Has anyone ever heard of this? I picked it up for 2 euro yesterday and I have to say, wow -I can only describe it as violent in its audacity in its singleminded goal of simplifying and regularizing Irish. You have to see it; it made my head burn while at the same time, honestly, putting a lot of more modern books to shame in how straightforward the lessons are.
Look at its innovations:
OmissionsNo broad and slender
at all but for English 'sh' (tho e does imply slender quality at the end of words but it's not deemed important); no derivative consonants (velar fricatives etc)
No declination (initial mutation, relative forms, almost no liason at all (ex: 'ní tá' instead of
níl), no comparative form to adjectives, no gender, no nominal or adjectival declination, no past tense marking, no real future tense marking)
No real copula/substantive verb split
No relativity even after question words ('ce bua n cluiche'?)
Additions/similarities Marking of gerund function by simple +u addition ('tee' (go) --> teeu)
Use of above as infinitive ('caihe mee teeu go Beulferste' ([/i]caithfidh mé (ag) d(h)ul go B. F.[/i]) like real Irish
Non-fused prepositional pronouns (do-e, do-i etc (
dó, dí)
'Ro' as past tense of
bí ('ro sin ga h-iantac' (
bhí sin go h-iontach)
Tenses and moods analytical but have markers (-ac for impersonal, -ad for conditional and past subjunctive, bare vowel ending or added +a/e to final consonant for future and present subjunctive, and +an for present )
Genitive relations by word order alone
Present continuous vs. habitual aspect distinction maintained
Explicit have verb 'ab' ('ní hab mee riav Y')
Explicit resultant state (become) verb ('fri(g)' as far as I can tell, tho can't find an example now)
Simplified relative particle ('gu')
Here is an example of it:
Quote:
Teeg saiadoer cun a ofigeac agus iar se cuupla laa saor
In one sense, it's as mad as a box of frogs, but at the same time, it gives one of the clearest descriptions of the functional purpose of grammatical forms I've ever seen, and it's from 1939/40, which is depressing in and of itself, if you consider almost all grammar in Irish is taught as syntax and declination.
There was also
Irish in a Week and
Irish up-to-date I see from the cover (ads on the front of the book, that's how oldskool it is, lol)