Haigh

I read the news of "Gaelchultúr" today. So many "new" words are composed in the wrong order that it looks to me that Irish is becoming a Germanic language.
Some examples that I can see right now from Gaelchultúr":

Gaelchultúr: in Irish it is "cultúr Gaelach" or "cultúr na nGael"

Nuachtlitir: in Irish it is "litir nuachta". Nuachlitir is the English "newsletter" in disguise

dianchúrsa: should be "cúrsa dian" (why not "maithleabhar" or "dubhghruaig" or "beagmhadadh" then?)

dlítheangeolaithe : should be teangeolaithe dlí

le linn na scoilbhliana : the most ridiculous... "le linn na bliana scoile" isn't Irish enough? scoilbhliana is English in disguise. And all Irish speakers surely say "na bliana scoile", there was no need to invent a new word, especially if it's composed in the wrong order...

etc etc etc

That's becoming ridiculous, really. I wonder where they'll stop with these backwards words. When everything is in the wrong order maybe? "Inniu maith leabhar mé léigh, suimiúil iontach sé bhí"
If they can't help copying all new words from English, maybe they'd better write in English directly... Distorting Modern Irish that way isn't a good thing, in my opinion...

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

Yeah, I know what you mean Lughaidh.

I never read stuff like "Gaelchultúr" because I've got no interest in learning "standard" Irish, or some new Anglicized version of Irish. Reading that sort of thing is a detriment to learning Irish, I think.

Doesn't bother me overly so. It does seem that there are quite a few being used, perhaps unnecessarily so; at the end of the day, though, they are just compound words. Quite often they simplify more complicated genitive constructions. I can see your point, but I'm not fully with you on it "becoming a Germanic language" and all that.

so we have to change the grammar of Irish because it's too complicated?
To me, putting a word in the genitive case isn't complicated. Genitive cases aren't complicated, and moreover they shouldn't be complicated to people whose job is to write articles in Irish...
Do you think it's complicated simply because it's not as in English?



if one didn't make compound words in that order in English, they would never do it in Irish... That's the problem.
As far as I know, the Scottish Gaels do that much less frequently with their new words, they tend to keep much closer to the "spirit" of Gaelic in general. I think their neologisms are much easier to understand to native speakers than the Irish ones...

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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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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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Not at all - I am simply saying that these compound words sometimes words simplify otherwise more complicated sentences involving the genitive. It may be that this reason contributes some amount to their usage. I am not suggesting that they be used constantly.

I have no problem using these compund words in speech. Are they purely in Irish because of English influence?

which means: they are used because they are simpler to native English speakers. That's what I said.



They weren't in the language 100 years ago, when there were many native speakers (and when most Irish-language writers, journalists etc were native speakers, I mean, Gaeltacht speakers), ie. when it wasn't easy to write nonsense in Irish... (or at least, in unnatural Irish)

The backwards compound words are either very old words - that process was common in "pre-Christian Irish" (ie. before Old Irish, roughly) as it was in Gaulish, for instance, but it ceased to be productive since very early Irish. And it has come back in the 20th century to create neologisms because it follows the English order.

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

Its only natural for languages to take in influences from other languages around it. For example its only over the last 200-150 years that the Foirm Scartha came into use. But still today its considered "poor and unnatural Irish" in Munster to say or write "bíonn muid" or "tá mé", but these are the forms most common to other dialects and therefore they shouldn't be classified as such. But today the rate of change and the rate of the influences coming in is utterly unnatural. As Lughaidh pointed out a 100yrs ago Irish was written by native speakers, and when they had to invent a word or they had to express something difficult they fell back on Irish and Irish idioms but nowadays Irish is written by Irish learners whose first language is English and many of these write English in disguise and when they have to create a phrase or a word they fall back on English. This is a double edge sword, there is more Irish being written now than there ever was and most of these writers have the best intentions for the language but some are doing an awful lot of damage as well.

I don't think that most of these compound words are as a direct result of English as most aren't compound words in English themselves. At least the are recreating something that happened historically in Irish i.e Seanabhean srl. There are worst offenders to Irish out there!

I still think it best to say: "le linn na bliana scoile" instead of "le linn na scoilbhliana" though.

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they are a direct result of thinking in English, ie. putting determining words (?) before.

Btw, about sean(a)bhean, "sean" is one of the few adjectives that have to be prefixed. It's the same in all Celtic languages. Actually all Celtic languages work like Irish on that, ie. they put determining words after (except sometimes in Literary Welsh), and they all have a handful of adjectives, that, unlike all other adjectives, are prefixed. And they all are more or less the same old adjectives:
sean, Gaelic sean(n), Welsh hen, Breton hen...
droch, Gaelic droch, Welsh drwg, Breton drouk/g
...

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

as na samplaíbh Bhreatnaise agus Bhriotáinise, ana-dheas iad a dh' fheisgint,

Although they are uncommon they aren't totally unnatural or foreign, here are a few more from native Irish speakers that I can think of: "béaloideas, banfhile, banfhlaith (bean seems to follow this trend as well, Bandia), gallóglach, garmhac, bándearg, deargmheisce, Fionnghall, Dubhghall, tír- dhreach (dreach tíre), síorfhearthainn, óigfhear, spéirbhean.

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