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Two points:
1) I seriously doubt if Lithuanian was ever at a point where just 15,000 native speakers spoke the language daily and where native speakers were greatly outnumbered by enthusiasts whose mother tongue was Russian or Polish.
You’re right to doubt it, and nobody even said it. I only pointed out that it’s usually very hard to predict the future of languages. 100 years ago many people predicted the immediate extinction of Lithuanian, yet it lived on. At the same time people seemed to think Breton was in a much safer position, yet it wasn’t.
What we probably can say is that Lithuanian and Irish were in quite similar positions 100 years ago, and both emerged as independent countries after WWI. That may suggest that more competent Irish leaders could have done much more for the language.
2) People keep coming on here and talking about English as though it were some sort of alien language in Ireland, like a bad habit which the lazy Irish must be weaned off of. It isn’t! It has been spoken natively in parts of Ireland for centuries. Please drop the patronising tone towards native speakers of Hiberno-English.I haven’t seen that, but I read the discussion quickly. I would be sad if English disappeared from Ireland. That’s a rather hypothetical question today, though. But I fully agree that English is a part of Irish identity. English has been spoken much much longer in Ireland than in North America or Australia.
if younger speakers are using standard Irish with English phonetics would that not indicate that they are learning their Irish in school and not in the home/community ?
I dont know why all or most the teachers in and near any gaeltachts are not from that gaeltacht or at least proficient in its dialect.
They could still teach standard Irish along with the dialect ?Unfortunately, there are some “Gaeltacht” areas where hardly anyone is a native speaker of Irish. In real gaeltachtaí like Corca Dhuibhne, CF+Conamara, and Northwestern Donegal, kids learn Irish speaking with their parents, just like almost all people learn their native language. Then there are some areas where that is not the case, and the parents pretty much rely on the school to make sure that the kids learn Irish. Past of the West Cork Gaeltacht definitely fall into this category. Having said that, I have met young native speakers in Cúil Aodha who are indeed true native speakers. Though I would be surprised if many kids in Baile Bhuirne speak Irish at home with their parents.
Recently I saw a post that stated “as the language dies out.” Although I don’t have a great grasp of Irish, as a young American of Irish heritage, I do not think that the language is necessarily dying out. I believe that to be a pessimistic attitude. Let’s keep the forums positive and forward thinking! I can find numerous examples of the language revival. Look at the Gaelsceoleanna! In any case just wanted to post this, particularly due to St. Patrick’s day!
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I just wanted to comment on this. Just as you say, many people are too pessimistic. What is more, many people seem to think that language change is something inevitable. It’s definitely not. Back home I have my great-great-grandfather’s encyclopedia, 24 volumes, from the late 19th century. Terribly fun to read. Well, in that encyclopedia languages like Breton and Occitan are still language spoken by millions, not at all seen as threatened. Unfortunately, both are in very vulnerable positions today. On the other hand, Lithuanian is said to be on the brink of extinction, only spoken in rural areas and likely to become extinct in a generation or two. Today Lithuanian is the national language of a country almost the size of Ireland, it’s the largest language in the Baltics and not at all threatened. 100 years ago not even 2% of the population of Vilnius were Lithunian speakers, today it is by far the largest language in the city. So even without mentioning the extraordinary revival of Hebrew (completely extinct by the time of this old encyclopedia), there are examples of languages claimed to be close to extinction that made spectacular returns.
Regarding the differences in the Irish of speakers from different parts of Corca Dhuibhne, I would
say that “in general” (from my very amateur observations!) as you move away from Dún Chaoin
the Irish has more archaic/older features, it becomes more like Cork Irish essentially.For example the dative would not be as common in Dún Chaoin as in Feothanach. The genitive is more
likely to be dropped. Of course these differences are at a very subtle level.For example, the dative singular is only really used, in my experience, with a few common words in
Dún Urlann and Dún Chaoin. Further east in Corca Dhuibhne, you might see it used with feminine nouns
in general. Then, in Cork, the dative is typical.
Another example is the dative plural ending -(a)ibh. This is not really a part of the living
grammar in Dún Chaoin, but is used in fixed phrases. Further east people will use it more frequently
although still within fixed constructions e.g. Trí cinn de bhuaibh*. Then in Cork**, people will use it
outside fixed phrases and constructions, although it still wouldn’t be common.That’s my general impression, but I’m no expert!
*I know this is also used near Dún Chaoin, but this type of usage gets more common further east.
**My experience of Cork is mostly Béal Átha ‘n Ghaorthaidh.Yes, the pronunciation definitely becomes more like Cork Irish when moving eastwards. Then again, I usually find Corca Dhuibhne Irish more archaic than Cork Irish these days, though that was certainly not the case only a few decades ago. In my experience, the older verb conjugations are much more common in Corca Dhuibhne. I don’t think I ever heard anyone in Corca Dhuibhne use bhí mé or bhí tú, while I’ve heard them quite often in Cúil Aodha, particularly from younger speaker. Perhaps the influence of some teachers in Múscraí who aren’t from the area?
The information on weekly speakers , along with less often and never is generally given on all Census data and most interactive maps related to such. usually below the information on Daily speakers.
if you look at say baile na sceilg 20 speak daily in and out, 30 daily out , 50 people. But a further 59 speak it weekly.
With Daily alone it only looks like 50 out of 375 speak Irish 13%
But 109 speak it on a regular basis , 29%.from the point of view of places to go to find people to speak Irish too, you could at least find a third of the people there able and willing to speak Irish.
But I take your point as to how daily speakers can be an indication of the main community language.
The ability (or lack) of people in the local services such as pubs and shops,etc. to speak i feel has a huge impact on the perception of Irish as a community language and probably on its use as well.Absolutely, I would say that that is the difference. In a place like Baile an Sceilg, it would not be hard to find people able to speak Irish. On the other hand, a casual visitor to the area might not even hear any Irish, as English is definitely the community language. So it’s much easier to find Irish speakers in Baile an Sceilg (and many similar places) than in Dublin, but it doesn’t really feel like a Gaeltacht to me, not in the way that everything west of Dingle feels, or the whole area from An Spidéal to Cárna, or the whole NW Donegal.
For those who don’t have the book, here are the 56 English sentences they asked Irish speakers to translate http://www.uni-due.de/DI/translation.html
Speakers from different villages in Corca Dhuibhne, Uíbh Ráthach, Múscraí, Oiléan Chléire, An Rinn, Cois Fharraige, Conamara Theas, Joyce County, Southern Mayo, Acaill, Ceathrú Thaidhg, Southern Donegal and Northern Donegal say those 56 English sentences in Irish. While of course nowhere as detailed as LASID, it still provides for a quite good overview of Irish dialects at the start of the 21st century.
Yeah I have a copy of it (but not read much of it yet) and the cd.
They had a list of Irish sentences they asked speakers to read,
Yeah I don’t see what’s the aim of that, people say things that don’t exist in their dialect, even grammatical forms…
Apparently, they used that to test for differences in pronunciation and then used the list with English sentences to also look at lexical and grammatical differences. As I’m sure you’ve seen, they did adjust the lists of Irish sentences for the different “main” dialects.
All in all I think it’s quite valuable, though I disagree a bit with the proportions. Too few speakers translating from English and too many speakers reading from Irish. Had the proportions been turned around, it would have been ideal. Still, they do have several speakers translating from English for each Gaeltacht area except Ráth Chairn and the Aran Islands. I would say it’s the best book yet on Irish dialects.
The author should have asked the speakers to translate words from English, in this way they wouldn’t have said something that doesn’t exist in their dialect… That’s what I do in my fieldwork on Breton actually.
Have you read the [url=http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/174016]book[/url] on Irish dialects by Hickey? I find it very good and detailed, and with loads of audio collected in all Gaeltacht areas. What they did for this book is to combine both. They had a list of Irish sentences they asked speakers to read, but they also had a list of English sentences they asked speakers to translate into Irish. It makes for a good combination.
Over 2,000 people is a fairly decent body of people to allow you to hold events etc, also its not just Daily Irish speakers who go to things. I go to events in town and the local hall and you’ll get a whole spectrum of Irish ability from struggling to understand like myself
to completely fluent Daily and Weekly speakers.
Just because someone speaks Irish 2-4 times a week rather than every day doesn’t mean they aren’t fluent or part of the Irish speaking community , their job might necessitate speaking through English most the time .Dublin has over 10,000 Daily Irish speakers, but im not aware of the same wealth of choice in events and activity’s through Irish.
And even though Daily Irish speakers are a minority in Dingle, its quite possible to conduct most your business in the town through Irish in most places as far as I can see.Not sure if the same could be said for Macroom, Dungarven , Dungloe, Belmullet, or many of the other towns they are talking about making Gaeltacht service towns.
I think when you get a few hundred people scattered in rural areas that are predominantly English speaking where the near by towns are heavily if not wholly English speaking you would have severe difficulty organizing a large number of events and services which would allow you to conduct most your day through Irish.
Very good points. I used daily speakers simply because that’s the data I have for each area, I do not have data for weekly speakers. 🙂 Daily speakers is also a good indication, because a high percentage of daily speakers is a good indication that Irish is the community language. There are 20 electoral divisions in Ireland where at least 75% are daily Irish speakers. I’ve been in 17 of those 20, and I’ve heard very little English, Irish is definitely the community language in all of them. In places like An Spidéal (66%, Connacht), Anagáire (55%, Ulster) or Cúil Aodha (53%, Munster) my experience is that one will hear a lot of Irish but also a lot of English. So the percentage of daily speakers outside the education system is a pretty good indicator of whether Irish is the main community language.
Also good point you make about Dublin. The ideal is of course to have both a large actual number of daily speakers and a high percentage. Of all electoral districts in Ireland, Gaoth Dobhair is probably the “best” in this regard, with a population of 2651 and 77% who are daily speakers.
I’m almost sure it’s impossible to speak Irish in Macroom and Dungarvan, and I don’t know about Dungloe and Belmullet but I’d guess you’re right.
What I have noticed is that the speaker of Gaoth Dobhair simply reads the words and forms as they are written even when they don’t exist in her dialect…
On top of that, there’s quite a lot of mistakes in the phonetic transcriptions, in my opinion..Concerning “fà/faoi”, both exist in GD, but they don’t mean the same thing, faoi means under and fà means about.
Very interesting. I guess there could be a point in that if the idea of the book (which I haven’t read) simply is to show different sounds. Though it’s a bit weird, it would make more sense to only include words that really exist. By the way, I already noticed the same thing for the Corca Dhuibhne speaker. He pronounces every word with a Munster pronunciation, but some of the words would be different in Corca Dhuibhne. So I’m not surprised to hear that the same is true for Gaoth Dobhair, though I’m of course not able to tell that myself.
Having said that from what ive read and looking at the census there seems to have been a increase in the number of Irish speakers in terms of numbers and proportion in between the last two census. There seems to be very enthusiastic promotion of the language which seems to be showing results. One of the reasons I moved here is that there seemed to be a much more positive attitude about the language and its vitality as a community language than some of the other Gaeltachts I visited.Looking at how many people speak Irish daily outside the education system, there would appear to be three strong areas, as we of course all know, in Kerry, Galway and Donegal.
Just for the fun of it, I made a little calculation. Say that a play in Irish, or a poetry evening in Irish, or a political debate in Irish is organized in a regional centre in An Cheathrú Rua, in Gaoth Dobhair and in Baile na nGall. Let’s assume people are willing to drive no more than 20 minutes to attend it. In that case, there are 8.204 daily Irish speakers within twenty minutes of An Cheathrú Rua, there are 7.234 daily Irish speakers within twenty minutes of Gaoth Dobhair and there are 2.639 daily Irish speakers within twenty minutes of Baile na nGall.
In this regard I fear the Kerry Gaeltacht is a bit disadvantaged, because both An Cheathrú Rua and Gaoth Dobhair really are strongly Irish speaking regional centres that pull in people from neighbouring Irish-speaking districts, while of course English speaking Dingle tends to be that regional centre in Kerry.
The original idea of that post was to give an overview of the (very small) differences in the Irish spoken in Corca Dhuibhne, mainly based on what I had heard from speakers there. I post it here in case it interests anyone, though I hope nobody takes this as an indication of major differences. I couldn’t tell the difference between a speakers from Dún Chaoin and Baile na nGall if listening to a normal conversation. At one point I refer to some previous posts I had written comparing Irish throughout Munster, but I hope these posts are understandable without having read those posts.
In saying that Dún Chaoin Irish isn’t Corca Dhuibhne Irish I’m not saying that Dún Chaoin shows
divergences from a common Corca Dhuibhne dialect spoken in the other parishes. There are some
differences across the area1. ó in pronounced /u:/ when next to a nasal
This is almost exclusively a feature of Dún Chaoin Irish. It takes place in almost every word in which an original /o:/ neighbours a nasal. In the Dún Urlann villages closest to Dún Chaoin, An Ghráigh, Cloichear, Tír Abhann and Baile an Chalaidh, there is free variation between /o:/ and /u:/ so that the same speaker can be heard using both sounds in the same words on different occasions. The rest of Dún Urlann and Márthain, Cill Maolcháidear and Cill Chuain all retains the /o:/ sound.Examples:
word Dún Chaoin Other Parishes
móin /mu:n´/ /mo:n´/
fuinneog /f´n´u:g/ /f´n´o:g/
neosad /nu:sÉ™d/ /no:sÉ™d/There are some exceptions in both directions. The word mór is always pronunced with an /u:/ while its comparative /mó/ is pronounced with an /o:/. At least I’ve never heard any other pronunciation myself.
word Dún Chaoin Other parishes
mór /mu:É™r/ /mu:É™r/
mó /mo:/ /mo:/2. -lt- is pronounced /lh/.
This phenomenon is the same as already described when comparing Munster dialects. The /lt/ is retained in Dún Chaoin and in Dún Urlann, while it becomes /lh/ in Cill and Cill Chuain. I’m not familiar with Márhtain in this case, but it should be on the “border”. Judging from this we can see that the change lt > lh which normally is associated with Cork reached almost the whole of Kerry,
stopping only west of Dingle.Examples:
word Dún Chaoin, Dún Urlann Cill Maolcháidear, Cill Chuain
fáilte /fa:l´t´i/ /fa:l´hi/
bailte /bal´t´i/ /bal´hi/
oscailte /oskÉ™l´t´i/ /oskÉ™l´hi/Apart from these two changes there is not much difference within the fíor-ghaeltacht of Corca Dhuibhne. There seem, however, to have been a different pronunciation of broad L on the Blasket, which spread to the mainland of Dún Chaoin as well as An Ghráigh in Dún Urlann. In this pronunciation /l/ is pronounced a bit like a gh /É£/. Thus I’ve heard an old Blasket islander talk about /É™ se:É£ kru:ig´/ (an saol cruaidh) on the island, while another one has talked about /É™ É£a: sÉ™n] (an lá san) I’ve also heard my friends in An Ghráigh use this occasionally, but only as an option. For an interesting discussion of the origin of this phenomen, as well as other aspects of the differences within Corca Dhuibhne I can recommed Diarmuid Ó Sé’s article in “An Teanga”.
Hardly conclusive empirical proof as to the linguistic strength of Irish in those areas though 🙂
My own Irish being so poor its hard to judge just how good others are.Very interesting! As I said, my own experiences are even more limited. I’ve been in Cúil Aodha, though, and found it be reasonably Irish speaking so if these areas east of Dingle are as Irish speaking, they are more so than I thought. Of course, if only 50% speak Irish daily, it will mean there are many who doesn’t and that English is the community language. Still, it definitely means that Irish is far from dead in those areas.
By the way, I once posted a long description of my experiences of Corca Dhuibhne. I post it below, and I’m sure you have your own experiences you can add 🙂
Oh, and I wrote this when I was 22, so please excuse me sound so all-knowing 😉
If the Irish of Dún Chaoin is looked upon as typical Munster Irish, it is of course even more so when talking about Corca Dhuibhne Irish.
This is of course understandable. The fact that prominent Irish scholars, such as Robin Flowers, George Thomson, Carl Marstrander and many more all went to An Blascaod Mór (Great Blasket Island) to study “Irish in its purest form” made Dún Chaoin / Blasket Irish famous already by the beginning of last century. When writer after writer emerged from the Blasket, with books that made bestsellers in Irish and were translated into umpteen languages, this further enhanced the reputation of their Irish. In more recent times Dún Chaoin has produced some very fine writers, such as Pádraig Ua Ma and Máire Mac an tSaoi so it’s hardly surprising that the Irish spoken in the parish of Dún Chaoin (to which the Blaskets belong) is seen at the very least as typical Corca Dhuibhne Irish.
Nonetheless, there are some interesting differences even within Corca Dhuibhne, even if they are quite small (we’re talking about a narrow peninsula). Before describing these differences I’ll give a short description of the area constituting the fíor-Ghaeltacht of Corca Dhuibhne for those who aren’t familiar with the area.1. Dún Chaoin
Dún Chaoin is a quite small parish on the westernmost tip of Corca Dhuibhne. It has no real center, no year-round shop and no post-office. The only pub in the Parish is Krugers. Because of it’s scenic position it attracts tourists in the summer, when the population probably increases by more than 100% in August. The Blasket Heritage center is situated in Dun Chaoin, as are some tourist-shops. The parish is fully Irish-speaking and I haven’t met anyone who aren’t fluent in the language. Irish is used by everyone when discussing, and even the youngsters I’ve heard have been talking Irish to each other. There are some incomers in the area, but they have also picked up fluent Irish The treat against Irish in Dún Chaoin is not English but depopulation. The year-round population is now around 90 persons, compared with about 3.000 in the 19th century.2. Dún Urlann
This is the area often refered to by outsiders as Baile an Fheirtéaraigh (Ballyferriter). The village which in English is called Ballyferriter is the centre of this parish, but it’s real Irish name is An Buailtín, and I’ve never heard anyone refer to it by any other name. An Buailtín is a rather large center (seen from a Gaeltacht perspective) with four pubs, a shop, a post-office, a restaurant, a museum, a church a book shop and some private houses. The general language in An Buailtín is decidedly Irish, but the huge influx of tourists during the summers means that English is widely heard in some of the pubs (such as Tigh Pheig) while Irish is more heard in others (such as Tigh an tSaorsaigh). Apart from the summer-months, An Buailtín is Irish-speaking.
Outside An Buailtín, Dún Urlann consists of a number of tiny villages (about ten villages with eight to fifteen houses in each). Some of these, such as An Ghráigh, Cloichear, Tír Abhann, Ard na Caithne and doubtless many others are 100% Irish-speaking. There is, as far as I know, no village where English dominates. I’ve visited every village in Dún Urlann and hardly heard any English, except around An Buailtín.3. Márthain
This parish is separated from Dún Chaoin in the west and Dún Urlann in the north by mountains. This is the part of Corca Dhuibhne of which I know least, and the only village I’ve visited in the areas is An Riasc which, with a shop and a pub, is the “center” of this parish. From my own visit and what natives have told me, the parish is completely Irish-speaking.4. Cill Maolcháidear
The parish of Cill Maolcháidear is situated on the eastern shore of Cuan Ard na Caithne, facing Dún Urlann on the western shore of the bay. The rather large villages (again, with a Gaeltacht perspective) of An Mhuiríoch and Baile na nGall make up a rather compact centre with pubs, a restaurant a shop and a good number of private houses. Irish dominates throughout the parish, even if some English is also spoken.5. Cill Chuain
This is probably the real stronghold of Munster Irish; I certainly know of no stronger area. Seen to percentages I would say that this parish is about as strong as Dún Chaoin and Dún Urlann. It is more populated than Dún Chaoin, though, so the risk of depopulation is not immediate. And, perhaps even more important, in contrast to Dún Chaoin and Dún Urlann on the touristy Slea Head Drive, it’s almost untouched by tourists. This means that even in the hectic summer months, this part of Corca Dhuibhne is almost free from tourists. There is no real center in this parish, just a number of small villages. From my experience they are all totally Irish-speaking.This is an interesting topic, and faulty use of a language is (unfortunately) very common. After last being active on Daltaí, I’ve lived in Italy where Italian was of course my everyday language for all aspects of life (work, girlfriend, shops, news etc.) and I’d dare to say no language in Europe is so often misused. During my recent summer holidays in Finland I visited an “Italian” restaurant where every dish in the menu was given in its Italian name and every dish contained at least some language mistakes. That’s rather common, as many companies in both the food industry and the fashion industry try to give themselves an Italian flavor.
Another example is when I visited IKEA in Bordeaux to buy my kitchen and a couch. All names are in Swedish, but pronounced with a French accent. It makes it rather confusing for this native Swedish speaker who kind of expects them to be pronounced “as they should”.
Of course, there is no risk of damage to Italian or Swedish, just as there is no risk of damage to English by the often hilarious ways in which English is misused. Irish as a small language is in a weaker position, but I still don’t think the occasional language mistakes by businesses have any impact on the language.
(ps: this professor of consumer behavior and customer services is appalled by that reply. Whatever the background, insulting consumers is – needless to say- never ever wise.)
