"An bhfuil tú all right?" That, and its variations, would be common in Connemara.

I am guilty of using that, I accidentally pick it up from native speakers.

Its very common for people to constantly switch into English for sentences and most of a conversation on certain subjects. I think some of its due to the fact that the modern words that are made up often feel contrived to them.

But between that and the books which are all almost universally the same, its can be difficult to know which words are worth learning. Ones that be understood and used, which phrases are natural, and what is commonly used in the area I live.

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

I do wish there was more learners materials for idomatic expressions. I live in the Gaeltacht, so I speak Irish (badly) every day , but I often miss out on idomatic expressions or dont employ them as I have learned the standard ones from a book and they become a habit.

Now I know I will eventually learn many of the more natural expressions, but it feels like extra effort to learn one bunch of words until they become my habitual form of expression and then go unlearn a habit and replace it with a new one.

My third gripe is that there isint a whole lot of audio available for many of these expressions, so if I want to try and learn one I have do try and recall how someone pronounced it. I am very familiar with the rules on how Irish letters should be pronounced, maybe its due to my dyslexia, but I will inevitably miss pronounce a word unless I have access to audio or someone frequently repeats it to me ( over and over again).

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

Tá failte romhat - at the back of my mind I have a memory that we used to say Go gcuitidh (gcuitifidh?) Dia dhuit é i,e May God reward
you (with its measure).

If a good, monolingual speaker form the 18th century arrived back today, would they be able to communicate with a modern native speaker?

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

Interesting question.

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Or even further back..

http://nos.ie/gniomhaiochas/teanga/eist ... in-o-shin/

I think it would be possible to understand somebody from the 18th century as it's not that far back, as long as it's the same dialect.

So the proto-Indo-European speakers had Irish accents? Cool!

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

The word for horse is intelligible but if I just imagine a lad from Cavan reading it, I can get even more...

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

There are two interrelated issues at play here really, I think.

There is code-switching (due to bilingualism) and then there are words that are made up by some fella/ academic in some office in Dublin.

Firstly, code-switching:



The way code-switching works in bilingual adults who can speak both languages with fairly equal proficiency* is the integrity of the pronunciation and syntax of each language will be upheld but the vocabulary is often substituted in and out. Since all native Irish speakers are now bilingual and the main objective of language is to communicate, speakers will often use whichever word comes into their head first; they don't walk around with a dictionary.

This is in contrast to learners who wear two different hats, their English-speaking hat and their Irish- speaking hat; there's a definite distinction. Whereas, the daily Irish speaker only has one hat, the hat of communication- so, they will use whatever facilitates the ease of conversation. The only time a native speaker has the same two hats on is when the speaker makes the conscious decision to speak in Irish only, maybe when having an interview with TG4 or RnaG for example.

*However, the case now is many speakers' proficiency in English has overtaken their Irish, due to bilingualism and the dominance of the English language in every day life. This has huge ramifications on the ability to hold onto the richness of Irish vocabulary -as uncommon expressions, words become lost or replaced by English- but, it also influences how new words for innovations are created: Loanwords no longer conform to native rules of pronunciation, they are just pronounced how they are in English; plus, because there is such an advancement in bilingualism, the English word will be adopted wholesale, rather than allowing the language to create its own term or its own way of expressing the innovation.

However, the fact of the matter is, some phrases like "a' bhfuil tú alright?" are quite old expressions as they're found in all Gaeltachts; 'An bhfuil tú alright?' is as Irish now as 'an bhfuil tú go maith?'.

The second issue is that terms are being made up by academics in an office in Dublin, who have their own ideology on how they should go about their work (before, they tended to reinvent Old or Middle Irish words; nowadays, they seem to be morphemic translations of the English term). Which means new terms are confined to academics and learners.

To expand, there are two means by which a loan word enters a language; through the vernacular (wide spread agreement in usage, but takes a long period of time to establish itself) or academically, e.g. through literature (enter relatively quickly, usually confined to élite classes or people in the know, usually indicates a good deal of knowledge of both languages).

A good case study is the difference that Latin and Norse had on Irish.

Norse loanwords entered Irish by means of the vernacular and as such its influence on Irish lexicon, in the vast majority of cases, is confined to simple borrowings.

e.g. beoir 'beer' (ON. bjórr), Ir. accaire 'anchor' (ON. aƦƦeri), Ir. bád 'boat' (ON. bátr), Ir. bróg 'hose, trousers, later as shoe' (ON. bróƦ), Ir. cnapp 'button' (ON. Ʀnappr), Ir. fuindeog 'window' (ON vindauga), Ir. margadh 'market' (ON. marƦaðar), Ir. scilling 'shilling' (ON. sƦillingr)

In nearly all cases the loanwords reflect a Viking innovations in seamanship, dress and commerce, the words don't undergo a great deal of change, the change that does occur is phonological.

A great deal of Latin loanwords on the other hand came in by means of literature and thus mostly remained confined to the learned.

And therein lies the problem, many of these new terms are being made up my some academic in an office and you'll now only find these new terms in dictionaries or else they will often be rejected by native speakers because they sound awkward in Irish.

Since learners wear the two hats, they are conscientious to use only Irish terms- and if they don't know what the term is in Irish they will look it up in the dictionary. Whereas, native Irish speakers predominately wear one hat and don't carry around a dictionary so they just use whichever term pops into their head.

Another factor is for a word to enter a language naturally it takes a relatively long period of time; however, with the rate of technological innovations I feel the language cannot keep up with it.

I hope that made some bit of sense, I am not very good at explaining things in writing.



I think there would be a lot of difficulty there, just like there would be difficulty for a speaker of English from the 21st century speaking to an English speaker from the 1700s.

Language is all about describing the experience of the world around us, the difficulty is the experience of that world in the 1700s would be vastly different to that of the 2000s.

But in saying that, I would think that a good Irish speaker would be able to communicate with someone from the 1700s.





Cian

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