Redwolf wrote:
What none of the articles has made clear is if they are going to be going to Ireland to study the speech of native speakers, which I would think would be vital for the study to be valid....preferably native speakers from different Gaeltachts, as there really are big differences between how people from different areas pronounce these sounds (and thus, presumably, different tongue positions).
I keep picturing some poor grad student wandering from Gaeltacht to Gaeltacht, asking people if they would please put on this helmet and speak Irish to him!
Redwolf
I kinda hope that's what they do (also, I'd love to be that grad student - sounds awesome!) instead of just getting every Average Joe in Dublin, for instance, who claims to be a "native speaker." I'd love to see them even divide into subdialects, like Cois Fharraige versus An Cheathrú Rua or something like that, as well as the main three dialects.
Lughaidh wrote:
There are recent 2 books at least where native speakers were asked to pronounce words that don't exist in their dialects, and the author transcribes that and comments that as if these were valid data.
Da heck? How do they even get away with that? Also, what books, if I may ask?