Léiríonn d'fhocail féin go dtéann tú thar fóir le d'argóintí. Cosúil leatsa bím ag cluinstin na canúintí uilig agus mé ag amharc ar TG4 nó ag éisteacht le Raidió na Gaeltachta, nó ag caint le cairde liom, daoine fásta is óga. Tá an caighdeán oifigiúil ann le caoga bliana anuas anois i saol oifigiúil an stáit agus sna scoileanna ach in ainneoin sin bíonn na canúintí beo go deo ar an raidió, ar an teilifís is sa tsaol laethúil.

Aontaím leat go mba chóir sanasaíocht a mhúineadh sna scoileanna Gaeltachta (agus i ngaelscoileanna sa Ghalltacht) agus cúrsaí canúnacha a phlé is a chleachtadh, ach sin fadhb eile, fadhb atá ag baint le teagasc na Gaeilge go ginearálta. Glacaim leis fosta go bhfuil fadhbanna ag baint leis an chaighdeán é féin ach ní chiallaíonn sin nach bhfuil sé de dhíth ar chor ar bith ar lucht na Gaeilge. Is éileamh áibhéalach ar fad é!

I was talking to a native speaker in Derry last week (Donegal Irish). And we had little difficulty understanding each other. I just had to listen more intentively/closely.

If I thought somebody didn't understand me I would speak more slowly (obviously speech becomes clearer and words don't run into each other then). If there was still a problem I would use English words to explain. I would not switch to Standard Irish, I don't think I'd be able to anyhow.

There is a place for Standard Irish but it should be left until a student goes to University and chooses an occupation where Caighdeanach is needed. But only dialectical Irish should be taught in National and Secondary schools. There are only 3 main dialects ffs it's not like you have to choose from dozens.

If you were learning Welsh or Breton you would have to choose a dialect. There was an effort to introduce Standard Welsh too but it didn't take off as it was rejected by natives.

There is no problem teaching the Standard of French and German in primary schools in Germany/France etc as the dialectical languages in those countries aren't in danger.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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When you refer to English and French "standard" versions, what are they? Is it the non-slanged versions of the languages..?

No, it's the varieties of English and French used in writing 95% of the time, and in speech in relatively formal contexts, and in speech by the most educated people even in relatively informal contexts. As opposed to mostly spoken dialects like Yorkshire English and AAVE for English and like Picard and Gallo for French. Note that there are at least 3 different written standard Englishes: British (used also in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand with only few differences from that used in Britain), American, and Canadian (which uses a mix of British and American spellings).

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The problem is that that requires each teacher to know a particular dialect well. I have been speaking Irish daily (for a time each day) for over thirty years. I have a mixed dialect as I am not a native speaker and have had many different teachers - a few native speakers but mostly non-native speakers who themselves had a 'mixed dialect' (for lack of a better description). I have attended Gaeltacht courses about eight times - always in Conamara (chosen by our school and then college also as far as I can remember) but had a number of teachers who seemed to speak Irish in a very Munster way. I can certainly recognise the different dialects 'in broad strokes' but speak no one dialect with any consistency. My wife who has little Irish has a northern 'blas' to her Irish, in keeping with where she was brought up. Living in Dublin means that your irish teachers could come from anywhere, so having a definite dialect is more of a challenge. In University I studied West Muskerry dialect (supposedly!). This amounted to one class a week. The vast bulk of students were not doing 'Honours' degrees and did not have any such classes. I don't remember much of it, to be honest. I struggled with the phonetic system, which seemed to differ from the phonetic system I was learning for French at the time. I was a young student then and not as focused on my studies as I might have been. Anyway, perhaps the point is that more emphasis should be put on learning a particular dialect in College.

Given that few teachers have a particular dialect, it is not realistic to suggest that students should learn a particular dialect in Primary or Secondary school. I agree with the principle, but the truth is that it's hard enough for secondary schools to get Irish teachers of any kind - not to mention a teacher with a clearly defined dialect for every class group in the country. In secondary school, class groups often have different teachers from year to year which would cause obvious problems too. I teach in a secondary school. In every First Year class group there are a handful of students who learned little or no Irish in primary school because their teacher didn't have enough Irish or chose to ignore it. There are greater problem to solve first before the dialect issue.

On the well-worn subject of why learn a dialect at all, may I say that I agree in principle with Lughaidh's sentiments as expressed in another threat (possibly many others!). I should not speak French with a Dublin accent if I can help it at all. I should try to speak French as a French person would. Few would argue.

Mind you, when a French person speaks English with a definite French accent, I quite like it (especially females but that's another story!)

There is something that feels fake about me speaking Irish with a Galway accent (for example) when I don't speak English with a Galway accent. It would seem ridiculous to me as a Dub to put on a Galway accent in either language. I don't think it's the same as a German person speaking Irish with a German accent....or maybe it is!!! It's something I can never decide on fully regardless of the logic of it.

But Bríd, why on earth would anyone expect you to change the way you speak? I just don't understand where you're coming from? Who are these people that are obliging you to speak in standard Irish? I can't imagine any situation where I would need someone to speak to me in standard Irish rather than in their own dialect, and I'm not a native speaker. If I don't understand something, I ask for an explanation and that's it. This is how things have worked in all languages since forever!

They don't even always speak standard Irish on formal Irish-language television programmes such as Nuacht. Each journalist (and I'm referring to the native speakers) has their own accent, the quirks of their own dialect plainly audible. And it's no problem. Nobody, literally nobody with any sense, criticises them for not speaking standard Irish.

When I refer to the need for a standard, I'm talking about a written standard, for services that are directed towards an entire country of readers. Standard written practices for formal situations, and more fluid oral dialects have existed side by side in all languages since we first started writing. This does not need to be a problem.

Yes, I think Lughaidh is right that native-speaker students should be looking at etymology and at dialect in written form since the two are so closely linked, but the idea that this cannot happen alongside a formal standard for those that wish to use it is difficult for me to understand. When a teacher in a Gaeltacht school is from the area where they teach, as is quite often the case - although not always, I admit, they are using their spoken dialect all the time with pupils. It's the writing of the language where the standard comes into play.

Gaeltacht dialects are indeed under threat. But the reasons for this are manifold and a hundred times more complicated than the existence of the Caighdeán Oifigiúil. They are all linked to shameful government negligence over generations. The linguistic isolation of communities and the abject refusal to provide basic services in the Irish language being top of the list.

Also, we can't forget that there are native speakers of the caighdeán itself, and the fact that they are native speakers means that eventually, as their numbers grow, they will mould the caighdeán into whatever they need it to be. This is how languages work. It might be that their new dialect is unattractive to you, or to others here, but that's a matter of taste and it does not need to pôse a threat to other, older native dialects. That threat, as evoked above, comes from somewhere else. I see much criticism of focal.ie here, and I agree that some of the translations can be brutal in their clinical efficiency, but others are wonderful! Anyway, the idea that we could neglect creating Irish terms for all the new ideas, technologies, experiences that emerge year on year, is, in my opinion, an expression of violence against the language itself. Times are changing fast, efforts to expand use of the language while at the same time preserving the richness of the way the language is already spoken are both necessary.

Years ago I had a conversation with an Irish-language poet who assured me that standard spelling did not have to interfere with the rich turn of phrase or vocabulary of one's own dialect. Movements between standard and dialectal spelling afforded wonderful literary possibilities, according to him.

Quite frankly I really struggle to find coherence in many of the anti-caighdeán ideas expressed here.

Maybe it's different in Irish schools today. But when I went to school, over 40 years ago, although the teachers were natives the textbooks were in Caighdeanach and we had to write in it too. I wouldn't even be able to write in Conamara Irish, if I was allowed to, as we were never taught how to spell it. I did not like Irish as a subject at school, it felt foreign to me, and I left school not able to read or write it well. I feel it tainted my own dialect. I was much better reading English, and I still am. So I grew up with hatred for CO that probably clouds my opinion today.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
___________________________________________________________

see below (have to move my message)

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

I went through the whole Gaelscoil system from pre-school to secondary and now third-level. In primary school etc.. We always spoke Irish with a distinctive Kerry influence. Before Secondary school, before I switched to a Gaeltacht Secondary school, we always spelled words like dearmad- dearúd or tirim as trim, as they reflected our pronounciation of the words (Kerry). In Secondary school we were not allowed to do so, because they were deemed as wrong, they are NOT wrong..they are more correct, in fact, than the Standardised Irish because they reflect a living language rather than the artificial Caighdeán. Some aspects of the caighdeán aren't in any dialect of Irish- how can those aspects be judged as more authorative than the dialectal ones?

I also found out in Secondary school that the Irish we were learning wasn't the Irish as spoken in the Gaeltacht or that was spoken by people 60 years ago. I felt absolutely disgusted and betrayed. I lost all passion I had in my language, that we were speaking and writing a language as devised in an office. The fact of the matter is people aren't given a choice to learn a dialect, in fact those that begin to learn Irish do not even know that they are learning a standardised version. Its only when they become competent enough that they realise so...and then most are utterly surprised and decide to learn a dialect instead. But soon find out that the sources for doing so are few and far between.

Many sources that claim to be dialectal Irish are just standardised Irish in disguise, so that's just wrong to lead people into thinking that they are learning a dialect when they are not- STOP fucking standardising Irish literature by native Gaeltacht authors its pure butchery. Though I understand why a dialect was introduced, I do not like its unfavourable bi-products: As the Irish language is threatened in Gaeltacht regions basically because the language isn't being passed on... Gaeltacht children learn standardised Irish in school and they know no better, soon the standard will oust the native and CORRECT Irish of the Gaeltachts. Though, dialects aren't being destroyed by the caighdeán they are being replaced by them. I am saying "correct" because I will no longer allow a person in an office, who himself/ or herself isn't probably a native speaker and is full of utter Béarlachas and terminology from the Coiste Téarmaíochta, dictate to me as to what "correct" Irish is. In my gaeltacht Secondary school we felt that disgusted and betrayed as having to spell certain words like Gaolainn as Gaeilge that we use to spell them Gaolainn/ Gaeilge on our exams. We used to put our Irish alongside the standard. Irish people rise up in arms especially when they are told they cannot do something or they have to do something in a certain way and that's how we felt.

The fact that native Irish speakers aren't able to spell specific words because they only exist in their sub-dialect and they haven't ever seen them before is true. For instance the Ring Irish word for "accident" is Ciotrainn or Citrinn (kit-ring- English phonetics)- I don't know because I have never seen it spelled. That word's capacity to survive is greatly reduced.

"Wait" (standard is fanacht)- Ring- (fuireacht, but pronounced "f'reach, where the "ui" is báite). If you asked a Ring person to spell "fuireach" they probably spell it as "freach" because they have never seen it before. The reason I know is because I have seen "fuireach" in a 18th century Emigrant letter, written by Padraig Piarais Condúin, who himself is from an extinct Gaeltacht in Baile Mhac Óda, close to where I live.

Ring Irish pronounces "rith" as though it was from the earlier spelling "ruith" (ruck) not (rih) or (rick- as you would expect in Ring as "th" can be a "ch" sound, if it reflected the modern spelling "rith").

I understand the positives of the standard but it is an awful sacrifice to pay, the Caighdeán for me is a "Pyrric Victory".

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

A Bhríd Mhór, why was the gap between your spoken dialect of Irish and the written standard of Irish different from the gap between your spoken dialect of English and the written standard of English? Because the English-language textbooks you used, and English-language newspapers you read, and virtually everything else in English you read for that matter weren't written in your native dialect of English either. So why didn't you grow up hating standard written English? It seems like a double-standard to me to complain that the standard written forms of minority languages don't match any single spoken dialect (and Irish speakers aren't the only ones with this complaint; Romansh speakers in Switzerland say the exact same thing about Rumantsch Grischun), but no one complains when the standard written forms of major languages like English and French don't match any single spoken dialect.

And certainly no one accuses those of us who grew up speaking something close to the standard version of a major language of not being "real native speakers" just because our native dialect is near-standard rather than being a local traditional-dialect.

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