RE: https://mastodon.ie/@IrishStewPodcast/116198927902617393
She always does such a great job of understanding and articulating the problems we have with the language, whether as individual learners or as a society. She's not a native speaker, but she is an absolutely excellent teacher.
@IarfhlaithO
"...But I don't think the language itself is complicated."
Jaysus, the grammar's insane!
Actually I think grammar is insane in pretty much every language.
My grammar is appalling I never really mastered it in any language and o had English, Irish, French and Latin in school.
I still have the vaguest of understanding of what should be a unifying layer under all languages.
I’m curious about the term “native speaker”.
I recognize the importance of supporting the #Gaeltacht. Folks there have been raised in the teanga and are part of an unbroken line of #IrishLanguage usage
That said, I aspire to be a competent #caighdean speaker. I like to think that is a noble aspiration - call me deluded 😜
I guess non-native speakers, such as myself, will never have the blás, but I think it is a distinction that may not be helpful
Martin
@IarfhlaithO @IrishStewPodcast
1. The caighdeán is _not_ an effect of natural language change, it’s a convention existing beside it.
2. There are great resources for many Irish dialects, from beginner friendly teaching materials to documentation in academic monographs and countless recordings.
3. Those resources are generally much higher quality than anything targeting non-dialectal caighdeán.
And then the caighdeán has no pronunciation – so one can’t actually just “speak the caighdeán”.
@IrishStewPodcast @IarfhlaithO Don't believe the lie that you can't have the blas! It's entirely possible for learners to have good pronunciation if they are willing to put in the work. Most don't have it simply because they don't even care.
And it doesn't even take much work to be above average. Simply acknowledging that a different language comes with different sounds and that you don't have all of them in your English, and just trying to make the right sounds already puts you above average.
Here’s the thing, perfection is impossible, but traveling along the route to betterment is gratifying.
A decade of competition in Track and Field taught me that lesson, often brutally. I came to understand that improvement was there for the taking and had its own pleasures, especially when I stopped worrying how others perceived me and my failures.
Bainfidh mé taitneamh as an turas nua seo
As I understand “blas”, it’s driven by the intersection of multiple factors:
- a fundamental grounding in the language
- how you learned the language
- the dialect of Irish you speak
- the accent used to form the words
- the lived experience of the place you come from
- a bucketload of other factors
I will never be of the Gaeltacht, but I do aspire to an caighdean - call it Irishtown #Gaeilge.
@IrishStewPodcast @IarfhlaithO Nothing wrong with using the Caighdeán, I mostly stick to it myself. But it was never meant to be in opposition or an alternative to native Irish. It's essentially a style guide for writing Irish and doesn't really concern itself with the points you listed.
While sticking to the Caighdeán, of course I still try to use native Irish structures, idiom and sounds, because if I used (Hiberno-)English structures, idioms and sounds, why wouldn't I also use English words?
@IrishStewPodcast @IarfhlaithO And no, of course there is no perfection. And there is also no need to be perfect. Everyone has a different goal anyway.
But for me, the model is clear. Whenever I want to improve my Irish or get clarification on something, I want to know what native speakers do. Just like when trying to find out how to best say something in English, I try to find out what native speakers would say, I don't just repeat what my classmates at school said and call it "my dialect".
That sounds like sound advice 👍👍👍👍
Iarlaiṫ
Will
Irish Stew Podcast
silmeth 🇺🇦
Caoimhín