It was also produced by a committee who were not all scholars nor native speakers, and has weirdly specific rules (like only 5 dative inflected nouns -why not sink the dative into the common case, or allow free inflection on all suitable feminine nouns), out of date grammar (the -(e)amar/mair issue), and choice of words ('amáireach' over 'amárach') favoring one place over another.

I'm not sniping at it. They didn't have the tech to build a weighted 'Koine' out of all early modern and living dialects and being bureaucrats, would have been conservative by nature, and had to operate under the politics of the time. They weren't tasked with saving the language, only standardizing its more salient features, as was understood, I guess, at the time

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Many thanks, James. That's helpful.

So, do you (and others) view the gaps you describe between CO and Gaeltacht Irish as a major, fundamental problem or something somewhat less serious? On a scale of 1-10, say, if Gaeltacht Irish (however defined) is a 10 on the "proper" scale, where would consistent CO be rated? Or is there a scale/continuum in your outlook at all? I guess, it's possible that there's simply a binary between proper and not.

Note, I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just intensely interested in how people are thinking about these issues. And I think the way people look at these issues will have, and has had, implications on language policy and the potential for revival or growth of the language. Which I guess, brings up the question of whether people see any possibility at all for growth of the language. Is it even possible to imagine significant growth in the number of speakers of "proper" Irish or is it simply futile given current conditions?

Personally, I think it is a problem, because the people who generally use the CO are the ones who keep using, and claiming as correct, native English translations, without care for the idiom of Irish. They're also the same people who use the "Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste..." statement to justify their bad Irish, because "It's not English". I'm not saying that ot be discouraging, and I would love it if people would speak whatever Irish they had whenever they could... but don't justify your poor Irish as 'fine' or 'correct' based on that.

Also, I found this article to be interesting, with regards to pronunciation

http://tuairisc.ie/ta-mo-fhoghraiocht-c ... ghraiocht/

‘It may be laid down as a general rule that, such is the innate antagonism between the two languages in every phrase, that so surely as a word is used figuratively in one it is certain to be taken literally in the other, and to express outrageous nonsense.

I like that quote by An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire. Sums up quite well some of the problems. As does this article: http://www.acmhainn.ie/athchlo/lorganbhearla/lorg03.htm

Also, sorry for the triple post...