Have you ever held a conversation in Irish with native speakers?

do you remember Román?

Tá an ceart agat, a Jay Bee. Do bheadh sé níos feárr dá mbeadh beagán Gaelainne curtha le gach aon teachtaireacht anso - b'fhéidir go scríobhfaimís i nGaelainn ar fad, nú b'fhéidir go n-úsáidfimís an dá theangain in aice le chéile, agus mar sin do bhainfimís tairbhe as, agus i ndiaidh ar ndiaidh is mó d'fheabhas a chuirfimís ar ár gcuid Gaelainne i gcaitheamh na bliana ná mar a dheinimíd anois. Gan a thuilleadh mioscaise, agus le béim againn á chur ar chúnamh a thabhairt do chách, raghaidh an fóram ar aghaidh, fé mar atá sé ag dul ar aghaidh cheana féin gan dabht, ach raghaidh sé ar aghaidh níos fuinniúla féin! Agus do bhíos ag ceannach na dtabharthaistí Nollag inniubh, agus cuireann sé 'na luí ar aigne duine go bhfuil an bhliain seo ag teacht chun deiridh go luath, agus go dtugann gach aon bhliain nua caoi mhaith ar thosnú nua do dhéanamh le gach duine, ní hamháin ar an bhfóram, ach 'nár mbeatha sa tsaol!

It might be worth having separate threads for such discussions.

Jay Bee, I'd forgotten about your Korean links. How is your Korean? I wonder if you're following events in NK? I hope that country turns a corner at some point.

Just wondering if you have figured out your answer to this question yet?

Speaking of arguments putting people off a forum, I'm now back on Daltaí...

What happened to it? Clearly by 'read thread' count people are logging in, but no one is really posting. It's a ghost town.

As a veteran of such fights (and 4-year and wide geographic banning -Korea and half of China was still blocked from a certain forum even last summer...) I can attest to the destructive result of constant fighting.

However, part of the reason for these fights is the unacknowledged extremism that hides behind what ostensibly is the 'middle ground', the one which states that 'all Irish is good Irish' and you should just use your 'cupla focal' and it will all be ok.

No it won't. If Irish is not hegemonic in at least ONE area (which its not) and its users not FANATIC (which they aren't) then it simply won't survive. It's a bad spot Irish is in now and it needs a beachhead and the internet is a good bet for now.

And Gaelscoil Irish doesn't count for the simple reason that neither it nor Gaeltacht Irish is being passed on in any numbers NOR is non-Gaeltacht Irish moving towards native Irish in form, idiom and semantics. This undermines its credibility. Russian spoken by Papua New Guineans is not Russian!

As Ó Bearra has pointed out before, urban Irish is more of a pidgin for its users often can't inflect for weak plurals due to the manner of their articulation (the worst being Belfast; at least Dublin speakers are on a continuum). That's not to detract from people like Saoirse bringing up their kids through Irish and there are urban people who have idiomatic Irish the type all but Bríd here would get lost in (Aonghus on the Daltaí board being one), BUT they are in a minority. Most won't pass on ANYTHING to their kids, impairing any revival at the root and good speakers will be pulled down or make lazy by the gobbildy gook splashing around out there.

Personally, I think that if anyone wants the 'purists' to be less recalcitrant, I think that the 'extremists' need to come to the middle ground. This might be helped by having more posting i nGaeilg in every post, b'fhéidir ach giota beag ag an tosach, agus níos mó go fadálach. By having duplicates in both languages, it will help people with their reading and whether the spelling is Caighdeán or not should not be important. Look, let's be honest, we are in a tiny little minority that cares about this language, so if we can't raise the bar, act unified and be consistent, then nothing is going to happen. Setting a collective goal of having 20 people on the board comfortable with both speaking and reading decent Gaeltacht inspired Irish by Christmas next year after pledging to dedicate themselves to do so and making sure they will, would provide a core of users and a game plan to follow. If you know you are doing this together it keeps the morale stronger and limits fighting while allowing for disagreements. Also, more strong users, more varied the pool so more people doing grammar and translation and researching and songs, not just staying in their own area of interest

So, I'm putting myself forward as the first name. This is my pledge; anyone else who wants to join can have their own particular goals .

I, Jay Bee pledge to dedicate the next year to serious study and USE of An Ghaeilg(e)/ an Ghaolainn /an Ghaelainn. I will support my fellow learners by posting in Irish BI-LINGUALLY on a regular basis until and after Irish becomes normalized rather than just a hobby. I will then speak it regularly beginning not later than March 17th regardless of my shyness at doing so

Maybe someone could start a thread specifically about those topics, and we all agree to keep those kinds of discussions on their threads? I bet even the purists would agree that we don't want to make learners feel unwelcome.

I think the point is though that we all keep having the same discussion on each thread.

Ive completely forgotten what this thread was originally about. It sometimes begins to feel like a bit of a round about.

its a bit like on other forums anytime anything about Irish is tried to be discussed it gets derailed by people claiming its a dead language or our patriotic duty. The original discussion being pushed aside by the same debate each time.

It might be worth having separate threads for such discussions.

I think the point is though that we all keep having the same discussion on each thread.

Ive completely forgotten what this thread was originally about. It sometimes begins to feel like a bit of a round about.

its a bit like on other forums anytime anything about Irish is tried to be discussed it gets derailed by people claiming its a dead language or our patriotic duty. The original discussion being pushed aside by the same debate each time.

It might be worth having separate threads for such discussions.

Yes, alas, you're right, Jay Bee. There are a couple of extremely spiteful people on this forum who view themselves as the middle ground.

The middle ground is actually allowing people to learn what they want to learn.

Daltaí was destroyed by the moderator's insistence on the extremists' point of view on that forum - eventually anyone with any dialectal passion was forced out - do you remember Román? He was one of those forced out. Until you were left with only supporters of the CO talking to each other.

If we have a New Year's resolution - let it be to tolerate all - and not just those we agree with - a lesson a couple of people here really need to take to heart.