Talk:Irish/Archive 1

Any comments or suggestions?

--muddle-headed wombat 23:32, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * This is a very readable primer - well done! I think that it should be split up into separate pages, though, for ease of navigation. --Gabriel Beecham 23:53, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Templates for Examples and Exercises
To improve the visual structure of the document, I have colour-coded the examples and exercises. If you'd like to do the same, here's how.

muddle-headed wombat 21:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Great Primer
Great primer, but I agree... Better if split into pages... Thomas Kinney

Really Excellent
Firstly, this is brilliant. Well done.

I understand the other comments about splitting the pages, however, I prefer it as it is. I can print it in one go. Also, when I click on a link in the contents at the start of the page, it brings me to the relevant section - so, I have not had any difficulty navigating. But split up or left as it is, I'll be happy. Marie

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
The language is dead.

Watching people struggle and stutter their way through the language on TG4 is a joke. Starting every sentence with either "agus" or worse still, "well" or "you know" makes me laugh. Adverts mostly in English. American movies with no Irish sub-titles. The occasional fluent speaker who likes to race the autocue as some sort of proof that they can speak the language and nobody else can.

A language's modern day relevance can be judged by how it interacts with the modern world. Start by translating maths, computing and scientific books into Irish and then we might have something of use to the nation. The only contemporary texts are Harry Potter and diddly-dee music and that's a waste of time.

Consign this language to a history book!


 * 1. TG4 does not represent the 'mainstream' of Gaelic speakers and writers.
 * 2. If their staff choose to use poor grammar, that is a reflection of the quality
 * of their workers and TG4 itself, not the language.
 * 3. Adverts in English is a poor choice on their part, but that has no relevance
 * whatsoever in discussing Gaelic here at Wikibooks.
 * 4. American films almost never include Gaelic subtitles. This is not surprising
 * to anyone who has even a rudimentary sense of economic trends in capitalist
 * economies: it simply would not be profitable to include Gaelic subtitles, and
 * the companies that produce American films generally are concerned with a profit
 * margin rather than the quality of the products they provide.
 * 5. A language's modern day relevance is not solely judged by how it 'interacts with
 * the modern day world', as you say. This is disingenuous as best, and downright
 * narrow thinking in truth. Not to mention that your statement has no value since
 * it refers to very broad and generic concepts with no real meaning or frame of
 * reference.
 * 6. Translating textbooks into Irish Gaelic will require either dedicated and
 * qualified professionals who both understand Gaelic as well as understand the
 * material they are editing. Since the market for academic texts is already a
 * marginal/fringe one, who is going to do this? Very few. It makes no sense to
 * do so, and this has little or nothing to do with whether Gaelic is a living
 * language- how many textbooks do you know of that are translated into Shanghaiese,
 * for example?
 * 7. Your contempt for the Irish Gaelic language does nothing to assist our work here.
 * Please feel free to either write constructive comments or leave. Personally, I
 * hope you choose the latter option.

PMacUidhir 07:31, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

no it's not
Irish isn't dead, as a student, non-gaeilgeor, in Galway, not from a Gaeltacht, I was shocked at home much Gaeilge was being spoken in the city, you can take almost any class in the college though Irish also.

Irish courses are available to everyone, and all buildings are named in irish and english, with the Irish name being prodominately used.

(Also split it into pages!)

Big Deal!
So the arse end of Ireland (Galway) has a smattering of Irish. If you look closely at TG4 you can see many interviewees on Nuacht reading idiot boards and even stumbling their way through that.

Unless relevant subjects like maths, sciences and technology are taught in Irish and at least 100 miles from Connemara then the language has no stickiness and no relevance in today's world.


 * Yes, Galway has many Gaelic speakers. So does Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and really
 * most of the old Kingdom of Connaught as a whole. Leinster too for that matter.
 * You also seem to convieniently forget about the tens of thousands of Gaelic
 * users outside of Ireland.
 * I use Gaelic on a daily basis. I live in America, which is at least a few thousand
 * kilometres away from Connemara. I personally have taught over fifty people in the
 * basics of Irish, and given at least half of those advanced lessons. There are over
 * one-hundred Irish speakers within fifteen miles of where I live, and over two
 * thousand in just this one state of the USA at the last count... and there are
 * many more just in the USA.
 * Textbooks are readily available in Irish Gaelic. They are not sold in your
 * local Tesco, obviously, but they are for sale without much searching.
 * In sum: try making a *relevant* point that has a factual basis.
 * Textbooks are readily available in Irish Gaelic. They are not sold in your
 * local Tesco, obviously, but they are for sale without much searching.
 * In sum: try making a *relevant* point that has a factual basis.
 * In sum: try making a *relevant* point that has a factual basis.

PMacUidhir 07:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed!
There is no place for a dead language and the learning of it. I say we get rid of anything with Latin or Ancient Greek or Sanskrit. Heck, I think English will probably be dead in 200 years anyways, let's go ahead and start writing in some future form.

Give me a break. Work on!

Not a dead language, but even if it was, that's still not a good reason not to teach it
Irish Gaelic isn't dead - there are still people who speak it as a first language or a fluent second language

Secondly, even if was a dead language, that doesn't mean it isn't worth learning. If no-one learnt ancient Greek and Hebrew, how could the Bible have been translated into English? And if no-one learnt old Norse, how could we have an English version of Beowulf? And if no-one learnt about dead or moribund or minor languages, how could our knowledge about languages and language families and changes in language increase?

But anyway, back to the first point - Irish Gaelic isn't a dead language!

It seems to that the people who have written "Agreed!", "Big deal!" and "Let sleeping dogs lie" have no idea what they're talking about.


 * Of course, if you read the actual message, the "Agreed!" was a joke. 24.1.88.161 16:39, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This page is to discuss the accompanying Wikibook on Irish - it really isn't the place to discuss the validity of Irish. There are plenty of places to do that if you so desire. Kindly let the conversation end here. --Gabriel Beecham 00:27, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Remove Introduction, split into pages
I have removed the introduction while someone writes a new one. It doesn't read well and is inconsequential. I'd also vote for splitting the document into pages. Can we also provide a full version for easy printing? I've seen that on other Wikibooks.

-Martin

Irregular verbs
bí has two present tenses bíonn agus tá

Great progress
It's thrilling to see the progress that has been made on this wikibook since I started it. Much has been contributed by people I "know" throught the 'net, and much by people I don't know. Go raibh maile maith agaibh! --muddle-headed wombat 01:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

genitive
Is the genitive plural simply not used a lot or is it simply mostly equal to the nominative? Also does the gen plur of women (mban I believe) deserve mention?

TO DO: 'introduce IPA?

No, dont just introduce it, just ''use' it. PLEASE!!!! Pronouncing Irish is really the biggest stumbling block to learning it. Even more so if English is taken as the departing point. (Please,please don't)

Yes there are non-anglophones who would love to learn it and no we may not struggle with dh or gh or palatellisation as anglo's do.

af:Gebruiker:Jcwf (mothertongue: Dutch).

Encouragement
I just want to offer a few words of encouragement to all the people who contribute to this particular wikibook. As a brand new learner of Irish, I, unfortunately, did not find the book in its present form usable--there are way too many omissions and inconsistencies to make it a good starting point to someone who had no previous experience with the language (and by no previous experience I mean absolutely that--none at all!). I do, however, find the whole idea and the existing primer absolutely outstanding. Considering how little information is generally available to learners of Irish, this book may become a precious life saver to those of us who are learning the language with no access to native speakers, native media, or decent learning materials (heck, even the selection of self-teaching materials one can buy is ridiculously slim!). This book may still be in need a lot of work, but, please, do keep it up! Your efforts are really appreciated, and I certainly hope not by me alone.--Ag Foghlaim 18:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It would also be nice to have formal lessons rather than just an explanation of grammar with occasional exercises. It's easier to learn grammar, develop your vocabulary and actually become able to have a conversation when you're confronted with (easy) texts that gradually introduce grammar features. In case anybody isn't sure how to go about writing lessons, there's a Wikibook on that topic that also explains some basic didactic notions. Junesun 17:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Divide into Chapters
I think the current text is stupendous. My only suggestion is to take each main heading (ie. History, Spelling, Nouns) and give them their own seperate page. These subpages or chapters would all be linked to the main page. This would make the Wikibook easier to use and navigate. Yorktown1776 19:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * But not to print!--Ag Foghlaim 14:19, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Sooner or later we're going to have to split it into subpages. I have plans of someday listing all declension and conjugation types from both Classical Irish and the Modern Standard here, and when that happens it will just be too big to keep on one page. Angr 17:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Formatting Needed
Well done to those people who did all this work, but this book is very un-readable. If we take as an example the German Wikibook, that is done in a clear, welcoming manner with pictures, nice writing, lesson plans and so on. This page is just one big stream of information about Irish. I'm new to Wikibooks so I don't know how to format this stuff, but I want to find out, if someone wants to point in the direction that'd be helpful. Also, sound clips from native speakers are needed for pronunciation, the transcription system, while a good attempt isn't really useful from an academic point of view, we really need IPA. Sorry if I sound like I'm complaining, i'm trying to give constructive criticism so that whoever's working on this page can make it better. - 'as yet unregistered wikibook user'


 * ok, I'm registered and I'm starting making lessons using the Spanish wikibook as a template. It's likely I will start this now and come back to it later, gradually doing less and less work, so it'ld be great if there was someone else here to pick up my slack. - Dalta 21:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)