An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
(your basing your Dublin accent which you speak through English as a means of measuring what would your dialect of Irish be capable of-that doesn't work, although it might contain the same rhythm it wont contain the proper sounds associated with Irish)
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.
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????
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.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
You might say big deal what's the difference between distinguishing between slender and broad consonants, well slender consonants are often used amoug words of the 1st declension to pluralise or in the tuiseal ginideach uatha, how can you differentiate when they don't sound the same.
Like I said, I know what the differences are between broad and slender consonants and I know why they are important.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
kinda guessed that when I noticed that your entry, where you originally introduced yourself, you used the treatment of the réamhfhocal as an Ulster speaker would- that is using the tabharthach system of séimhiúing nearly everything as opposed to the cuspóireach (urúing) method that is used in Munster and Connacht, this occured when the tuiseal cuspóireach died out and the réamhfhocal that where previously assigned to Cuspóireach, tabharthach or both, in old Irish, fell in on each other and created a mess.
You mean from this? -
Ciarán12 wrote:
Dia daoibh! Is mise Ciarán, is as Baile Átha Cliath mé féin, agus táim ag lorg áite nua inár bhféidir liom mo chuid Gaelige a chleachtadh agus a fheabhsú. Tá súil agam go mbeidh mé in ann rud éigin suimiúil nó úsáideach a chur leis an fhóram seo. Slán libh!
The only part in what I wrote there that I can think of that might have given you that impression is “
leis an fhóram”. I'm still very much a learner, so the way I write things is not necessarily a decision I made, it might be a mistake or just the most frequently used way I've come across. Would you say “
leis an bhfóram”? For example, I couldn't decide which was better the other day; “sa bhfóram” or “san fhóram”. Yet I know I would definitely say “ar an mbord” not “ar an bhord”, so there may be an inconsistancy there.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
"Conas atá tú" is a made up term that some fella in an office devised during the 1950s-, where he took a munster variant and applied standardised grammar, its not real Irish, it has no historical heritage, or had no native speakers before 1950- Is that a real language to you?, If so why?! And anyway if you say "conas atá tú", it makes you like the vast majority of students stretching from Ulster to Munster so it makes you sound like you're from no area at all
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.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
I'd say you have a better chance in finding out that they spoke Swahili rather than they said "Conas atá tú"!
According to An Lon Dubh it's “
Conas 'tá tú?”. Not to far off “Conas atá tú?”, is it?
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
The Folklore commission recorded native Leinster speakers in the 30s. There was a clip on you tube but I can't find it now of a man from Meath (before Conamara people arrived) telling a story about when he was younger and he was "ar bhuachailleacht"- minding cows and instead he went fishing and his dad was quite angry when he got home! Breandán or anyone else, if this rings a bell see can ye find it because I can't at all. The man's Irish was vastly similar to that of the present Gaeltachts with its deep gutteral sounds and pronunciation.
I would be very interested in seeing this, if anyone finds the video.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
Dublin Irish was probably similar in the fact that all sub-dialects of modern Irish have things in common with each other.
I agree, it was a form of Irish, so where all of the dialects show the same feature (which is true for most features – they are all the same language after all), then Leinster Irish should have the same.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
Dublin city would have had very little Irish from the time of the Pale on-wards
Little, but not none, and “Dublin City” was tiny back then by comparason to now, so there are plenty of areas in Dublin that would still have had Irish, not not mention areas of ajoining Wicklow, Meath and Kildare that still would have had it.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!: Gaeltacht-focused people than run the revival! are you serious-who shoveled ya that shit????, sorry for the outburst but , believe me Gaeltacht people haven't run the revival since the time of Peadar Ó Laoghaire (these Gaeltacht people recorded the last Monolingual Irish speakers from everywhere including Manx for the Béaloideas Éireann), the Gaeltachts and more specifically their dialects have been ignored, why do you think nothing can be published in dialectal Irish anymore, it has to be standardised because they think people from Dublin or Conamara are to stupid to understand Munster Irish- reformed spelling grand, but not words being altered and sentences being restructured.
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.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
I would much rather see you learning a revived Leinster Irish than learning Conamara Irish or my own Munster Irish but I'd especially prefer it over the Caighdeán.
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.
An Cionnfhaolach wrote:
We don't want you to adopt our dialects, because that's exactly what's being asked of every dialect speaker by the State- for them to forego their dialect and concentrate on a made up one- at least for school work etc...!
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?
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. 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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