definitly, it is how I would say it- conas at(h)ánn tú. However the (nn) ending is not suppose to be used before sé and sí- cionnas/ conas athá sé/ sí.



That would make a lot more sense. I was always under the impression that Ulster say "tá"- mainly because I have only ever heard Ulster speakers on the news, on school tapes for leaving cert and TG4 programmes. I should have realised that all these sources are highly standardised even though most of the speakers are from the Gaeltacht.

Thá e, i- that's the exact same as Scottish Gaelic because Scottish Gaelic haven't sé/ si- they use é and í instead- I'm sure you knew that too Lughaidh

I read recently in Seanchas Amhlaoibh Í Luinse- that the mná feasa were originally a group of migrants from Ulster who went to Munster- could that explain thá/ tá- Jumping the gun, I don't really believe so. Although most myths have a historical basis to them.

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wait, I didn't say people use "thá" all the time in Ulster, I just say they say it sometimes, in some cases, but most of the time they do use tá!

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

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Which of course is why, being expert on the Ulster dialect(s), I put thá in brackets only.

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Lughaidh: Just for the sake of completion, could you please put the correct form of these same 8 examples (and any others you might think of) without using an article so I can see what does and doesn't still lenit. I appreciate this. It's clearing up some questions I've had for some time. I felt Ulster Irish was much simpler than the others in using the prepositions but I thought maybe I was just doing it wrong. Feel free to do them ALL. You could list them all with the left column without the article and the right column with. Also thanks for the explanation on "in Éirinn" "go hÉirinn" and Poblacht na hÉireann. Also, I guess you're saying in Ulster there is only an úrú after the preposition "in".

Ring is where I picked it up, but I wouldn't say I speak anything like a pure Ring dialect. More a mix of different Munster forms, and a lot of standardised things that I consider "bad habits" picked up in school.


There's a very detailed grammar online that gives you the dialect variations along with the standard forms. Just if you feel like giving Lughaidh a day off

http://www.nualeargais.ie/gnag/praepos.htm

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

Aye, there's an urú after "i" in all dialects.

And I don't want any day off :-) To me, discussing Irish grammar stuff is a pleasure :-)

So, the prepositions that are followed by the dative case:

ag balla --------- ag an bhalla
ar chloch ------------ ar an chloch
as bocsa ---------------- as an bhocsa
chuig cara ----------------- chuig an chara
de chlár ---------------- den chlár (but as I said, "de" is pronounced like "do" and "den" like "don", normally I write "do" but here it's just to help you)
do chara -------------- don chara
fara : doesn't exist in Ulster
faoi chloch -------------- faoin chloch
fá chara -------------- fán chara (fá is the U form of "faoi" when it means "about")
i mbocsa ------------- ins an bhocsa / sa bhocsa
ionsar mháthair ------------ ionsar an mháthair
le cara -------------- leis an chara (and le hairgead)
ó cheantar ------------ ón cheantar
roimhe chara ------------- roimhe an chara (roimh in standard Irish)
fríd fhuinneo(i)g ------------ fríd an fhuinneo(i)g (trí in standard Irish)
thaire chloch ----------------- thaire an chloch (thar in standard Irish)
um: doesn't exist in Ulster
go cathair ----------- chun na cathrach (genitive) (go can't be directly followed by the article, if you need the article you use "chun" before it) (and go prefixes h to vowels)

Unless I said the contrary, these prepositions don't prefix h to vowels when there's no article.

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

Thank you 10,000 times! This will be printed and put in my permanent notes forever.