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Is there anything that learners/non-native speakers can do about the decline of Gaedhealtacht communities?
Carmanach is right that it’s important to be realistic and deny none of the grave threats to the future of Irish – especially that posed by the decline of the Gaedhealtachtaí. Widespread awareness of this is essential if there’s to be any chance that the problems facing the language can be tackled.
While there’s not a lot we as learners can do about the decline of Gaedhealtacht communities we can play our own part by learning the language, making it a living part of our own lives and passing it on as best we can. Focusing on the authentic Irish of native speakers is, of course, crucial.
It’s also important never to allow pessimism to overcome our enthusiasm for Irish and willingness to commit our time and efforts to it.Everything that’s been done for the language since the late 19th century has been driven by people with hope for a future (some future at least) for the language, regardless of how unrealistic or downright foolish those hopes may have seemed to many.
If pessimism had won out then, Irish would be in an infinitely worse position now than it is and much of the work in the language with us today – from linguistic studies to literature – would never have been.
Irish owes much to those prepared to be optimistic.As for young Gaeltacht speakers, you will hear all sorts of oddities nowadays as the language itself dies out, school Irish then comes to replace native Irish. I heard this in Clear Island where Irish is almost extinct. The older speakers all had native pronunciation and used local words; their children, if they had any Irish, only knew school Irish with strong Anglophone pronunciation.
This is dreadful.
I assume teachers take it upon themselves to “correct” the student’s “faulty” speech.
Then it’s brought home by the children – “No, Grandad, that’s wrong. Teacher told us the proper way of saying it is ……. . Look, here it is in my school-book.” etc.
Disastrous for the self-confidence of native speakers.Ní hannamh in aon chor leithéid “cé leis a bhís ag caint?” i gCorca Dhuibhne. N’fheadar an ndéarfaí “an áit ina tharlaíonn” in aon líomatáiste Gaeltachta, ach cá bhfios?
Déarfaí an rud céadna sa Rinn.
Glacaim leis gur ‘Litríocht’ atá i gceist agat. Tá sé cuarduighthe agam agus suidhimh eile dá leithéid.
Is dócha nach ann do chuid II ar aon chor. Más buan mo chuimhne do fuair an Máilleach bás agus é measartha óg – is féidir ná raibh sé d’am aige an dara cuid a chur i gcrích.
Douglas Hyde spoke Roscommon Irish. Any recordings of him speaking Irish might give a general idea of what Longford Irish would have sounded like.
Mayo Irish would be about as close as you could come to it today.
That’s very interesting, thanks for the response.
I’m glad to hear it hasn’t died out.Yes, the root probably would be better spelt with o – to indicate both the Ulster pronunciation and those verbs which generally (I’m aware there is dialect variation) form their verbal noun with -ó(dh).
(Perhaps ⟨éaloigh⟩ > ⟨éalogh⟩ ? – simple broadening of the final consonant)I feel your general barrier here is that you are still thinking in English and then trying to translate that thinking into Irish. The constructions that exist in English can sometimes be reflected in Irish constructions but it’s important to remember that Irish is Irish, if that makes any sense. Look for actual examples of this type of construction in Irish and copy it. I think sometimes learners try to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.
No, I fully understand that one should translate meaning and not the construction of another language.
I’m simply interested in the most precise Irish equivalent (which I know involves the verbal noun in some way) of English terms of this type.Bean an fhir atá ag rince
“an fhear” is impossible, I think.Perhaps you’re right.
I thought “Bean an fhir” could be mistakenly understood as a unit in “Bean an fhir ag rinnce”.Yes, that’s my understanding of them too. The verbal nouns in the gen. case above are the equivalent of the English gerund rather than the present participle.
Two interpretations of the term “cleaning woman” illiustrate the difference well:-
(a) A woman who’s profession it is to clean. – Gerund. Genitive of verbal noun (or sometimes a form ending in “-chán” e.g. “itheachán”) in Irish.
(b) A woman engaged in the activity of cleaning right now. (She may be an accountant or a nurse for all we know.) – Present Participle. Apparently “…. (atá) ag verbal noun” in Irish. That’s what I’ve been trying to understand.P.S. I can see a basic difference between two examples of “present pariciple + noun” in the genitive case I gave in my last post:-
“The wife of the dancing man” (who is dancing now)
Bean an fhir atá ag rinnce/Bean an Fhear atá ag rinnce?“Land of the Rising Sun”(directly translated*)
Tír na Gréine/an Ghrian (atá) ag Éirghe? (the “atá” seems odd to me in this one)In the first “the dancing man” seems like any old noun qualified by an attributive adjective, but in the second “the Rising Sun” seems to be a fixed unit with the time in which the activity described happens not indicated.
This is why, I think, the “atá” felt wrong.Thanks for the responses.
The running man (i.e., the man who is currently running): an fear atá ag rith; cf. an bhfeiceann tú an fear atá ag rith?=do you see the running man?
Yes, this is the meaning I had in mind – where the present participle is used in the same way as an attributive adjective: “the tall man”, “the blond man”, “the running man”, “the eating man“.
So you feel the “atá” is necessary? I take it there would be no distinction between “the running man” and “the man who is running” then.A picture of a flying hawk (i.e., a picture of a hawk in the act of flying): pictiúr de sheabhac ag eitilt.
That’s a much better translation.
What about a situation where the genitive and not a preposition is used?“The wife of the dancing man” (who is dancing now)
Bean an fhir atá ag rinnce/Bean an Fhear atá ag rinnce?“Land of the Rising Sun”(directly translated[color=red]*[/color])
Tír na Gréine/an Ghrian (atá) ag Éirghe? (the “atá” seems odd to me in this one)[size=1]([color=red]*[/color] I understand an indirect translation would likely be preferable.)[/size]
“fear ag rith”
So it can work without “atá”?
@Labhrás –
Verbal nouns like lonnú, corraí, scrudú, cruinniú don’t belong to any numbered declension group.I see. I thought all nouns, including verbal nouns, must belong to a declension. Would they be considered “irregular nouns”?
@Lughaidh –
I’m not sure I understand what you mean… there’s no neutral gender anymore in Modern Irish… most (all?) verbal nouns are masculine.Aren’t there many feminine verbal nouns – gabháil, cosaint, nighe etc.?
No idea?
Let me ask a more direct question:
To which declension, if any, do verbal nouns of this type belong?
Why not [e:s] and [e:r]? And it should be [v’e:], not [w’e:].I don’t know. I think “[æ:r]” and “[æ:s]” are intended to represent the Connamara pronunciation of [ær] and [aes](with short vowels) as [æ] is frequently lengthened there.
“[w’e:]” is the form used in the book.
@aonghus – based entirely on English pronunciation.
Possibly because loanwords using them would be pronounced as in English.Undoubtedly. It’s a minor point.
The English pronunciation of some of these letters is unusual in Europe, though, so more “neutral” terms might be preferable.@Lughaidh – it’s not absurd, it’s just because all Irish-speakers also speak English, so even if “g” is pronounced “gee” and doesn’t sound like the Irish sound, since people know English they understand.
Well, yes of course they understand. If it’s simply a matter of comprehension they may as well use the English names for numbers too while they’re at it 🙂 “Tee Jee Four” is more consistant than “Tee Jee a Ceathair”, or “Té Gé Four” for that matter.
@Bríd Mhór – I remember my mother pronouncing G as “gé”. I can’t say for sure if she pronounced other letters differently or not.
She wouldn’t have felt comfortable teaching me anything after I started school as the teachers contradicted her old spellings.
Like she taught me Brighid, (with a dot), but when I went to school it was changed to Bríd.That’s such a shame.
The “authorities” in Dublin, owners of the Irish language, had made their decision about Irish orthography, though, so the natives had to be set straight about the new “correct” spellings! 🙂
