cainte pronunciation retains the natural sounds of Irish (including the r's) and is preferable over Urban pronunciation.

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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).

it depends. In countries like Germany or Sweden or Italy, people speak their dialect in their area and standard with people from elsewhere...



in written exams, all dialects should be accepted... For oral ones, I don't know but when I was at the university, we were allowed to speak as we liked, only written language had to be standard. But I think dialects should be allowed in the written exams too. The problem is that native speakers aren't taught to write in their dialect.

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