On my very first trip to the Gaeltacht, I met some native speakers one of whom worked in Údarás na Gaelthachta, and they were having "decking" laid in the garden. We looked up the Irish word - deicre - and this person told me "no-one in Muskerry would have any respect for anyone who used made-up words like that". That was when I learnt the gap between real Irish and the conlang. I'll go with what the native speakers said to me on that, if Ade doesn't mind.

toradh is masculine. So there's no lenition of (indefinite) tionscadail.
But in case tionscadail would be definite it should be lenited:
e.g. de thoradh thionscadail Ollscoil na hÉireann = as the result of the projects of the Univ. of Ireland

Another adjective instead of éagsúla would be lenited in any case - because tionscadail is a weak plural form.
e.g. de thoradh tionscadail mhaithe ollscoile = as result of good university projects
e.g. de thoradh thionscadail mhaithe Ollscoil na hÉireann = as the result of the good projects of the Univ. of Ireland

It might be a common attitude, and I certainly have come by a few people in my time who make adamant claims about the language while not having a clue what they're talking about (though, usually based on some common misconception they may have been taught in school). What I was saying here, though, is that people don't get into positions of authority with regard to the language, be it in Universities or the likes of An Coiste Téarmaíochta, without knowing what they're talking about. You can't compare the Irish of somebody who took it to Leaving Cert and never spoke another word, and somebody who dedicated their life to the study of it. People might like to say they know the language because of their schooldays, some of them may well continue to use it, but you can't get into a position writing grammar books or determining terminology without knowing what you're talking about.



Again, here, we may be speaking about vastly different levels of Irish learners here, but I don't think it's uncommon for even two native speakers of the same language to have difficulty understanding each other. There are videos which do the rounds on YouTube every so often of a Derry schoolboy or West Cork farmer simply because their accent is so difficult to interpret by people who aren't used to hearing these accents. But nobody suggests they're using a different language. Certainly, given enough time and isolation, these types of accents could develop into dialects and then into their own creole, but we don't tend to say they're different languages just because they're difficult to interpret.

Aside from this, your methodology has a flaw. You suggest that only Irish speakers from Gaeltacht areas can be considered "native" speakers. This isn't typically accepted as the basis for being a "native speaker" of any language. I mentioned some of the problems with this above in this thread, but I'll add one more thought here. One of the most frequent complaints about early Irish language radio broadcasts was that the presenter could not be understood by native Irish speakers because of the way they speak. At this time, presenters were rotated such that each night a presenter would be native to a different gaeltacht area. Were they all speaking different creoles to each other? Surely not.

Certainly there are complicated sociolinguistic factors at play in Ireland, but if our attitude is that the Irish spoken by learners can never be good enough to even be called "Irish", then what does that say of any effort to strengthen the language? Should all children be fostered into Gaeltacht families until they've developed real Irish, then returned to their birth-parents?



Is that a current Connemara trend? That's a new one on me.

Spelling aside, I see that you did the same thing with the lack of lenition. I didn't say I thought his proposal was better or worse than yours, or that I'd be able to use it instead of yours.



And I stand by it. If someone grew up in Dublin speaking Irish it's perfectly valid to call what they speak Irish. I think it's a ludicrous suggestion that anybody who learns Irish at home from their parents, regardless of where they learn it, would be prone to making rudimentary mistakes like saying tá mé fear.



You hereby have my permission.

Thanks very much for the quick reply, Labhrás.

I don't think I've ever heard of lenition alone showing a noun to be definite like this.
I thought it might be lenited simply because it's a functional genitive form.

Clearly, though, it can't always be the case that lenition here makes the noun definite. Léamh gives the example, go teach Fheidhlimidh mhic Daill, which surely can't be interpreted as definite?

I will not address myself to Ade, as I don't think he considers alternative points of view, and just repeats views refuted hundreds of times on this forum. But to people more open-minded:

1. I'm sure university professors do have specialisms in real Irish (certain dialects, 18th century Irish, Middle Irish, etc). But it is simply false to claim that the various professors have learnt from their deep study of the language that phrases like "do do bhualadh" and "frith-bhriochtchuarc" are good (modern) Irish. "Do do bhualadh" probably was used somewhere historically (and I suspect some of these professors could say where and when), but their "deep study" of the modern language would tell them there is not a single Gaeltacht village with it. And words like "frith-bhriochtchuarc" are entirely invented - and not the product of deep study of the language. So this point, repeatedly made is refuted.

2. The definition of a native speaker of any language generally does include people not in the language area. E.g. an American could be living in /China and have a child there and the child would grow up with American English. But it does not include people who do not speak a genuine native form of the language. Someone in the Galltacht who has spoken poor Irish all his life is, in technical terms, some kind of neo-native, probably analogous to L1 speakers of Indian English. However, that is in no way equivalent to speaking the major native dialects of English owing to key errors in these poorly learnt dialects. Studies of neo-natives in the Northern Ireland Gaelscoileanna show gá bhliain and tá mé fear to be common. The logic of claiming that L1 neo-natives are equivalent to native speakers would mean that tá mé fear is now native Irish.

3. "If our attitude is that the Irish spoken by learners can never be good enough to even be called "Irish", then what does that say of any effort to strengthen the language?" This is a revealing comment. The reason why non-native Irish (poor pronunciation, outright poor grammar, some features of the CO that aren't really found in any Gaeltacht, made-up words by the thousands, Béarlachas up the wazoo) is held by many to be real Irish is because the Irish "language movement" is seen as a campaign to re-Gaelicise Ireland. Anyone who criticises the Irish that is spoken in the Galltacht is seen as carping at the campaign. But the aim of making all of Ireland speak Irish is a nonsense - this cannot happen, and if it did happen it would turn the language to bull caca. This has never been realistic. It seems for Ade and for most learners of Irish that they have minimal interest in the Irish language per se; rather, the Irish language is just an adjunct to/a vehicle for their nationalism. The Irish language isn't a campaign -- it is, like any language, a genuine object of academic study in its own right.

Personal names are lenited in the genitive - this is the key point here.
Functional genitive nouns qualified by a definite phrase - these are lenited.
Functional genitive nouns qualified by an indefinite phrase - these are not.
Then there are many calcified usages, probably because they are extremely well-worn utterances:
De réir dlí Dé comes to mind. It is not de réir dhlí Dé, although this is definite. In aghaidh dlí Dé is also Father Peter's form. Dónall Bán Ó Céileachair has de réir dlí Shasana.
De réir fírinne na cainnte sin: it is not de réir fhírinne na cainnte sin.
Amhlaoibh Ó Loingsigh has de réir méid na lice -- méid often resists lenition.

Moving away from double genitives:
in Father Peter's Irish it is de réir chirt and de réir dheallraimh, but de réir fírinne. But in the Irish of other speakers of Muskerry Irish, it is de réir deallraimh. Dónall Bán has de réir dlí. Amhlaoibh Ó Loingsigh has de réir cirt. The issue of lenition after feminine nouns is a large subject, but I wanted to get these examples in here as I went through a file of 1.5m words of Ua Laoghaire's Irish today and checked the pattern of lenition after réir and wanted to record this.

You all have filled three pages in the meantime



It is lenited because it is definite. (Lenition doesn't make it definite - but definiteness causes lenition)
Almost all definite nouns (without having an article or article-like determiner before them) are lenited in genitive position (regardless whether in genitive form or not).
The most simple examples are names. Names are definite nouns (usually).
So teach Sheáin or teach Fheidhlimidh mhic Daill (Yes, it is definite.)
Functional genitives make no difference:
cistin theach mhac Sheáin. = the kitchen of the house of Seán's son (all nouns lenited because they are all definite and in genitive position)


(btw: Léaṁ is about Early Modern/Classical Irish.)

Labhrás, can you comment on whether the CO has de réir dlí Dé or dhlí Dé? The calcified phrases may not be the same in all dialects, and so they may not have included these exceptions in their recommendations?

I don't know.
It is usually "de réir dhlí X" (X = something definite).

An Foclóir Beag has "in aghaidh dhlí Dé".
https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fb/peaca