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> There's some anecdotal evidence that with the number of non-native speakers learning the language, that Tá/Níl and Sea/Ní hea are starting to fill that gap in

> There's some anecdotal evidence that with the number of non-native speakers learning the language, that Tá/Níl and Sea/Ní hea are starting to fill that gap in Irish. Only among non-natives or natives of the Neo-Irish that is starting to form outside the Gaeltacht. This is not a change that is happening, from my experience, in the Gaeltacht raised with traditional Irish speaking parents. It's really a sign of the weakening of the language.

Macha 4y ago
Do you want to have the language as a living language or as a fossilized relic? It's long been a complaint of the gaelgoir crowd that Irish people do not use the Irish language and they're losing touch with the culture. A consequence of the push for more widespread usage of the language that came from that is that a language in use evolves. Even English language media from 50 years ago is markedly different in the way the language is used. So I feel the influence of the Duolingo/meetup generation of Irish language speakers is both inevitable and arguably a sign of the increased uptake of the language - if such people were small in number compared to the traditional speakers, they could not have had this outsized influence. Also in the case of Tá/Níl as Yes/No in particular, the roots of that probably also have something to do with bilingual government forms adopting it as a space saving measure, so these new speakers have a lifetime of seeing Tá/Yes and Níl/No options on professionally translated forms that may also have primed this development.
- dorchadas 4y ago
  > Do you want to have the language as a living language or as a fossilized relic? I want to see it remain a living language. I don't want to see it becoming, as it is in idiom, sounds and grammar, "English in Irish drag" (quoting a prominent linguist on the matter). It's not Irish. It's people substituting Irish words into English grammar, using English sounds and idioms to do so. That's the death of Irish. > It's long been a complaint of the gaelgoir crowd that Irish people do not use the Irish language and they're losing touch with the culture. There's a huge difference between the 'gaelgoir' crowd and native speakers (none of whom would call themselves Gaeilgeoirí -- those are specifically the learners who come in with notebooks or to the summer schools). > A consequence of the push for more widespread usage of the language that came from that is that a language in use evolves. Even English language media from 50 years ago is markedly different in the way the language is used. There's a difference between language evolution and language death. There's also a difference between learners not learning properly and native speakers changing the language naturally (.i. not under conditions of language death) > So I feel the influence of the Duolingo/meetup generation of Irish language speakers is both inevitable and arguably a sign of the increased uptake of the language - if such people were small in number compared to the traditional speakers, they could not have had this outsized influence. The problem is the shitty level of Irish held by most school teachers, even those in the Gaelscoileanna. And their ignorance on proper Irish idiom, grammar and sounds that then gets passed on. > Also in the case of Tá/Níl as Yes/No in particular, the roots of that probably also have something to do with bilingual government forms adopting it as a space saving measure, so these new speakers have a lifetime of seeing Tá/Yes and Níl/No options on professionally translated forms that may also have primed this development. And those forms are purposefully translated so that Tá/Yes Níl/No is an answer to an "An bhfuil" question, following proper Irish grammar (usually "An bhfuil tú i bhfábhar ..."). But, natural language change is not what's happening with Irish. Instead, we're seeing a split between the traditional Gaeltacht raised native speakers and a pidgin/creole forming in the urban areas. Sadly, only one can survive and it's less and less likely it'll be traditional Irish. Instead, we'll be left with something that calls itself Irish, but is really no different from English in the way it expresses concepts, the sounds it uses to express those concepts and, outside perhaps the very basics, the grammar it uses to express those concepts. The only thing different is the words it uses. That's not Irish. You'd never see this happening with any majority language -- French speakers would be rightfully up in arms if someone spoke French with English sounds, used English grammar and then claimed their French was just as authentic as the natives'. Sadly, we accept it -- praise it -- for Irish. At the expense of the traditional, rich native language and the Gaelic worldview (assuming linguistic relativity and/or cognitive metaphors shape the way we think; I lean towards the latter)
- seabird 4y ago
  There is no reason a living language can't be a fossilized relic. French has the fairly conservative French Academy. The German case system as you would learn it from a textbook has been kept on life support by academics and formal users for centuries.
  - Macha 4y ago
    French is centralized, but not stationary. It's also, at least among languages I'm familar with, an outlier in being so formally standardised - if English was treated as stringently, variations like Hiberno-English, American English or English as spoken in India would be considered errors, rather than regional variations. Finally, it's not hoping for adoption among a group 40x larger than it's current speaker base.
messe 4y ago
> This is not a change that is happening, from my experience, in the Gaeltacht raised with traditional Irish speaking parents. Of which there are less and less of. I think the only way Irish can survive in the long term is in a semi-creolized form with a lot of English influence. It's all well and good trying to codify a variety of "proper Irish", but realistically if it is to gain any amount of new speakers, it's going to have significant influence from the native languages of those new speakers—which will be English. This isn't unnatural. Languages are influenced by non-native speakers all the time. See English: a Germanic language with much of its vocabulary derived from Norman French, Latin, and Greek, and a loss of almost all inflection save for some irregular verbs, and referring to ships in the feminine. Look, I'd like as much as the next person to preserve Irish as native speakers speak it, but the chance to do that died over a century ago.
- dorchadas 4y ago
  > I think the only way Irish can survive in the long term is in a semi-creolized form with a lot of English influence. Then that's not Irish. It's a Neo-Irish creole. Which is fine -- great even! -- but let's call it what it is. > See English: a Germanic language with much of its vocabulary derived from Norman French, Latin, and Greek, and a loss of almost all inflection save for some irregular verbs, and referring to ships in the feminine. There's a huge difference between what's going on with Irish and what happened with English under Norman rule. For instance, the sound system is still fairly Germanic, the grammar most definitely is. Both these things are being lost in Neo-Irish. > Look, I'd like as much as the next person to preserve Irish as native speakers speak it, but the chance to do that died over a century ago. I think there is still a chance, if radical steps are taken. Sadly, you're right; they won't be taken. I'm fine with something surviving, but we need to be honest about what it is, and how the State has failed those who actually speak traditional Irish and all but guaranteed its death, thanks, in part, to the way it implemented it in the schools. It should've always been a Gaeltacht outward revival.

Macha 4y ago

Do you want to have the language as a living language or as a fossilized relic? It's long been a complaint of the gaelgoir crowd that Irish people do not use the Irish language and they're losing touch with the culture. A consequence of the push for more widespread usage of the language that came from that is that a language in use evolves. Even English language media from 50 years ago is markedly different in the way the language is used. So I feel the influence of the Duolingo/meetup generation of Irish language speakers is both inevitable and arguably a sign of the increased uptake of the language - if such people were small in number compared to the traditional speakers, they could not have had this outsized influence. Also in the case of Tá/Níl as Yes/No in particular, the roots of that probably also have something to do with bilingual government forms adopting it as a space saving measure, so these new speakers have a lifetime of seeing Tá/Yes and Níl/No options on professionally translated forms that may also have primed this development.

dorchadas 4y ago
> Do you want to have the language as a living language or as a fossilized relic? I want to see it remain a living language. I don't want to see it becoming, as it is in idiom, sounds and grammar, "English in Irish drag" (quoting a prominent linguist on the matter). It's not Irish. It's people substituting Irish words into English grammar, using English sounds and idioms to do so. That's the death of Irish. > It's long been a complaint of the gaelgoir crowd that Irish people do not use the Irish language and they're losing touch with the culture. There's a huge difference between the 'gaelgoir' crowd and native speakers (none of whom would call themselves Gaeilgeoirí -- those are specifically the learners who come in with notebooks or to the summer schools). > A consequence of the push for more widespread usage of the language that came from that is that a language in use evolves. Even English language media from 50 years ago is markedly different in the way the language is used. There's a difference between language evolution and language death. There's also a difference between learners not learning properly and native speakers changing the language naturally (.i. not under conditions of language death) > So I feel the influence of the Duolingo/meetup generation of Irish language speakers is both inevitable and arguably a sign of the increased uptake of the language - if such people were small in number compared to the traditional speakers, they could not have had this outsized influence. The problem is the shitty level of Irish held by most school teachers, even those in the Gaelscoileanna. And their ignorance on proper Irish idiom, grammar and sounds that then gets passed on. > Also in the case of Tá/Níl as Yes/No in particular, the roots of that probably also have something to do with bilingual government forms adopting it as a space saving measure, so these new speakers have a lifetime of seeing Tá/Yes and Níl/No options on professionally translated forms that may also have primed this development. And those forms are purposefully translated so that Tá/Yes Níl/No is an answer to an "An bhfuil" question, following proper Irish grammar (usually "An bhfuil tú i bhfábhar ..."). But, natural language change is not what's happening with Irish. Instead, we're seeing a split between the traditional Gaeltacht raised native speakers and a pidgin/creole forming in the urban areas. Sadly, only one can survive and it's less and less likely it'll be traditional Irish. Instead, we'll be left with something that calls itself Irish, but is really no different from English in the way it expresses concepts, the sounds it uses to express those concepts and, outside perhaps the very basics, the grammar it uses to express those concepts. The only thing different is the words it uses. That's not Irish. You'd never see this happening with any majority language -- French speakers would be rightfully up in arms if someone spoke French with English sounds, used English grammar and then claimed their French was just as authentic as the natives'. Sadly, we accept it -- praise it -- for Irish. At the expense of the traditional, rich native language and the Gaelic worldview (assuming linguistic relativity and/or cognitive metaphors shape the way we think; I lean towards the latter)
seabird 4y ago
There is no reason a living language can't be a fossilized relic. French has the fairly conservative French Academy. The German case system as you would learn it from a textbook has been kept on life support by academics and formal users for centuries.
- Macha 4y ago
  French is centralized, but not stationary. It's also, at least among languages I'm familar with, an outlier in being so formally standardised - if English was treated as stringently, variations like Hiberno-English, American English or English as spoken in India would be considered errors, rather than regional variations. Finally, it's not hoping for adoption among a group 40x larger than it's current speaker base.

messe 4y ago

> This is not a change that is happening, from my experience, in the Gaeltacht raised with traditional Irish speaking parents. Of which there are less and less of. I think the only way Irish can survive in the long term is in a semi-creolized form with a lot of English influence. It's all well and good trying to codify a variety of "proper Irish", but realistically if it is to gain any amount of new speakers, it's going to have significant influence from the native languages of those new speakers—which will be English. This isn't unnatural. Languages are influenced by non-native speakers all the time. See English: a Germanic language with much of its vocabulary derived from Norman French, Latin, and Greek, and a loss of almost all inflection save for some irregular verbs, and referring to ships in the feminine. Look, I'd like as much as the next person to preserve Irish as native speakers speak it, but the chance to do that died over a century ago.

dorchadas 4y ago
> I think the only way Irish can survive in the long term is in a semi-creolized form with a lot of English influence. Then that's not Irish. It's a Neo-Irish creole. Which is fine -- great even! -- but let's call it what it is. > See English: a Germanic language with much of its vocabulary derived from Norman French, Latin, and Greek, and a loss of almost all inflection save for some irregular verbs, and referring to ships in the feminine. There's a huge difference between what's going on with Irish and what happened with English under Norman rule. For instance, the sound system is still fairly Germanic, the grammar most definitely is. Both these things are being lost in Neo-Irish. > Look, I'd like as much as the next person to preserve Irish as native speakers speak it, but the chance to do that died over a century ago. I think there is still a chance, if radical steps are taken. Sadly, you're right; they won't be taken. I'm fine with something surviving, but we need to be honest about what it is, and how the State has failed those who actually speak traditional Irish and all but guaranteed its death, thanks, in part, to the way it implemented it in the schools. It should've always been a Gaeltacht outward revival.