I think so yes



thank you for the responses. The man pronounced mhadra as w now. A bit confusing, but it's a great resource nonetheless

Iish has two sets of consonants, and some dveloped earlier than others, but the process was complete early. I think for broad amd slender with what is written mh and bh, it was a type of labial fricative and in modern irish, depending on position w and v are allophones while in mayo and donegal, they have compleatly seperated. Also, the influence of emglish might have labiodentalised things too

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

The word "interesting" exists in all English-speaking areas. Some pronounce as if the first 'e' wasn't there, "intresting" (UK+Ireland), others pronounce it "inneresting" (US). I'm not sure there's anywhere where natives say "interesting", but that doesn't mean that only putting "interesting" into dictionaries is an attempt to dumb down English or quash its diversity.

I've read a lot of complaints here about the standard spelling of Irish, or about the existence of a unified spelling for Irish, but I'm not finding them convincing.

Dutch is another example. Lots of regions have their own spellings and pronunciations for certain words, but there's still a standard called "General Dutch" which is taught in schools and it hasn't prevented the people in West Flanders from writing and speaking among themselves in a way incomprehensible to everyone else, but is has given everyone a way to write and speak which is comprehensible to all Dutch speakers (including those in West Flanders), and it's given learners something to learn which allows them to speak Dutch in every Dutch-speaking region. And no one calls General Dutch "dumbed-down Dutch". If General Dutch didn't exist, native speakers would often use English instead of their own language and far fewer learners would bother learning Dutch. (English fluency is very common among Dutch speakers.) There're actually a lot of parallels between Dutch and Irish in this respect.

Are you saying there should be no prescribed standard for Irish (all gaeltacht speakers should write as they wish, dictionaries should document all variations, and non-gaeltacht speakers should follow however the gaeltacht speakers are writing)? Or are you calling for three new standards (maybe with sub-regional sub-standards) to capture phonetically how Irish is spoken in gaeltacht areas?

I'm seeing the situation from a learners perspective (and my wish is for one unified spelling for words which exist in all regions, with differing pronunciations) so I'm interested to hear the proposals of yourself and people with a native gaeltacht speaker perspective.

(The Munster pronunciation on teanglann.ie sounds like "madra" to my untrained ear.)

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish

Unlike Standard English Standard Irish is not spoken by natives anywhere, it is artificial.
There are only 3 main dialects in Ireland, it's easy enough to teach the dialect suitable for whatever region you are living. If you were learning Welsh you'd have to choose between North or South Welsh.

Lughaidh was commenting on the words in pronunciation part of Teanglann. Where some words are unique to a particular dialect. For example "fosta" "fe dtaobh da" "druid" that are only used in Donegal so there is no point in having a Conamara person pronounce them as they are not used by Conamara speakers. The same goes for words used in Conamara that are not used in Donegal like "freisin". Ofcourse words we have in common should be pronounced in all dialects.

to me, the current standard Irish is just an artificial dialect, that contains a number of things that don't exist in any dialect.
Now, in my opinion, it would be better to choose one central dialect (a Galetacht one!) as the standard for the cases you address all Irish speakers (stuff written by the government etc).
Now, for all local things, using the local dialect should be encouraged. The problem is that standard Irish isn't spoken by any native speakers, and is taught to everybody, including Gaeltacht speakers. So Gaeltacht speakers could believe that their Irish is wrong, and moreover, native speakers are never taught how to spell the words they use in their everyday life, if they don't exist in school Irish. In schools, non-standard words and forms are even considered wrong by some teachers - this is an effective way to kill a language.

There was no need to create an artificial dialect... And not teaching native speakers how to write in their dialect is stupid. It's like saying Gaeltacht Irish doesn't deserve to be written. It does - before the CO, Gaeltacht writers would write in their dialect and it was awesome.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I also think the dialects are easier to learn. Standard Irish has tons of things said nowhere and the grammar is just far more complicated.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

A Koine could have developed as a sort of middle register, with the Caighdeán as part of the written upper, literary register, but that would not have suited

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

In the area where I live (An Spidéal, Indreabhán, Cois Fharraige) I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce the "r" in madra.

Interesting discussion about dialects and the CO - I'm curious where the Dublin dialect fits into the picture.

The Dublin dialect disappeared long ago... Now, those who speak Irish in Dublin use the Irish they've learnt, be it Gaeltacht Irish if they've understood that it's the only legitimate kind of Irish, or Urban Irish ie. English in disguise, or something inbetween. But to me, there's no Dublin Irish dialect anymore, just like there's no Paris' or Madrid English dialects...

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne