Above an beyond as alway XD thanks guys that's really great... I asked because I heard the English Rs being use on TG4 and didn't think it sounded very good. I wish they'd at least try and get the pronunciation as it should be ah well

Grma!!!
A

Agreed. I'd like to see more work done on that - using the modern spelling to represent the dialect words properly. For instance, I have recently come across sean-nduine to represent the silent d in Connemara.

(The old spelling is also lovely to look at, gives a historic context to the derivation of the word, and usually fits all dialects, but it doesn't really give an indication of how the word is actually pronounced - and often each dialect has its own way of "bending" it. )

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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. It would be easy for dialectologists. Btw that's what I do with Donegal Irish , and that's what I did in my Irish-French and French-Irish dictionary.



yeah, I think we should spell it that way. In Ulster too, we say "sean-nduine" (and "achan nduine").
I read in An Teanga Bheo, that Donegal Irish distinguishes "sean-duine" (an old person) from "sean-nduine" (an old man). If you write in the CO, you can't know which one "seanduine" means...

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

I know I'm new here (this is actually my second post), and I don't want to go picking any fights, but I have to say I find the comments made about the "Galltacht" and Irish-speakers and learners therein quite offensive, speaking as a member of said community. Naturally, people in Dublin want to use there own accents when they speak Irish (our accents are Irish accents you know!), as we don't feel we should have to imitate someone else's pronunciation (as if it were a foreign language, which it is not). We are proud of where we are from, and proud of our accents (which are no more "English" than the accents used by people speaking English in Gaeltacht areas). You're right in saying that there is no longer a form of Irish native to Dublin (something very painful to me, and for which we get no sympathy from the Gaeltacht speakers, rather condemnation for not growing up in an Irish speaking are (as if I had a choice!)). But the way to convince the nearly 2 million people who live in and around Dublin that they should be proud of the language and want to learn it is NOT by forcing them to sound like they are from somewhere else. They need a form of Irish they can call their own, and speaking as a Dubliner, I'd much rather learn something "artificial" that is unique to me and my fellow Dubliners and which is based on our idiosyncrasies and what's left of the Irish language as we spoke it than learn something that essentially says "in order to be Irish, and speak the national language, you must pretend to be from Connemara". To speakers from the Gaeltacht I say "It's my heritage too, and I won't let you claim the language as yours so that you can exclude me from it". One of the main problems is that people think that by advocating "school-Irish" I'm saying that Gaeltacht speakers are wrong and should stop speaking like that. Far from it, I wish them well, and when I see learners from other countries interested in the dialects I feel glad to think that the dialects will grow an flourish, but that doesn't mean that I have to learn them, I'm interested in MY dialect and I don't appreciate derogatory remarks about it (nor is there any need for them, my speaking Irish with a Dublin accent is no threat to other dialects, it's contributing the the wealth of variety in the language).

Whoops, sorry for the double post...

I had the duplicate deleted and then spotted your apology! Maybe you feel so passionately about the subject that you wanted to emphasise it by repeating it!
Welcome to ILF!

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Thanks for the welcome. I double posted because I haven't quite gotten used to the layout of the forum here yet, so I messed up.

Thanks for your contribution, a Chiaráin.

Our comments were for people interested in keeping traditional Irish alive, to help them improve their Irish without destroying the essence of the language itself. Using English pronunciation to pronounce Irish is like speaking Franglais, it is great fun and if it leads to more interest in the real language down the line, that's great, but it shouldn't be mistaken for a new dialect or taught as part of any course.

I can understand if you feel "I'm a Dubliner, I don't want to speak like someone from Connemara" but it shouldn't be an excuse for lazy pronunciation. That's just a cop-out for not wanting to learn the language properly. If people in Dublin want to start a new language, fair play to them, but they should give it a new name - a few candidates already exist, i.e., Urban Irish, Gaeilgish - so that it isn't confused with real Irish. It certainly shouldn't be taught as "Irish" in courses, any more than Pidgin English (Tok Pisin) should be taught as standard English.

You don't save a language by changing it into something it isn't. You don't have to put on a "blas" to speak Irish but you can at least use the traditional sounds. If you want "your own dialect" it can still be done with traditional sounds without anglicizing them and destroying the essence of what makes Irish beautiful and distinct from other languages. Buntús Cainte shows how it can be done. Using English pronunciation instead of the traditional sounds just makes a mockery of the language.

I'm sorry if Urban speakers find these comments offensive, but we feel passionate about helping people keep Irish Irish and not turning it into English.

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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).

You're welcome, and I hope to make many more.



I hardly think using some slightly different phonemes counts as "destroying the essence of the language itself". Don't you think you're being a bit dramatic there?



It's not the same. If there were people somewhere who spoke a variety of English that had been influenced (above all in phonology) by French (the language those people spoke before they were Anglicised), would it be so wrong for them to apply this Franco-English accent to their French? Surely their accent would represent the accent of the French that was spoken there before they became Anglicised (particularly if this accent was demonstrably different from any accents of English from England). This is the case for Irish. In Dublin we speak English with an accent completely different from any in England, so where did this come from? I would say it must have come from the Irish spoken there before the English arrived.



There's nothing "lazy" about it. I could easily mimic the accent of a Connemara man. But why should I? I, and many of the speakers in Dublin that I have come across, have made a choice not to mimic their accents, much as I would not expect someone from Connemara to mimic ours.



Mimicking someones accent is the easiest part of language learning. If you think an accent is the part most deserving attention, then I think you are sorely mistaken. As I've said, I could easily mimic the accent, I choose not to.



Here's where you get offensive again, and again you are massively exaggerating. Do I not speak "real" English because I don't sound like the queen of England? If you think so, I think you need to take a trip back to the 19th Century and join all the other prescriptivists. The people in Dublin wish to speak a dialect of Irish which is as different from those spoken in the other provinces as they are from each other. We have a strong sense of identity as Dubliners, something which I think anyone from anywhere in Ireland can identify with. What we'd really like is to never have lost Leinster Irish, but we did, and now we'd like to have Neo-Leinster Irish (basically, use what little we know about Leinster Irish, what can be gleaned from the way we speak English (look for substrate features) and use CO for everything else. This to me would be a legitimate form of Irish.



Again, you exaggerate. I never said it should be taught to anyone outside of Dublin, but telling Dubliners that they must impersonate someone from another part of the country to speak Irish correctly is, for many people, as good as saying we're not as Irish as they are. Hence why I'm offended.



Languages develop and change. Saving the existing dialects is a worthy cause, and one I encourage people to pursue, but Dubliners speaking their own kind of Irish doesn't detract from the revival of the dialects. Why should Connemara Irish be spoken in Dublin? We spoke Leinster Irish (or some form thereof) when the language was still spoken there, so why should we wish to revive that? I really don't see the problem; Connemara people should continue to make efforts to increase the amount of people speaking Connemara Irish in Connacht, ditto Munster Irish and Munster and Ulster Irish and Ulster, but why shouldn't people in Leinster want to revive their own dialect?



You're going to have to explain this. An accent is made up of a certain set of phones used for a certain set of phonemes, so I don't know what you consider "the traditional sounds" and what falls under using your own "blas".



There's a lot more that makes Irish beautiful and distinct that a little phonology. A LOT more. Phonology is something that changes from dialect to dialect in any language. It's fickle. It's cursory. The deeper differences are at the level of vocabulary and grammar. That's what makes Irish really distinct.



You seem to be way too hung up about phonology. Saying things like "just makes a mockery of the language" makes me think that you don't really appreciate the true, deeper differences of the grammar and vocab. Irish has so much more than just a different sound to it.



We don't want to turn it into English either. We think that the accent we use is as Irish as any other, it's the grammar and vocab we use that's English. Our accent sounds nothing like any in England, it's a home-grown Irish phenomenon, one we're proud of, and the only place it could have come from was the Irish that was spoken in Dublin before the English arrived.

Fáilte is fiche a Chiarán

I have to disagree with you about how easy it is to mimic accents in another language. My own experience from learning Irish and talking to learners of English is that it's very difficult to put on a convincing native accent. I don't think there is any need to consciously put on a Dublin accent when you speak Irish. If you learn Gaeltacht Irish, you will still sound like a Dubliner to the locals in Conamara or wherever.

The idea of reviving the extinct Leinster dialects is something I would love to see, but I'm very pessimistic about that ever happening.

Edit: Which is correct, "a Chiarán" or "a Chiaráin"?

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.