- This topic has 22 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 11 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Interesting to me that the (I am assuming) Munster forms you quote almost come close to the English syntax (or at least that used in speech). Not that they’re that much different, but I’m referring mainly to the modern trend of English speakers offsetting their relative clauses with “that” instead of “who, which, etc.” I wonder if this is actually because of influence from English or just a parallel or coincidental evolution within the Irish language.
It’s a good question. I don’t have an answer, to be honest. It could be under the influence of English or it could be just part of the trend of all languages to get simpler over time. English has no genders (apart from “she” for a car or boat) and has lost its case system. Was that because of the Norman invasion or because English itself naturally evolved or changed? Irish has lost the accusative and dative cases and now the genitive and the vocative appear to be going the same way. It’s hard to answer such questions definitively especially now as the language itself is disappearing in the Gaeltachtaí.
Is mór an trua í, muise. One interesting thing to me is how in the case of Irish, learners are playing a particularly strong role in shaping this language evolution. I don’t know if you’d find many comparable examples in the world, where learners vastly outnumber the natives and through that, their ways become almost as authoritative as the authentic way. As an outsider looking in, it’s tempting to even think along the lines of “Good! That part of the language could use some simplifying!” But at that point, it is a dangerous slope.. we as individuals don’t get to choose what features of a language will be lost over time, and it seems that for every handy simplification of grammar that occurs, most likely hundreds of other wonderful and rich words fall completely out of use. I’ll take the complexity along with the rest of it, any day!
True. It’s not healthy for any language to have so many learners and so few native speakers.
English too has more L2 speakers than L1 ones 🙂 But fortunately, it’s easy to hear how native speakers speak and nobody would ever say that a learner speaks better than a native speakers.
There seems to be the idea out there that Irish is “hard”. You never hear native speakers complain of Irish being “hard”. Irish is not hard, it’s different just as all other languages are different to one’s own.
yes, Irish must be easy for Scottish Gaelic speakers 😀 Although I don’t know if many do.
L2 speakers have way too much power over Irish in my opinion. This seems to be true of other minority languages also.
that’s true.
I would disagree that Irish isn’t hard, but I would say actually learning another language to the point of fluency is difficult no matter what language you are talking about. That difficulty is compounded the more different a language is from your mother tongue. French is statistically easier to learn if you speak Spanish than Japanese is. It’s difficult to articulate to a non-Irish speaker what is so “complex” about Irish, as it has to do with more than just the grammar. There is a natural eloquence or cleverness to even the most seemingly basic expressions that requires nothing but experience to actually assimilate. I have studied several other languages, some of which are regarded typically as very “hard” (i.e. Hungarian, which technically has upwards of 12 cases), and Irish presents a difficult that is unlike all of them. It’s also interesting to note that, according to certain studies, not all languages take the same time for even native speakers to reach “mastery”. While all languages are naturally complex and all humans are likewise capable of learning any language, given the time and exposure, not all languages have the same type and degree of complexity and diversity. Irish is, despite its association with “primitive” culture and way of life, an immensely scholarly language (I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, in this regard). I would say that compared to all other languages I’ve studied, the amount of intimate knowledge you have to have of the language to even say basic things (correctly) is distinctly greater in Irish. But that isn’t to say any of that should deter someone from learning it. I think the tendency though is to get frustrated as a learner with all these little rules and think that the language should conform to how you think it would make more sense. I think some people have a hard time with the difficulty of the language simply because they haven’t internally resigned themselves to emulate the natives no matter how illogical their use of the language may appear.
Sea, b’fhéidir nach bhfuil “difficult” an focal is cruinne, an dtuigeann tú. Ar shlí amháin, is fíor-nádúrtha an teanga í. Ach labhraím go pearsanta mar chainteoir/foghlaimeoir iasachta. Is as Meiriceá dom (bhíos in Éireann uair amháin feadh seachtaine) agus níor thosaigh mé ag foghlaim go dtí go raibhas tuairim is fiche bliain d’aois (anois tá 33 bliain agam, ach níor lean mé á foghlaim an tráth sin go léir. Sílim go raibh sos dhá bhliana ar a laghad ann). Ansin faraor nach raibh na hacmhainní céanna agamsa ach déanfaidh mé mo dhícheall mar sin féin. 😉 Is é an rud is deacair domsa ná an tuiscint. Tá deachtrachtaí móra agam fós faoi bheith daoine ar leith a thuiscint, go háirithe cainteoirí dúchais.
Fíor dhuit é, muise. Ach is rud amháin a thug mé faoi deara ná bíonn sé i bhfad níos furasta duine a thuiscint nuair atá tú féin páirteach sa gcomhrá. Nílim cinnte go baileach cén fáth é, ach sílim go bhfuil saghas comhthéacs ann nuair a bhfuil tú i mbun comhrá nach bhfuil ann i gcónaí agus tú ag éisteacht le rud éicint nach eol duit air. Agus tá saghas “aischothú” ann chomh maith – deirtear rudaí a bhfuil a fhios ag daoine atá tú in ann a thuiscint. Meastar i gcaitheamh na cainte cén “leibhéal” ar a bhfuil na comhaltaí eile den chomhrá, an dtuigeann tú. Ach nílim ag iarradh á rá nach bhfuil iodális ná fraincis mhaith agat, ar chor a bith! Ní hé seo ach smaoineamh amháin eile chuige..
“na fir sin, beidh mé ina gcomhluadar”.
it doesn’t mean the same thing. This means “these men, I’ll be in their company
na fir a mbeidh mé ina gcomhluadar = the men in whose company I will be (I don’t know if it’s proper English 🙂 )
What I had in mind was that Irish tends to avoid such complicated structures and often breakes them up in more manageable units. See for instance Modern Irish by O’Siadhail, p. 212-213.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
