The future of the Celtic languages

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby linguoboy » 2014-06-27, 20:02

Levike wrote:Is the way the real Irish people pronounce Irish any different from the way the standard is thought in Anglophone areas?

What do you mean when you say "real Irish people"?
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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-27, 20:09

linguoboy wrote:What do you mean when you say "real Irish people"?
People who speak perfectly fluent Irish because it's their mother-tongue..

Ciarán12

Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-06-27, 20:20

mōdgethanc wrote:No, I meant that they seem to be doing the best and have the best chance of surviving in the long term. That isn't to say their survival is guaranteed, though. You know a lot more about this topic than I do; what do you think?


I find it hard to speculate. I think the current actual situation of Irish and Welsh is better than that of Cornish, but I think the trajectory Cornish is on is better. Irish and Welsh are still living, community languages in their traditional heartlands, but those are under threat from English. However, Cornish already succumbed to English entriely and is now on its way back to life. I don't see English posing any more of a threat to Cornish that it already has. If Cornish could come back to the point it's at now from being completely replaced by English, I think it will only get stronger (or at least, pressure from English won't be the cause of its regression, and I can't see any other serious factors opposing the revival at the moment).

mōdgethanc wrote:
morlader wrote:Then there's always the option of admitting the limits of one's knowledge.
I already admitted (to Ciarán, but still) that I don't know very much about Celtic languages. However, based on what I do know about the subject, I'm not very optimistic about language revival as a whole. It can work (Hebrew proves that) but most of the time, it has mixed results.


Even so, mixed results are better than nothing. I don't think anyone is claiming that the death and subsequent revivial of a language would leave the language without scars, but to claim that it would be a relexification is to claim that the language wasn't properly reconstructed at all. I mean to me "relexification" sounds like your saying they just pulled out the words from a dictionary and replaced the English words directly with the Cornish ones.

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:But a revived language being relexified English is not necessarily a bad thing.


I, like most people, would disagree. I mean, the point of reviving a language (in all cases I'm aware of) is to regain the language of the native culture of the people reviving it. A relexified English couldn't be described as that.

Levike wrote:Is the way the real Irish people pronounce Irish
any different from the way the standard is thought in Anglophone areas?


It depends on who the teacher is. There is no official standard pronunciation, only an official standard of grammar and spelling, so the teachers will tend to use whatever pronunciation they have natively. How the students actually pronounce the words they're taught is a different matter - students tend to use the nearest Irish-English equivalents to the native sounds. There's also the issue of some of the teachers being L2 Irish speakers, but I'm not sure what percentage of the Irish language teacher population are non-native (we always had natives in my school).

Levike wrote:
linguoboy wrote:What do you mean when you say "real Irish people"?
People who speak perfectly fluent Irish because it's their mother-tongue..


Doesn't make them any more real than any of the rest of us.

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-27, 20:27

Ciarán12 wrote:It depends on who the teacher is.
Doesn't that mean that there's a high chance
that the totally revived Irish is going to be English-ish, kind of a fail.
Doesn't make them any more real than any of the rest of us.
If that makes you fell better. :twisted:
Last edited by Levike on 2014-06-27, 20:32, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby linguoboy » 2014-06-27, 20:29

Levike wrote:
linguoboy wrote:What do you mean when you say "real Irish people"?
People who speak perfectly fluent Irish because it's their mother-tongue..

Oh, you mean "mother tongue/L1 speakers of Irish". (I avoid the term "native Irish-speakers" or "native speakers of Irish" because, in the Irish context, "native speaker" tends to be use for people who are actually L2, contrary to the meaning it has elsewhere of someone raised in the language from birth.)

Levike wrote:
Doesn't make them any more real than any of the rest of us.
If that makes you fell better.

Any particular reason for this bit of rudeness? Your essentialist views of ethnicity are not shared by everyone, you know.
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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby linguoboy » 2014-06-27, 20:34

Levike wrote:Doesn't that mean that there's a high chance that the totally revived Irish is going to be English-ish, kind of a fail.

This is, in fact, a Known Bug with the instruction of Irish in Ireland. The amount of internal debate about it is huge, and it's a very sensitive area for many Irish-speakers; I don't recommend outsiders go ignorantly crashing into it.
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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-27, 20:37

linguoboy wrote:Oh, you mean "mother tongue/L1 speakers of Irish".
Yeap.
because, in the Irish context, "native speaker" tends to be use for people who are actually L2
They must be desperate then. :silly:
Any particular reason for this bit of rudeness?
Nah, I'm just in a good mood. :twisted:

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby linguoboy » 2014-06-27, 20:41

Levike wrote:
because, in the Irish context, "native speaker" tends to be use for people who are actually L2
They must be desperate then.

No, they just have a different interpretation of the term due to their unique history. Most of the other English-speaking countries are settler nations: the majority of the population is descended from European transplants. In Ireland, the native population have always been in the majority.
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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-27, 20:46

linguoboy wrote:No, they just have a different interpretation of the term
due to their unique history.
Do native-native-Irish speakers have a separate name for themselves then?

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby linguoboy » 2014-06-27, 20:51

Levike wrote:
linguoboy wrote:No, they just have a different interpretation of the term due to their unique history.
Do native-native-Irish speakers have a separate name for themselves then?

I imagine the particular term might vary by community (and might be a phrase rather than a word or compound). I would say Gaeilgeoir dúchais, but I know that in some Gaeltachtaí, there's a tendency to apply "Gaeilgeoirí" to L2 speakers from outside the area.
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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-27, 21:26

And do they have a word for non-native-native Irish speakers,
like, I don't know, simply "English people"?

Or what's their view of the non-Irish speaking part of Ireland?

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby linguoboy » 2014-06-27, 21:46

Levike wrote:And do they have a word for non-native-native Irish speakers, like, I don't know, simply "English people"?

I don't even know what you're asking.

Levike wrote:Or what's their view of the non-Irish speaking part of Ireland?

Why don't you find some and ask? They aren't some uncontacted Amazonia tribe, you know.
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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-27, 21:49

linguoboy wrote:I don't even know what you're asking.
Do they have a term for Anglophones?

God, my English is worsening post after post.
Or what's their view of the non-Irish speaking part of Ireland?
Why don't you find some and ask?
I was hoping maybe Ciarán12 could give an answer. :wink:

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby linguoboy » 2014-06-27, 22:04

Levike wrote:
linguoboy wrote:I don't even know what you're asking.
Do they have a term for Anglophones?

Those terms do exist in Irish. In formal documents, you'd find "Béarlóirí" or "cainteoirí Béarla". Informally, I imagine it would be more common to say "daoine gan Ghaeilge" ("people without Irish") with the ability to speak English being assumed.

Levike wrote:I was hoping Ciarán12 could give an answer.

As far as I know, Ciarán's never been to a Gaeltacht and doesn't know anybody from there.
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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-06-27, 22:06

Levike wrote:
Ciarán12 wrote:It depends on who the teacher is.
Doesn't that mean that there's a high chance
that the totally revived Irish is going to be English-ish, kind of a fail.


Doesn't what mean that? The fact that the pronunciation the students learn is based on the dialect of the person teaching them?

Levike wrote:
Doesn't make them any more real than any of the rest of us.
If that makes you fell better. :twisted:


Levike wrote:
Any particular reason for this bit of rudeness?
Nah, I'm just in a good mood. :twisted:


Well, if you ever meet an Irish person (myself very much included) and say something like that I guarantee you won't be in such a good mood afterwards.

linguoboy wrote:Oh, you mean "mother tongue/L1 speakers of Irish". (I avoid the term "native Irish-speakers" or "native speakers of Irish" because, in the Irish context, "native speaker" tends to be use for people who are actually L2, contrary to the meaning it has elsewhere of someone raised in the language from birth.)


Really? I've never heard of such a distincting between those terms.

Levike wrote:
because, in the Irish context, "native speaker" tends to be use for people who are actually L2
They must be desperate then. :silly:


Like I've said, I've never heard of such a distinction, but even so - yes, "they're desperate", it's an endangered language, what part of that situation are you finding difficult to comprehend?

Levike wrote:
linguoboy wrote:No, they just have a different interpretation of the term
due to their unique history.
Do native-native-Irish speakers have a separate name for themselves then?


I have heard Gael used by some speakers to specifically mean Irish-speakers, but I find that usage offensive. If you mean is there a traditional name for them, then no, why would there be? They are not a distinct ethnic group, they don't have a completely different history or anything, they are just the Irish people who didn't lose there language like the rest of us did over the last few centuries.

Levike wrote:And do they have a word for non-native-native Irish speakers,
like, I don't know, simply "English people"?


Well, uh, "English people" is already used for, you know, English people. Also, you are deliberately trolling now, so watch it.

Levike wrote:Or what's their view of the non-Irish speaking part of Ireland?


You'd have to ask them. Of course, you'd have to learn Irish in order to post that question on that forum :ohwell:

Ciarán12

Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-06-27, 22:13

Levike wrote:
linguoboy wrote:I don't even know what you're asking.
Do they have a term for Anglophones?[


When speaking English, they would say "Anglophones", or "English-speakers".

Levike wrote:
Or what's their view of the non-Irish speaking part of Ireland?
Why don't you find some and ask?
I was hoping maybe Ciarán12 could give an answer. :wink:


I already have when you asked this before:

Levike wrote:And how do real Irish-speaking Irish think about this?
How do they view the Anglophone part?

I'd say some of them (a minority, I hope) would consider the Anglophone Irish population to be basically English people, but I dare any of them to say that to my face... As far as most Irish people (Anglophones and Irish speakers alike) are concerned, we are all ethnically the same, same history, same culture.

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-27, 22:14

Thanks.

Ciarán12

Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-06-27, 22:18

linguoboy wrote:
Levike wrote:
linguoboy wrote:I don't even know what you're asking.
Do they have a term for Anglophones?

Those terms do exist in Irish. In formal documents, you'd find "Béarlóirí" or "cainteoirí Béarla". Informally, I imagine it would be more common to say "daoine gan Ghaeilge" ("people without Irish") with the ability to speak English being assumed.


I've heard all of those before, yes.

linguoboy wrote:
Levike wrote:I was hoping Ciarán12 could give an answer.

As far as I know, Ciarán's never been to a Gaeltacht and doesn't know anybody from there.


I have been to more than one, but not for significant amounts of time. I have met Gaeltacht speakers before (including every Irish teacher I ever had in school), but I don't have any friends from the Gaeltacht.

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Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby An Lon Dubh » 2014-06-28, 13:17

In the Gaeltacht there is no real common word for English speaking Irish people, besides "gan Ghaelainn" like linguoboy said or phrases generated on the spot.

In general, a good amount of native speakers don't care. The ones who do care, they care more about your attitude to Irish than the fact that you're from the English speaking region. Far more than caring about you being from outside the Gaeltacht, they don't like you learning the standard (An Caighdeán).

Ciarán12

Re: The future of the Celtic languages

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-06-28, 15:45

An Lon Dubh wrote: Far more than caring about you being from outside the Gaeltacht, they don't like you learning the standard (An Caighdeán).


Yeah, an attitude I in turn find annoying.... :roll:


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