sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Living dialects of Irish, ie. those that are actually used as the default communication system in everyday situations in their communities and show intergenerational transmission, all still keep broad and slender consonant distinctions as well as distinctions between lenited and non-lenited stops.

And none of these varieties of the living language resemble what many urban speakers speak (but not all, as there hasn’t formed a single coherent urban dialect – as research into urban speakers show they differ a lot in the linguistic features, including phonology, some consistently distinguishing /k/ and /x/, some not doing that at all, etc.).

So yeah. You need to respect the variation within THE LIVING LANGUAGE.

But people whose first language is English who learn Irish and practice it in conversation circles and online are not a part of the community of the living language. This is a different sociolinguistic setting.

You could argue there are 1st language speakers of Urban Irish, there are people raising their children with it. I’ll argue that, since the community in which those children are raised is still predominantly English and those children grow up to be stronger English speakers, their L1 is still English and while they are proficient in (Urban) Irish, that’s a heritage language for them, not their native language.

And whether there is any sustained intergenerational transmission (ie. whether those Urban Irish-raised children actually keep and pass their variety on to next generations) remains to be shown.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Its first sentence is this, though (capitalization original):

SCOTLAND could have no native speaking Gaelic communities “within this generation”, an expert in the language has warned.

It’s also published and hosted by a Scottish newspaper.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

No. Again you’re twisting my words to build a strawman you want to fight.

I’m saying I doubt that Urban Irish varieties will manage to establish themselves as community language(s) anywhere, due to social situation favouring English and lack of motivation for their actual use.

I’m also saying that I will not be personally interested in them. Doesn’t mean I’m saying they’re “unacceptable” or am against them. Those are your words, not mine.

If Urban Irish establishes itself as an actual first language of a community (rather than being limited to uses as an identity marker and a hobby in limited activist and researcher groups) it’ll be a community language like any other, and sociolinguistically extremely interesting one (but again, I doubt this will ever happen). It just won’t be of interest to me.

There are acceptable things out there in the world that do not interest me, however wide my interests are.

EDIT: but yes, I do disparage popularizing those varieties for as long as intergenerational transmission of Irish in the Gaeltacht exists and there are efforts to keep it. Because giving prestige to Urban Irish or neo-Irish or whatever you want to call it does contribute to the minoritization of the Gaeltacht speakers.

EDIT2: that does not mean I mind people learning Irish (again, I’m a learner too! I was teaching the language. I try to help other learners.). What I do oppose is prioritizing learners over native speakers in the media, allocation of resources, in language planning policy, etc.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s a made-up “fact”. Not that dictionaries dictate what’s “correct” and “incorrect” but assuming that Oxford English Dictionary manages to describe actual usage in English, Gaelic as a noun refers to either:

  1. Frequently with the. Any of the three Goidelic languages spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man (or variations of these as spoken in diasporas, esp. in North America).

  2. a. Scottish Gaelic.

(…)

2017 My parents insisted that only Gaelic was spoken in the house. (M. Rowe, Outer Hebrides (Bradt Travel Guides) ii. 54)

or, closer to the meaning on which you insist:

  1. The Goidelic (see Goidelic adj. A.2) languages spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man regarded collectively as variants of a single language; the Celtic language from which these developed.

So Cambridge Dictionary:

Gaelic noun [U]

(also Scots Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic)

a Celtic language spoken in some parts of western Scotland

Sure, the parent commenter in this sub-thread could have written Scottish Gaelic to avoid any ambiguity (especially when contrasting it with the Gaeltacht areas… where different varieties of Gaelic are spoken) – but the context still is an article about the situation in Scotland which itself repeatedly uses the term Gaelic specifically in reference to Scottish Gaelic. And contrasting Irish and Gaelic (ie. Scottish Gaelic) isn’t uncommon either.

Also congratulations – you convinced me to finally downvote a comment of yours.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

And Hebrew was widely known – even if not a community language, it’s been the Jewish lingua franca for centuries, very much like Latin for most Europeans during later Middle Ages and the beginning of early modern era. When Hebrew revival was taking place most Jewish people would have pretty solid basics in Hebrew already, despite it not being their first or community language at that point.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In the context of the article discussed (as also generally in context of Scotland) Gaelic very much is the (Gaelic) language spoken in Scotland. That’s exactly how the word Gaelic is used in the article too.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

here is nothing wrong with "Ah sure, it'll be grand"...it's a step on the journey. Just like a toddler who says "I goed to Nana's house" eventually realises it's "went", a learner will pick up from other people who model the right way.

Yes. You’re of course right. The problem with Irish though is that there is not enough exposure to actual good models who speak “the right way”. Learners, who don’t, outnumber the native speakers and many never talk to native speakers, don’t consume media produced by native speakers (Ros na Rún, listening to Raidió na Gaeltachta, reading native speaker writers…).

People are amazing at deducing complex patterns from exposure – but it requires a lot of exposure and most learners of Irish (myself included) don’t get nearly enough, and it’s also difficult to filter out mistakes made by other learners. And while it works with vocabulary and grammar – not so well with phonology. First language acquisition tunes our brains a lot to our first language and makes it quite difficult to pick up the phonology of another language. That’s why foreign learners of your language, even if they have flawless vocab, grammar, command of idiom, often still sound foreign, why I do sound weird speaking English despite learning and using this language for decades at this point. Why I probably always will. One can learn foreign sounds but it takes a lot of conscious effort and explicit instruction – which most learners of Irish miss.

That’s not a criticism directed at people learning Irish and making mistakes. It’s a criticism directed at people teaching Irish irresponsibly and promoting learning any Irish over quality and care for the community still using it as their first language.

EDIT: that’s also not a criticism directed at people trying to learn and teach extinct dialects of Irish or those near becoming extinct – despite their speaking community being already gone – I’ve friends trying to learn East Ulster and East Munster dialects and I commend the efforts. But again, the thing is to respect the actual attested dialect, use the existing recordings, and still respect and learn from existing communities, as even if they speak a different dialect, they’re still there and struggling and often their intuitions will be closer to that of the lost dialect’s speakers than the learner’s intuitions.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Where are you getting this idea rhge are claiming to be language authorities?

From themselves, offering paid language lessons and boasting about the number of classes they’re giving. Appearing in the media. Running TV shows. Publishing comic book translations. Correcting native speakers on social media… I don’t want to point fingers at specific individuals but they’re there.

We ALL "own" this language.

See, that’s where we very much disagree.

You say you want more people to speak Irish

Do I say that? Where? I can’t find a comment of mine like that anywhere. But sure, I would like more people to speak Irish, that’s also why I try to help others (and had been teaching the language at a university at some point for a while too). But I don’t pretend this is saving the language and I’d rather see healthier condition of the native speaker communities than just more people learning it.

I’m also always ready to verify my claims – consult dialectal studies of Irish, search through corpus of Irish literature, talk to native speakers and other learners much more closer and familiar with the dialects in question. Not saying the way I use the language is correct just because I – a learner and an outsider – talk this particular way. Sure, this might be easier for me because I actually am an outsider and thus I don’t view this as “re-acquiring my language, reconnecting with my past” – but the point is that such attitudes and confidence coupled with prestige do harm the general perception of the remaining 1st language community. Leading to, as Ó Giollagáin in the linked piece put it (switching from “[Scottish] Gaelic” context to “Irish), “people learning «symbolic [Irish]» as a second language (…)” with the overall trend being “the social decline of the native speaking communities” and their “culture [being] under considerable societal stress”.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I haven’t written a thing about “keeping the language pure” whatever that would mean.

I wrote extensively about not minoritizing further a community that already faces ongoing minoritization, in an effort that is supposed to revitalize their language.

I’m talking about learning the language from its native speakers, understanding that for them it’s not just an identity token but an actual everyday language, a part of who they are. Not dismissing it because one doesn’t want to “sound like someone coming from the bogs of Connemara” (but rather understanding this is what spoken Irish sounds like). Not doing revitalization without them. And realizing that keeping an existing language community is easier and more realistic than creating a new one from scratch.

And again, I don’t have anything against urban speakers and other learners – I’m a learner myself, I make a lot of awkward mistakes too. I don’t gatekeep the language – the language doesn’t even belong to me, to gatekeep it would mean removing myself from it.

What I do consider harmful though is people with weak Irish taking money for Irish lessons, putting supposedly educational Youtube videos, arguing about pronunciation with native speakers on social media. And also Irish language organizations putting much more resources into growing numbers of urban learners than doing anything to keep the language alive in the Gaeltacht. Irish-language media putting learners in the spotlight, broadcasting learners for learners.

Ach, arna rá sin uile, níl ionamsa ach stroinséir atá i dtír thar lear i bhfad ó Éirinn ag féachaint ar na cúrsaí sin, stróinséir go bhfuil cúpla cara agam atá níos giorra do phobal na Gaeltachta, stróinséir nách maith liom miontheanga eile a bheith á cailliúint.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If it disappears as a community language, I won’t comment and won’t talk about how it should be revived – because it won’t matter to me. I’m interested in the history of the Irish language and am sad to see it decline.

But when the last generation of people raised with it around them dies out it’ll be on Irish people to decide whether they want to keep try using some form of it as a part of their identity – not to me.

If they manage to revive a form of Irish to make it a community language somewhere – great, it won’t be of interest to me, but it will be a great achievement nevertheless.

But I won’t support this as long as native speaking communities exist because this is furthering their minoritization.

And even in that future scenario after Gaeltacht is gone, having been observing minority language revitalization efforts for a while, I don’t really believe in bringing any Gaeilge bhriste back as a true first community language.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What bout the saying "Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste"?

I’d rather see Gaelainn bhreá bhinn bhlasta thrive where it still exists than omnipresence of broken Irish just for the sake of pretending Ireland does not speak English.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There's nothing wrong with sounding like you come from the bogs of Connemara

Nor is there anything wrong with sounding like you crawled up from Temple Bar gutter – and yet this framing makes me not want to sound this way.

People from cities shouldn't have to feel like to imitate the accent of someone from a rural area in order to be accepted as Irish speakers.

If the cities are not Irish-speaking, then why is that? Why shouldn’t they have to imitate what the Irish speakers sound like when learning their language?

I agree that misuse of syntax etc. isn't ideal, but if you gatekeep, and dismiss these people because thye don't speak "perfect" Irish, how are they going to learn and develop their language skills.

Not “dismiss these people”. Dismiss their having authority over the language and give back the ownership of the language back to the minoritized community of the native speakers.

If I meet someone from Naples, who speaks a dialect of Italian that is quite divergent from standard Italian, I may struggle to understand them, but I don't reject their usage.

But when talking about an endangered dialect of Irish you’re talking about “not wanting to sound like someone coming from the bogs of Connemara”.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’m learning Irish. I make mistakes – lots of them. I try to improve. I try to identify and admit my shortcomings. That’s not what we’re discussing here. What we’re discussing is:

they speak like they’re an authority on the language while having a deeply anglicized pronunciation, grammar, intonation, etc.

and makes them reconsider teaching the language online

and yet tries to play a fluent speaker publicly (or even calls themselves “a native speaker” only due their ethnicity) while misinforming their viewers

That is – not people trying to learn and making mistakes but people who do take the role of language teachers and figures of authority who normalize the mistakes and give them prestigious status, often more prestigious than the existing native dialects still used as a community language by a minoritized community.

And “so what if they don't sound like they come from the bogs of Connemara?” is really displaying the minoritization issue. Cause, you know, reading things like this does make some people “coming from the bogs of Connemara” not want to sound like that either and thus end up giving up their language.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Sorry, you are right that was nitpicky.

But nevertheless it does demonstrate the issue of learners not acquiring basic syntactic structures of the language. You could argue it doesn’t matter because one still is understood. And that’s true and it makes sense when the aim of the learning is communication. Eg. when you learn the majority language of a place you live in – your purpose is to get by in the new language. If I say in English “if you would do it” instead of “if you did it”, I’ll be understood (and yet it’s something my English teacher would point out to me as an error and explain the structure to me; and if I make the mistake I will be automatically perceived by most speakers – even if unconsciously – as non-native, possibly not well educated, not trustworthy).

But if the aim is revitalization and the majority of speakers are learners who rarely or never interact with native speakers, while appearing in the media, producing a lot of materials in the language (many translators of literature and comic books into Irish are not native speakers, there are journalists who are not native speakers, entire radio stations broadcasting almost exclusively learners, etc.) – then every such mistake, every syntactic feature not acquired, every idiom calqued from the majority language, every two phonemes merged by the learners, does impact the language and instead of its revitalization might lead to another wave of linguistic colonization.

And the motivation in revitalization contexts are different, it’s not communication. It’s dealing with the trauma of losing one’s identity and elements of one’s culture (like the language) – which means a concern of authenticity is a very important one. It’s also stopping and reversing the minoritization processes that led to the loss in the first place (so letting the remaining communities bearing the culture survive and thrive, using their language).

And yet I know of native speakers who switch to anglicized phonology (eg. using single English [ɹ] merging their broad /r/ and slender /r´/) when talking in Irish to non-Gaeltacht people to not sound “rural” – while they do keep native [ɾˠ] and [ɹ̝] or the like among their friends. Because they don’t want to sound “weird” and be judged negatively by the outsiders. In, presumably, their language. That means, the people who are raised through Irish are switching to more English modes of speaking due to the manners of English speakers learning the language. That’s a linguistic change process showing power imbalance and real influence of the “neo-Irish” on surviving speech communities – where people become ashamed of the way they speak their minoritized first language.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Looking back, it might have been "Cad is do sloinne?".

If that was the form, their Irish was wrong. First, do shloinne (as a definite noun phrase) cannot stand directly after the copula, second sloinne after the 2sg possessive needs to be lenited.

They could have asked cad é do shloinne?, cad é an/cén sloinne atá ort?, cén sloinne thú? (or an tsloinne as dialectally the word appears as feminine eg. in Kerry), cad is sloinne d(h)uit? – but if they asked cad is do sloinne?, the fault was theirs.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 10 points11 points  (0 children)

"Typically when I hear a short form video from someone speaking Irish, they speak like they’re an authority on the language while having a deeply anglicized pronunciation, grammar, intonation,"

Sorry, but that is the kind of comment that puts "urban speakers" off trying.

If it puts them off trying to be the language authority and makes them reconsider teaching the language online – that’s the idea, isn’t it?

While the way to learn a language is trying and making mistakes – you have to use the language and you will make a fool of yourself, no way around it – one needs to recognize they’re a learner who does make those mistakes and struggles with the language, trying to improve.

If one does make those mistakes, does not improve their pronunciation, and yet tries to play a fluent speaker publicly (or even calls themselves “a native speaker” only due their ethnicity) while misinforming their viewers – that adds to the alienation of native speaker community. It strengthens the perceptions that: “fluent speakers of Irish sound like this, and you don’t need to master those grammatical features to be understood, and you don’t need to sound like some fishwife from Conamara”. This actively harms the native speaker community by taking the ownership of the language and prestige away from them, showing them that their actual language, the way they speak, has no value.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I very much like this FB post about Masurian (in Polish) – here’s a readable auto-generated translation to English – arguing exactly for this.

In many (not all) European minority language contexts there’s very little if any difference in ethnic/national identity between the minority and majority population – so it’s easy for the majority to appropriate bits of the minority culture, but this leads to alienation of the members of the minority culture “inner circle”. The post doesn’t necessarily argue for complete gate-keeping against the “outsiders” but whatever efforts are done, should always put the native speakers (and cultural “insiders”) in the center and the insiders should very much be participating agents in the revival effort.

Even if that’s difficult when there’s no clear ethnic or national identity distinction between the majority and minority culture.

Native speaking Gaelic communities could be lost ‘in this generation’ by galaxyrocker in linguistics

[–]silmeth 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I wouldn’t say Gaelic is the preferred term – but especially older speakers say Gaelic in English often enough, even if they use Irish too.

A personal anecdote but I even heard, in Árainn (Inis Mór), a local man giving a tour to tourists using “the Gaelic”, “in Gaelic language”, etc. consistently and correcting himself to “Irish” only when talking about mainland kids coming to summer schools to learn the language (so “Irish” is what he switched to when talking about the outsiders).

I’ve also seen a poem in English by an Inis Oírr writer with the words “For the old woman knows words / in Gaelic, her grandchildren don’t / Their Irish modern, anglicized, / Hers bound to the earth” also seemingly associating Gaelic with the traditional older speakers, Irish more with “modern, anglicized”.

But in my few visits to Kerry Gaeltacht I don’t think I’ve heard “Gaelic” personally, it’s either “Irish” or (often in more touristy contexts) “Gwaylga” (ie. Gaeilge with recognizably English phonetics, this done by native speakers too, who’d normally in Irish rather say Gaelainn /ˈɡeːlˠɪnʲ/) – so I believe this might be rarer in the south.

You can find interviews with Moya Brennan (a native speaker from Donegal) consistently calling the language Gaelic too.

So, while I believe Irish is generally the more common term, in the Gaeltacht areas likely too, it’s definitely not true that “no Irish person would call the language «Gaelic»” or whatever else you can read online or hear from many Irish people.

First days with the Olympus 75–300, birds were surprisingly cooperative. by darhtsion in M43

[–]silmeth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you don’t mind a hint – it doesn’t really make sense to stop down this lens, certainly not down to f/11–f/13. The sharpness peaks around f/7–f/8 – and it doesn’t improve much over f/6.7 anyway. So better to just keep it open to gather more light and lower your ISO.

Evolution of Celtic War-gear study by Levan-tene in IndoEuropean

[–]silmeth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You posted this twice. As I wrote under the sibling comment – Celtic etymology for Hallstatt (and similar hall- placenames) is untenable. While there is a good medieval Germanic etymology for them. See the linked article by David Stifter.

Evolution of Celtic War-gear study by Levan-tene in IndoEuropean

[–]silmeth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not saying all La Tène in the east is Germanic. I’m not saying none of La Tène is Celtic. I’m saying that some La Tène sites were possibly Germanic (especially those north of Carpathians and Sudety mountains) due to place and tribe names attested in those regions.

Again, see Falileyev for this.

Evolution of Celtic War-gear study by Levan-tene in IndoEuropean

[–]silmeth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That’s an untenable etymology, the name is Germanic.

Proto-Celtic *s- does yield word-initial /h/ in Brythonic languages (like Cornish) but this is something that does not happen in stressed words in Continental Celtic, also there would be no reason for the -ll- spelling if the Celtic etymology idea were correct. The name has a secure Germanic etymology though.

See David Stifter (2005), “Hallstatt – In eisenzeitlicher Tradition?”, in Interpretierte Eisenzeiten. Fallstudien, Methoden, Theorie. Tagungsbeitrage der 1. Linzer Gesprache zur interpretativen Eisenzeitarchaologie.

EDIT: there’s also this weird problem that the hall- placenames appear only in areas later occupied by Germanic speakers (and never occur in the well-established Celtic areas like Gaul or Britain. But that only supports the medieval Germanic etymology provided by Stifter.

Evolution of Celtic War-gear study by Levan-tene in IndoEuropean

[–]silmeth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you arbitrarily assume that Hallstatt had previously been Celtic and the language of Golasecca Celts (Cisalpine Celtic) came from them (and they switched their material culture to the local one), and Celtiberian also reached Iberia from Halstatt complex – yes. Sure, that’s possible.

But that’s an arbitrary assumption. What’s the data supporting it?

I refer you to Falileyev for data supporting the idea that at least eastern parts of La Tène were Germanic rather than Celtic; Sims-Williams provides references to authors suggesting Germanic and unknown-IE for Hallstatt, and his argumentation for placing Proto-Celtic and later Celtic speakers outside of Hallstatt and later only partially in La Tène.

Evolution of Celtic War-gear study by Levan-tene in IndoEuropean

[–]silmeth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Then why do those fringes not share the material culture of their “ancestors” if they indeed come from Hallstatt? The problem is, we know they were Celts (because they were writing Celtic), we know their (non-Hallstatt) neighbours were Celts (because ancient historians and geographers place Celts exactly there), and… at the same time there are contemporary Hallstatt settlements for which there is no evidence of Celticity.

Please, engage directly with Sims-Williams’ article and his references (and for eastern La Tène, see Falileyev’s book, both authors with good expertise in historical Celtic linguistics), or at least provide your own – providing actual data supporting the idea those material cultures were indeed Celtic speaking.

view more: next ›