Although the most recent one apparantly doesn't recognise many Munster forms, like the Munster verb conjugations (chuas instead of chuaigh mé). Which sucks if you ask me. Maybe they did it because of the whole Irish being an official language of the EU now thing, not to be having any translaters confusing people with archaic forms. Not that anyone's ever going to read those translations.

Ah, now I see. Still, once Irish is restored to its rightful place as the primary language of Ireland, the Caighdeán is pretty much going to take over, it's what happens with standardized languages these days. What do native speakers think of people who do speak the Caighdeán but speak it very well? And once again, is it déanamh an ruda or an rud?

I doubt that would ever be the case. If Irish had never lost its primary language status, it's more likely that a native dialect (most likely Connemara) would have become the actual, spoken standard, with the other dialects mixing in to some degree. With the current situation, if Irish were to somehow regain its primary status, it's likely that "Urban Irish" would influence whatever were to become a recognized "standard, with the Caighdeán, if it remained at all, remaining as a purely academic standard.

Remember that NO ONE can actually speak the Caighdeán, as it doesn't address pronunciation...therefore every pronunciation choice is going to reflect one dialect or another. Same thing with expressions. For example, how do you greet someone? How do you say "come here"? Do you call your dog a madra, a mada, or a madadh? These are all dialect choices (and, unsurprisingly, all allowed under the Caighdeán).

I would say that most learners at least start by learning a mixture of dialects, and that's fine. It will mark you as a second-language-learner but, to be honest, our accents already do that. My usual advice to learners is to focus on learning the nuts and bolts of the language first, and then specialize if you want to.

As for what native speakers think, I'll leave that to them to answer that. I do know that in some Gaeltachts, native speakers are uncomfortable speaking Irish with any outsider,, regardless of dialect.

Redwolf

I've never actually been to Ireland, so I can't really comment on whether the Caighdeán is ever going to become the de facto standard, but either way, SOMETHING is going to take over, and, since the vast majority of native dialects have simply died out, the influence of the standard is going to be even stronger, most people really have nothing of their own to go by.



Even if you can do the accent (as I can, it's a talent of mine), the fact that you say things differently will easily mark you as a non-native, it's just the way language works. I'm not trying to pass myself off as a native speaker, I just didn't realize that the Caighdeán was viewed as so artificial. I guess specialization might not actually be a bad idea, but again, something is going to become the de facto standard sooner or later, and even if I do decide to specialize, the best thing to do (at least in my opinion) would be to have a solid Caighdeán base and then go to the area in question to pick up the specifics.

There's a lot of good resources out there for learning caighdeán Esszet, Buntús Cainte is a well recommended one because it uses native speakers who aren't leaving out key phonetic features of the language as many people who only learn Irish in school tend to do. There's also O'Se's Teach Yourself Irish which is supposed to be decent and also has good audio I hear (make sure you get O'Se if it's caighdeán you want because Dillon's TYI is Munster dialect).

I personally don't have a problem with standard Irish at it's core, I just don't like the way even many teachers replace the gaelic phonetics of the language with the nearest available English phonemes. And I'm not so sure about the 2,000 new words that are created per year, like bugaithe for buggy.

But enough of all that, you have claimed that you have a talent for doing an Irish accent and I demand to hear it!

Thank you, I generally learn languages on my own, but if I need something more structured, I'll definitely look into it. I sent in a recording I made of myself speaking Irish last night; hopefully it'll get posted in the next day or so.

Now...can someone please tell me...in light of the fact that the genitive is falling out of use in spoken language, would people say déanamh an rud or an ruda?

Can one of the admins just confirm receipt of the e-mail? And yeah, I misread what Lughaidh said initially, it would be an rud.

We did receive an e-mail with a sound file. The content was a little bizarre and it was necessary to edit out a portion but at Esszet's insistence, here is the file for other's to appraise (since self-appraisal is always difficult ):

http://www.awyr.com/ILF/saewndfaylz/_me ... eoraip.mp4

The passage read apparently comes from the first paragraph here:

"A" for effort but I don't think you'll be mistaken for a native speaker just yet, Esszet.

Here are some pointers:

1. ae is pronounced /æ:/ rather than /a:/, e.g., theas /hæ:s/, dheas /ɣ´æ:s/.

2. ai is pronounced /æ:/ rather than /a:/, e.g., aigéan /æ:g´e:əN/.

3. oi is usually pronounced /e/ rather than /o:/ in thoir /her´/.

4. ia is pronounced /i:ə/ with a long i, rather than /ia:/ as you have it, e.g., thiar /hi:ər/.

5. Your r's tend to be overflapped.

You can find good examples of the pronunciation of common vocabulary words in each of the three major dialects at Teanglann.

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WARNING: Intermediate speaker - await further opinions, corrections and adjustments before acting on my advice.
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Just so you are not alone, Esszet, and to put my money where my mouth is (or to put my foot in my mouth as the case may be), here is my (non-native) take on the piece:

http://www.awyr.com/ILF/saewndfaylz/_me ... Eoraip.mp4

@everyone - Feel free to dissect it, critique it, and/or ask questions about it. (Feedback is always welcome.)

Of course, a recording from a native speaker like Bríd, or one from Braoin, would be an even better reference.

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WARNING: Intermediate speaker - await further opinions, corrections and adjustments before acting on my advice.
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).