Using the Language

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Ciarán12
Using the Language

Postby Ciarán12 » 2012-05-17, 17:05

We have a problem it seems here in Ireland, whereby a large number of people appear to be able to speak Irish (according to the census, a very dubious figure might I add), but we just don't use it. There aren't the sufficient public fora to do so. So I was just wondering, how do you guys use your Celtic languages? For the most part, the Celtic languages are in similar situations of being weak, non-community languages for most people who learn them. So it's hard to immerse yourself the way you might do with a major language. Even here in Ireland I can't get the kind of language immersion I could for other languages. There's just nowhere I can go where I can live my life through Irish, where it's a necessity. So, what niches of your lives do the Celtic languages you are learning fill?

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Re: Using the Language

Postby Lur » 2012-05-17, 18:17

I wouldn't have much to do with the Celtic languages today, other than reading you people on the Internet, reading some texts or have some random aesthetic enjoyment by myself. I 've got, however, a bit of a fascination for them. There was a time where they were spoken quite a bit. I find this sad.

And now I'm going to give you a different answer, that's weird and a bit out of the box, just so you have some hope. I've been thinking about this a lot. What we have to do is document languages the absolute best we can. Many we'll be lost this century, but we can preserve the information. As time goes, probably less than a century, the conditions for language diffusion will be great.

[Picture this:
-Imagine you can talk to any computer in any language you want to practice. Imagine that such intelligent AIs can occupy any position a human can, giving us a lot of free time.
-Imagine that biotechnology makes us live longer and have greater intelligence and memory, rendering language acquisition a much easier task. Such a society might give more time to activities like science, arts, etc. And languages.
-Imagine the AIs and augmented reality (think on glasses rendering subtitles) make the concept of a lingua franca irrelevant. This could stop "big" languages of spreading and taking the speakers of smaller languages. You could also teach your kids any language as their native tongue, and could continue speaking it instead of rejecting it for the language of the majority.
-Imagine education systems are much more perfected than today, and that AIs can "inmerse" groups of kids in any desired language.
-Now this is even more crazy, but you just need to put everything together. In orbital habitats, you can build the equivalent of several Earths of habitable surface in total in the form of rotating structures. So, if humanity starts spreading into space in this fashion, it would be perfectly possible to have habitats where the common languages are uncommon languages of today, and they are taught to kids and adults. Even more: current languages could start to diversify.

I've researched all of this for a while. In short, I'm thinking on a future where you could be able to live in Irish, to put an example. Or Akkadian. Or Basque. Or whatever. So what we have to do is document languages, like you're doing, and support scientific development. I'm being serious.]


The only language we're going to "loose" are these going without being studied.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby ceid donn » 2012-05-18, 4:21

Luke wrote:I wouldn't have much to do with the Celtic languages today...


And yet you are commenting in the Celtic language forum. :roll:

ciaran1212 wrote: For the most part, the Celtic languages are in similar situations of being weak, non-community languages for most people who learn them. So it's hard to immerse yourself the way you might do with a major language. Even here in Ireland I can't get the kind of language immersion I could for other languages. There's just nowhere I can go where I can live my life through Irish, where it's a necessity.


This is a big part of the problem--these are community languages at their heart, and you have to appreciate them as such. It's one of the reasons why I've been so frustrated with Gaelic forums, because they tend to fail at cultivating a sense of community, which I think is possible over the internet. I just don't think Gaelic speakers know how to provide that "virtual" community, or they are simply not willing. But in truth, for Gaelic to survive, it needs all the learners it can get. The estimates for Gaelic learners who have reached fluency are depressingly low--barely over 1000 worldwide. And the number of kids being raised in Gaelic-speaking homes are continuing to fall.

I joke that when I started learning Gaelic, I never thought it would end up being this political. But if you commit to learning a minority language these days, you will end up dealing with language politics whether you like it or not. You'll have to deal with the cynics and nay-sayers who want it tell you it's not worth the effort. You'll have to deal with other learner and speaker who seem more interested inc complaining than finding solutions. And of course, you'll have to make your way through the learner process with the burden of a dominant language that is eroding your learning opportunities.

It's not as hopeless as some think. I like the attitude my Gaelic teacher from Cape Breton has: learners will save Gaelic. We're the ones making the biggest effort, against the greatest obstacles. We're the ones who don't want to settle for Anglicized Gaelic, but Gaelic like our grandparents and great-grandparents spoke. We're the ones who want books, music, films, TV, software, games and social media in Gaelic. Too many native speakers have made their peace with the English-speaking world and don't want to be bothered anymore. Or they are content to keep to their ever dwindling local communities. So a lot fall to the learners to demand we rebuild the "Gaidhealtachd", even if it's through online communities that connect isolated learners like myself, so we can use this language as it should be used.

That reminds me--I need to go over the Twitter and tweet in Gaelic a bit. Must be a Gaelic presence in the world. :wink: Keep hoping one day I'll get a tweet back--in Gaelic. Good thing that stubborn Celtic blood runs thick in my veins.

Oh forgot to mention: I use Gaelic for reading whatever I can get my hands on, in print or via the internet, listening to Radio nan Gaidheal, writing online and talking with my Gaelic Skype study partner, as well as in my AGA classes. It's not as much as I'd like, but it is something.

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Re: Using the Language

Postby Lur » 2012-05-18, 12:07

nì eile wrote:
Luke wrote:I wouldn't have much to do with the Celtic languages today...

And yet you are commenting in the Celtic language forum. :roll:

Maybe I haven't been clear enough. I was merely describing my situation. I want to learn a Celtic language, probably Cornish. I fully support these languages, and I'm the exact opposite of utilitarian views on language. Just so I'm not misunderstood here.

Plus it's the only endangered Indoeuropean branch, that I like to group with my own languages, the Italic ones. (Have you seen texts in Gaulish and the like? :shock: ) Where I am was once a deeply Celtic place, with archaic forms of these languages. In fact, when I looked this up I was annoyed and disappointed to find out that the only Celtic languages we know completely are the insular ones.

I can't begin to imagine how Ciaran must feel, with his own language being wiped out by English. I've become sort of anti-English in this respect.

nì eile wrote:We're the ones who don't want to settle for Anglicized Gaelic, but Gaelic like our grandparents and great-grandparents spoke. We're the ones who want books, music, films, TV, software, games and social media in Gaelic. Too many native speakers have made their peace with the English-speaking world and don't want to be bothered anymore.

This, a thousand times. And not just the Gaelic ones.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Ciarán12 » 2012-05-18, 19:03

nì eile wrote:This is a big part of the problem--these are community languages at their heart, and you have to appreciate them as such. It's one of the reasons why I've been so frustrated with Gaelic forums, because they tend to fail at cultivating a sense of community, which I think is possible over the internet. I just don't think Gaelic speakers know how to provide that "virtual" community, or they are simply not willing. But in truth, for Gaelic to survive, it needs all the learners it can get. The estimates for Gaelic learners who have reached fluency are depressingly low--barely over 1000 worldwide. And the number of kids being raised in Gaelic-speaking homes are continuing to fall.


That's sad. I wish I could do something. I suppose I could learn Gaelic and get involved, and it is on my list, but there are so many languages you can get emotionally involved in and only so much time to learn them! Once I've got my Irish up to a decent standard, I'll definitely make Gaelic a priority.

nì eile wrote:I joke that when I started learning Gaelic, I never thought it would end up being this political. But if you commit to learning a minority language these days, you will end up dealing with language politics whether you like it or not. You'll have to deal with the cynics and nay-sayers who want it tell you it's not worth the effort. You'll have to deal with other learner and speaker who seem more interested inc complaining than finding solutions. And of course, you'll have to make your way through the learner process with the burden of a dominant language that is eroding your learning opportunities.


As much as these are all problems for me actually living in a country where such a language is Official, up on signs, where there are bookshops dedicated to it and pubs you can go to where it is spoken and where native speakers are withing walking distance, it must be much harder for someone not living in the country and who is studying an even more endangered language with less media available for it. You have my sympathy.

nì eile wrote:We're the ones making the biggest effort, against the greatest obstacles. We're the ones who don't want to settle for Anglicized Gaelic, but Gaelic like our grandparents and great-grandparents spoke. We're the ones who want books, music, films, TV, software, games and social media in Gaelic. Too many native speakers have made their peace with the English-speaking world and don't want to be bothered anymore. Or they are content to keep to their ever dwindling local communities.


I completely agree. It makes the deriding outlook of natives on learners all the more frustrating.

nì eile wrote:That reminds me--I need to go over the Twitter and tweet in Gaelic a bit. Must be a Gaelic presence in the world. :wink: Keep hoping one day I'll get a tweet back--in Gaelic.


I don't use Twitter, but it might be worth getting an account. How can I follow you on Twitter? (I've never used it, do I search a username? If so, what is it?)

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Re: Using the Language

Postby Ciarán12 » 2012-05-18, 19:08

Luke wrote:I can't begin to imagine how Ciaran must feel, with his own language being wiped out by English. I've become sort of anti-English in this respect.


That's certainly a gut reaction a lot of Irish people have, but it's really not modern England's fault. I have nothing against English people that realise the effect their country has had on these islands and feel the appropriate amount of shame. I don't even mind them being proud of their culture, just not the 'cultural genocide of the indigenous population' bit.

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Re: Using the Language

Postby Lur » 2012-05-18, 20:37

I certainly didn't mean the people, who just use their language, but the expansion of the language itself. It's a complicated thought. Reading you, however, it sounds more like it's a matter about many Irish people than about the English people of now.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Declan » 2012-05-18, 23:29

Luke wrote:I can't begin to imagine how Ciaran must feel, with his own language being wiped out by English. I've become sort of anti-English in this respect.

Irish isn't being "wiped out by English", Irish was dropped by most of the population as quick as they possibly could when all ecclesiastical and educational matters were in English. Now, those who speak Irish natively are simply bilingual (the ideal situation I think). Sadly, the Gaeltachtaí are suffering from the same problem that the rest of the country faced a few hundred years ago, but there still are many fluent native Irish speakers who speak "genuine" Irish, if I may call it that, I mean Irish as it would have been spoken 50 years ago. They may use lots of English vocabulary, particularly for modern stuff, but their accent is still the accent of their grandparents. The days of the Connemara men heading off to London with no English are long gone though, but Rotha Mór an tSaoil (translated as the Hard Road to Klondyke) is a fantastic story of one of the last monolingual generation and his emmigration.

The sad thing is, that people like me, whose Irish is probably bordering on C1, or at least was when I sat the Leaving Cert., find those people extremely difficult to understand because I'm never really exposed to that accent (some Connemara accents in particular, and Donegal Irish is extremely difficult for me). Honestly, I don't think that the older natives are disparaging of learners at all, I don't think they'd criticise my accent for example (I mean, my accent is the typical reasonably proficient learner), it's just that conversation is always an issue when they are very difficult to understand (not all natives by the way, just some local varieties that I can manage in English, but can't catch as well Irish)! It's either one extreme or the other in the Gaeltacht though (for young people), either someone speaks Irish and loves to hear it spoken, or the total opposite, it's rare to find someone in the middle.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Lur » 2012-05-18, 23:59

What I meant by "wiped out by English" was that about the population leaving it for English.

Your post is very interesting. The "brute" option that I have in my mind is stop teaching English as a native language, and teach it later. Because what we can see of people being bilingual is that they abandon Irish and adopt the international language that's also theirs. However, if English isn't their native language, they might learn English as a foreign thing and not abandon Irish. Just like in many countries with their local languages where they study foreign languages. Maybe I'm oversimplifying this too much. But they did stuff like that with Hebrew and look...

It's just like you say: the population is going to go in the direction of the predominant language in education.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Declan » 2012-05-19, 2:08

Luke wrote:It's just like you say: the population is going to go in the direction of the predominant language in education.

Actually, we tried that too! It was an unmitigated disaster, but people like my aunt did all mental arithmetic in Irish out of habit, however, she's the last person I know who ever did that!

Just looking at Wikipedia, Ireland is half-stuck on step two. We have plenty of people who can speak Irish (to a reasonably proficient level) and a lot more who can to a not so proficient level, so we could cover step one very easily. What we are lacking is the widespread adoption of it. Certainly, there are small communities of traditional speakers (i.e. natives in Gaeltachtaí), suitable social gatherings of non-natives (of both high quality Irish and poorer) and things like the Gaelscoileanna; but we lack the desire to make a concerted effort to make the language used more.

Though, just two side notes, for once, nearly all of our senior politicians (i.e. leaders of all main parties and President though he's ceremonial) all speak Irish excellently and are able to give interviews in Irish, which is appropriate I think. And, mentioning Gaelscoileanna, Irish could become the language of prestige in education in the future, as Catholic schools have become in some parts of the world. By requiring a high standard of Irish, Gaelscoileanna could come to be viewed as having higher quality teachers and teaching and could become the prestige schools. There are also extra marks available for sitting things through Irish, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some change regarding that.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby YngNghymru » 2012-05-19, 13:49

So I was just wondering, how do you guys use your Celtic languages?


Far less frequently than I'd like. But I have Welsh-speaking friends who I keep in contact with. At the moment I live in England.

And yet you are commenting in the Celtic language forum. :roll:


He has reasonable opinions to share. Well. Sort-of.

This is a big part of the problem--these are community languages at their heart, and you have to appreciate them as such. It's one of the reasons why I've been so frustrated with Gaelic forums, because they tend to fail at cultivating a sense of community, which I think is possible over the internet. I just don't think Gaelic speakers know how to provide that "virtual" community, or they are simply not willing.


What does 'community language' mean in this context?

We're the ones who don't want to settle for Anglicized Gaelic, but Gaelic like our grandparents and great-grandparents spoke.


Are you saying that native speakers should change the way they speak to an archaic variant just to suit the romanticised ideal of a learner? No wonder some natives dislike learners of Gaelic if this is the general attitude.

Good thing that stubborn Celtic blood runs thick in my veins.


Oh goodness. And now everything is explained.

Luke wrote:Maybe I haven't been clear enough. I was merely describing my situation. I want to learn a Celtic language, probably Cornish.


If you want actual speakers, it might be sensible to look elsewhere than a language which still as far as I am aware has no first-language speakers and only a tiny group of competent L2ers who are still, as I understand it, split into factions over questions of orthography (and maybe also grammar? I don't know how far the split goes).

Ciaran wrote:I have nothing against English people that realise the effect their country has had on these islands and feel the appropriate amount of shame.


How generous! And how exactly would you quantify the 'appropriate amount of shame'?
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Lur » 2012-05-19, 14:36

There's no need of shame for something one hasn't done.

I disagree on the archaic variant part. It's not like we have 15 thriving Celtic languages and one can get massively influenced by another random language and it's just a curiosity: it's all that remains. If I want to learn one of these I want a purely Celtic thing, because I already study English.

YngNghymru wrote:
Luke wrote:Maybe I haven't been clear enough. I was merely describing my situation. I want to learn a Celtic language, probably Cornish.


If you want actual speakers, it might be sensible to look elsewhere than a language which still as far as I am aware has no first-language speakers and only a tiny group of competent L2ers who are still, as I understand it, split into factions over questions of orthography (and maybe also grammar? I don't know how far the split goes).


Well I like all of them. The one I've actually thought the most about is Welsh. I'm somewhat split between the two remaining branches but leaning towards Brythonic.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby YngNghymru » 2012-05-19, 17:33

Luke wrote:I disagree on the archaic variant part. It's not like we have 15 thriving Celtic languages and one can get massively influenced by another random language and it's just a curiosity: it's all that remains. If I want to learn one of these I want a purely Celtic thing, because I already study English.


The idea that a 'purely Celtic thing' exists is a little bit silly on its own, but putting pedantry a side for a minute and assuming you mean what I think you mean, I think you've missed my point. You're welcome, I suppose, to learn a version of Irish or Welsh (or whatever) which does not reflect at all how modern speakers use the language. But if people then go on to whine that 'native speakers don't speak the language properly' or that they get laughed at for speaking like a 90-year-old academic treatise, then I have no sympathy whatsoever. At the end of the day, it's their language, not yours.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Lur » 2012-05-19, 17:53

YngNghymru wrote:
Luke wrote:I disagree on the archaic variant part. It's not like we have 15 thriving Celtic languages and one can get massively influenced by another random language and it's just a curiosity: it's all that remains. If I want to learn one of these I want a purely Celtic thing, because I already study English.


The idea that a 'purely Celtic thing' exists is a little bit silly on its own, but putting pedantry a side for a minute and assuming you mean what I think you mean, I think you've missed my point. You're welcome, I suppose, to learn a version of Irish or Welsh (or whatever) which does not reflect at all how modern speakers use the language. But if people then go on to whine that 'native speakers don't speak the language properly' or that they get laughed at for speaking like a 90-year-old academic treatise, then I have no sympathy whatsoever. At the end of the day, it's their language, not yours.


Well I think languages belong to everybody. I'm, however, not going to whine about something if I don't speak the language and I don't know exactly what I'm talking about.

I can, however, put an example about something closer to home. I've seen people "translate" entire Spanish constructions into Basque and I can't find it correct no matter how hard I try or how much some speak Basque like that...

Another thing is that, in my case, my native language a few decades ago doesn't sound archaic to me at all. I don't know what's the linguistic situation with these.

When you have an entire generation, that comprises all the future speakers of the language, speaking a changed language, just like if you learn a language wrong (I'm sure if I started to screw up the English grammar in an Spanish infused way, which sometimes I do, I would be pointed out as speaking it wrong, so yes it can be wrong), and that's it all you have of a linguistically relevant language (if there's one that's not relevant) because it's what remains of an once wider family, I can't help but feeling uncomfortable.

That and that I like languages being different from each other :lol:

I'm not sure the "purely Celtic" meant what I wanted it to mean, because there's always horizontal genetic transmission.



As for the "Celtic blood" comment, I find it hilariously divergent from the actual matter. One has this or that ascendence... so what :rotfl:
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Ciarán12 » 2012-05-29, 5:09

YngNghymru wrote:The idea that a 'purely Celtic thing' exists is a little bit silly on its own, but putting pedantry a side for a minute and assuming you mean what I think you mean, I think you've missed my point. You're welcome, I suppose, to learn a version of Irish or Welsh (or whatever) which does not reflect at all how modern speakers use the language. But if people then go on to whine that 'native speakers don't speak the language properly' or that they get laughed at for speaking like a 90-year-old academic treatise, then I have no sympathy whatsoever. At the end of the day, it's their language, not yours.


You can surely see how that summary doesn't fit everyone. I realise that remark wasn't aimed at me, but just in case any part of it was...

When you say 'Modern Speakers', for Irish would that mean the handful of people found in the Gaeltachtaí around the counry? Well I'm certainly not learning Irish to communicate with them, nor would I imagine are the vast majority of people in Ireland. Also, who says 'Native speakers don't speak the language properly'? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I have NEVER heard someone claim that native speakers spoke incorrectly. Come to think of it, I've never heard anything other than awe and amazement directed towards the great 'native speakers', who we must all humbly let teach us how to speak like them, despite the fact that that's not the point of the revival; we're trying to establish a form of Irish that is as much 'ours' as our way of speaking English is. We don't sound like them when we speak English (and we certainly don't sound English when we speak English either), we sound like a different kind of Irish person. We would like that to be maintained when we speak Irish. The point of the revival is for us to speak to each other in Irish, not the Gaeltacht speakers. An the language IS ours. It's IRISH. Spoken in IRELAND. Not 'Conemara-ese' or 'Dingle-ish'. It was once spoken all over the island, and I'm sure the people living in my part of the island didn't sound the same as people from the areas where the Gaeltachtaí are now do.

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Re: Using the Language

Postby Ciarán12 » 2012-05-29, 5:15

YngNghymru wrote:How generous! And how exactly would you quantify the 'appropriate amount of shame'?


Recognition more than shame. Shame is what I would assume any decent person would feel when told that their people destroyed the indigenous cultures of the islands the invaded. I don't mean that they have to feel an acute sense of personal shame, I just mean that they should feel some sort of shame when they think about 'the English' in a historical sense, if they have any attachment to the concept at all. Basically just so long as they don't think that they were always the 'good guys'.

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Re: Using the Language

Postby księżycowy » 2012-05-29, 11:33

I believe YngNghymru was talking about certain people who learn a certain type of Irish (usually a dialect or other non-standard form), and then gloat it as "real Irish." You know, the dickish people who say such-and-such type of Irish is "true Irish" and everything else pales in comparison. And I think he means learners, not native speakers too.

He's not really talking about the C.O. or anything. At least that's how I read it.

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Re: Using the Language

Postby YngNghymru » 2012-05-29, 16:44

I believe YngNghymru was talking about certain people who learn a certain type of Irish (usually a dialect or other non-standard form), and then gloat it as "real Irish." You know, the dickish people who say such-and-such type of Irish is "true Irish" and everything else pales in comparison. And I think he means learners, not native speakers too.


A mixture - that's also quite annoying (although on the other hand so is rejection of dialect; in the 60s there was a significant movement who said that dialect should be eradicated to make Welsh easier to learn). But there are plenty of people - people on this thread, even, if you look back a few posts - who moan about 'anglicised Gaelic' and claim to be speaking (I can't be bothered looking back but I seem to remember this is the phrasing used) 'proper Gaelic' because they're speaking it the way their ancestors did a few generations ago. This kind of attitude is particularly predominant, I think, among people who aren't actually from the country in question. I personally think that learning a language for identity reasons is a slightly strange reason, but then I come from an entirely different background and quite a different culture with regards to identity like that and I'm happy (if not a little bit confused) that people from the US care enough about Welsh, for example, to try and learn it. There are people, however, who learn some form of weird literary Welsh with constructions that have been long replaced by other constructions which, although they may be anglicism by origin, are now the only non-archaic way of phrasing something, and then come and insist on speaking that way and deriding anglicism in natives' speech.

Recognition more than shame. Shame is what I would assume any decent person would feel when told that their people destroyed the indigenous cultures of the islands the invaded. I don't mean that they have to feel an acute sense of personal shame, I just mean that they should feel some sort of shame when they think about 'the English' in a historical sense, if they have any attachment to the concept at all. Basically just so long as they don't think that they were always the 'good guys'.


Yeah, I guess if a person is 'proud of their ancestry' for some mysterious reason then it's logically consistent that you expect them to feel ashamed of the bad things their ancestors did too. I just find the entire idea of pride in your ancestors' achievements or your nation's achievements quite weird given that you personally (and I mean the impersonal you here, I'm not accusing you of anything) had nothing whatsoever to do with what they did.
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Re: Using the Language

Postby Llawygath » 2012-11-07, 22:10

I'm afraid I don't have a sensible answer with me (ack, that possessive construction with with, it gets into everything!) or a contribution to the topic, but I'll tell you what I can.
Outside of this forum, I have a few places where I use Welsh. I used to write my school notes in it, but it didn't take me long to realize that my Welsh was at such a low level that I couldn't do much better than, say, dim o bwyt a dŵr yn y class (a mangled example sentence from my binder) and I wasn't going to get very far unless I used English to write my notes.
I've written this story, which is really basic and kind of stupid but still a use, and I'd like to write another such story that might make a little more sense. I think the next one is going to be about "the cat and the dog that are going to the town to look at doors". :P
I spend probably way too much time trying to get my parents to learn Welsh; that hasn't resulted in a whole lot except that we now greet each other with Bore da in the morning and say Nos da instead of "Good night". There are a few other basic phrases I've taught them, but it's not many. Maybe this isn't really a "use", though.

Not on topic, but if someone could tell me what "CO" means here, I'd greatly appreciate it. All I can think of for it to stand for is "conditioner only", "castor/canola/coconut oil" or "complément objet".

RubyH

Re: Using the Language

Postby RubyH » 2012-11-07, 22:24

Actually the spirit of Irish seams to be its many dialects and it's not-Englishness, :para: .
as for making it more 'archaic'
One deffinetly should preserve the irishness of Irish, though also preserving the local dialects.
I wouldn't mind reviving Yule.
On the otherside maybe we should resurrect preceltic Irish; well atleast atleast for decorations, and poetry stuff like that.
I think the theory that Irish is the sort of language people prefer to speak as a way of expressing identity seams to be pretty accurate.
Last edited by RubyH on 2012-11-07, 22:33, edited 3 times in total.


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