You can't see any difference because the way people write isn't necessarily similar to the way they speak. The English language when written has its own standard. Here's a taste of some Hiberno- English

what are ya up ta?
What are you up to?- what are you doing

What's the story with ya?- how are you, whats wrong with you (depending on context)
How are you keeping- how are you

tisn't it a grand day- starting a sentence off negatively, similar to irish: nach lá iontach é

Hows John keepin?
Dheara sure, he's not in the best of form- he is not in a good mood

Words with ea in them- decent- pronounced like "daycent" in many parts of Ireland, including myself.
God, we've been having daycent weather there recently.

I am not goin ate-in that, I am not going to eat that

I am an awfully bad speller because I rely on my own pronounciation (pronunciation) a lot of the time.

Although Hiberno- English is starting to dilute and disappear especially in wealthier parts of major cities like Dublin- Jedward as an example- due to influences from American television programs or shows as we like to call them .

(Sorry Redwolf, you got in there ahead of me )

Some might argue that text language is far more phonetical than standard English, who knows maybe text language will oust standard written English sometime in the near future.

As for the argument of Dublin Irish, for years nobody has really taken an interest in speaking Irish, now that they have we mustn't jump on them for every mistake they make or try to put them down. They have taken a step in the right direction and at least have chosen to support their language, which is more than most and they should be duly commended.

I made an argument there a while back where I laid down some of my opinions on why Irish hasn't caught on. In my opinion Irish is now a language of formality rather than informality, especially in the school system. Any teacher will tell you, students find it easier to talk about more difficult things like the recession rather than holding an every day conversation. If Irish can become the language of the everyday World than Irish has the best chance of surviving. These Dublin or Urban speakers are starting to bridge this gap.

Secondly, people feel judged upon and rated when they are speaking it. This has made Irish unattractive and only has fueled the perception of some anti- Irish campaigners that Irish speakers are élitists- just look at Gaelscoileanna-v- English medium schooling hostility!

As for Dublin or Urban Irish becoming a new dialect I think its premature at this moment in time. Although, Urban Irish is basically the caighdeán and mixture of Gaeltacht Irish (if the student is lucky enough to have a teacher from a Gaeltacht) when written and spoken correctly. A dialect in any case is basically where a natural mistake in grammar/ or spelling/ or pronounciation is shared by a significant number of people. For me though Urban Irish is the extreme of mistakes that have occurred to quickly. These mistakes are due to a lack of understanding rather than a natural progression, and I agree with Lughaidh in that sense. Being able to use "New dialect" as an excuse for a lack of understanding is flawed.

What I believe will happen is as these speakers progress they will learn when to use an urú, séimhiú, will grasp an chopail and be able to differentiate between long and short endings. They in turn will teach those around them. all they need is encouragement to do this and not have us jumping down their throat. The way people will learn this will be more natural, they will learn by speaking Irish everyday as a living language rather than learning it in classrooms. Effectively creating new Gaeltachts.

If Irish is to survive we must move somewhat away from trying to preserve it, instead we must try to promote it and grow it. These urban areas fulfill this need. The real question is how much of a change do we want? I myself, similar to you lughaidh, don't want it to change that much at all. We should keep in mind that languages are dynamic but we must ask ourselves at what point is Irish just English in disguise? I get really horrified when I hear suggestions about getting rid of the Tuiseal Ginideach or an chopail- that isn't progression its shear butchery. The Celticist scholar O' Rahilly when discussing the fundamental changes to Manx, for instance the disappearing of the copula, said Max is a language that deserved to die". I don't want Irish to change that dramatically.

Fundamentally, in my opinion , urban Irish learners are a blessing and great credit is due to them. But to be awarded a "new dialect" because of a lack of understanding is ludicrous. Irish that accepts Tá sé fear is Irish that shouldn't be accepted.

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

Somhairle, as Braoin says, if you'd only spend half as much time learning the language instead of complaining about it, you'd have mastered it already.

Get yourself a copy of Buntús Cainte and do all three books. You'll be able to converse in no time about everyday topics with good pronunciation instead of Urban and you'd be able to understand real Munster Irish because the pronunciation and grammar in Buntús isn't that different from real Irish - it's only one step away to any given dialect. If your fiancée can understand TV Irish but not real Irish then get her to study Buntús with you.

Urban may or may not be "the future of Irish", that remains to be seen, but it is interesting that the people who support Urban seem to be the ones who are first to tell people when their English grammar or spelling is incorrect. Urban is Irish as a second language, a creole. Even though English is also destined to be a creole in the distant future, I doubt any of you would advocate teaching creole English instead of real English.

I don't begrudge anyone speaking Irish any way they can, but Gaeltacht Irish is still alive and while ever it is, it is premature to be _teaching_ artificial Irish in its place. As Lughaidh and Bríd often lament, the artificial standard undermines the efforts to preserve the real Irish in the Gaeltachtaí.

Rather than one artificial standard dictated from Dublin, I think Irish should move to three regional standards based on the natural dialects. The standards would at least then be based on something living and real and would save a lot of the confusion about whether to lenite or not, since the dialects are largely consistent within themselves.

Dumbing down Irish just because second language speakers can't keep up is totally ridiculous. You don't save a language by making it into something it is not.

(These are my personal thoughts - I don't expect anyone else to agree and I respect other people's right to hold contrary opinions. We invite a diversity of opinions on this forum and I don't wish my opinions to stop others from voicing theirs. That said, I reserve the right to defend native Irish tooth and nail. )

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
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), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

As Red mentioned, spoken English can vary greatly, and not just here in the US. In the US, movies or television shows from Britain where people speak with strong Scottish or Northern English accents often have to be subtitled, because many Americans cannot understand the speakers, and many Americans cannot always understand Irish English either, especially if the speakers are from the Southwest or West of Ireland.

Even in the US, I've had numerous experiences where people I've been with, who were not from the South, could not understand country people from the South (Black or White), and even Southerners often have trouble understanding people from the Appalachians, whose speech can be very different (it is of Ulster-Scots origin, perhaps filtered somewhat through Pennsylvania German, since their ancestors came down the Appalachians from there). I've even seen subtitles used on US television in some cases where US regional accents (usually Southern accents) were hard for some people to understand.

Anglophone Canadians are usually easy to understand, as are most people in the Midwest and West, even though each area has its own peculiarities -- mostly vowel sounds, as Red noted. People in the US can also usually understand Aussies and Kiwis, although they have very different vowel sounds to ours in many cases (a NZ woman I met in a hotel in Italy once taught me how to distinguish Aussies from Kiwis by the way they pronounce the letter "i"). I've noticed that non-Anglophone Europeans often cannot tell Aussies, Kiwis, (US) Americans, and Canadians apart. I can understand mixing up Canadians and Americans, because we do that ourselves if the vowel sounds aren't too obvious, but Aussie and Kiwi speech is much more distinguishable (to me, anyway). I was in a bookstore in Paris once when a kid ran in, quickly asked the clerk: "Where's American Express?" (it was right around the corner), and ran out after being told (in English). The clerk then turned to her customer and said disparagingly: "Tout le monde parle Américain!". She was surprised to learn that the kid was Australian (or from NZ - I can't always tell).

Interestingly, I've noticed that Francophone Canadians, who are exposed to a huge amount of English (although not all of them can speak it fluently) are usually able to produce English stress patterns near perfectly, which the French in France are usually unable to do. I sometimes watch the news in French from Québec, and when they come to English names or words, it can sound as if they've switched to speaking English. It often comes out essentially the way an Anglophone would pronounce it.

There are also odd connections between places. Canadians say "oht" or "oot" for "out" and "aboht" or "aboot" for "about", but then so do people in far away coastal Virgina, North Carolina, and South Carolina (the Tidewater and Low Country areas). It's similar to the way that people in Munster still say bhuaim instead of uaim, and the fairly distant Scottish Gaelic speakers do so as well.

Of course, everyone thinks his/her speech is "normal", and everyone else has an accent. I live in California now, and the people here, although they are quite easy to understand (all those movies and tv shows), think they have no "accent", yet they (and most Midwesterners as well) are unable to distinguish the different vowel sounds in the words "Mary", "marry", and "merry", which can be very different as pronounced in other places (they pronounce all three words here the way most others pronounce the last one, "merry").

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

I've noticed that as well here in California, Caoimhín, in Spanish speakers. Those who were brought up in both languages (usually speaking Spanish at home and English in school) will rattle along in either language sounding like a native speaker of that language (which they are) until they get to a word in the other language, at which point they sound like a native speaker of THAT language (which they also are, for all intents and purposes). It's especially funny with placenames, as I often hear bilingual people from Spanish-speaking homes pronounce "San Francisco" or "San Jose" as we Anglos do, rather than as a Spanish-speaker normally would (and right in the middle of a Spanish sentence too!).

I've also noticed that many English-speaking Americans have trouble distinguishing an Australian accent from a South African accent as well as from some British accents (They sound very different to my ear, but apparently that's not always the case. It may be a matter of association, as I have acquaintances from all three places).

Redwolf

because they might not all be fluent in English anyway, and they don't often hear all these Englishes (or when they hear English, nothing tells them where the speaker is from). Maybe it's also because the English dialects aren't as recognizable from each other, than Irish dialects for instance. Loads of things change in the Irish dialects: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation etc. If a speaker says about 3 sentences in Irish, quite often it's enough to know at least if he is from U, M or C, or if he speaks school Irish.



I think most Québécois hear English on tv from early childhood (children programs), and all English words are pronounced properly by journalists on tv, that's why it's different from France. In France, English is badly taught, there aren't English language tv channels (or very few and they are news programs, so they aren't for children, and I think very few French people understand spoken English well enough to watch news in English), and all journalists pronounce all foreign names as if they were French ones. Even those who speak English, simply because if you pronounce a placename or a person name with the right pronunciation, most French people won't recognize it, or find it funny. Don't forget that to many French people, pronouncing a sound that doesn't exist in French is more or less ridiculous Most teenagers who're learning foreign languages at school don't do any effort to pronounce foreign sounds properly (it's more or less like Irish young people learning Irish at school, I think). That's kind of a cultural thing, unfortunately. I wish it changed one day!

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

I cannot tell the difference between Australians and New Zealanders, and the only time i can tell Canadians apart from Americans is the the way some of them say abOOt for about. I can tell southern americans from new yorkers and even new jersey from new york ( i assume thouh influence of television). What interests me about America is ethnicity I can 99.99 of time from audio only tell whether they are black white or latino. Its the same with english people, i can tell whether they are black british, asian british, cockney or geordie. And for Irish accents I can tell whether your from north dublin or south dublin, not only that but what class you are (generally). I suppose its all about what your exposed to.

I dont think there is any english i have trouble understanding, often on british/irish tv caribean english is subtitled but i understand it fine as Jamican english has quite a big effect on Urban English in england and therefore I know some of the slang/ sayings etc

There's an old joke about how to tell a Canadian from an American. Simply say out loud in front of them that there's no difference, and the one who gets mad or hits you is the Canadian. The American, of course, couldn't care less what you said -- he's not exactly sure where Canada is anyway (we are a truly geographically challenged people). Actually, a Canadian is much less likely to hit someone than an American (unless you're playing hockey).

The one nearly foolproof way to tell Canadians and Americans apart is to get them talking about elementary school. If the person refers to his first year as "Grade 1", he's almost certainly a Canadian (there are a few areas along the border in the US where they do that also). An American will normally say "1st Grade". Of course, it helps if the Canadian uses the "Canadian a[y]", as in , "So when I was in Grade 1, ay?" [some people spell it as "eh", but "ay" conveys the sound better]

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Oh yeah, I've heard that 'ay' a lot. Never hear it from famous people though, I couldn't tell Ryan Reynolds or Beiber were Canadian unless I knew.

Someone once told me if you ever meet and 'Australian' sounding person ask them if they are from New Zealand, in the same way you say about Canadians & American's cos the Kiwi's get angry but Ozzys couldn't give a toss

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
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), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).