I was just wondering, because it varies from language to language: What is the general opinion amongst Irish-speakers about non-Irish-Speakers recording Irish-Language songs?


Grma

As far as I'm concerned, when someone sings in Irish and doesn't pronounce properly, it hurts my ears Irish is much more beautiful when pronounced with its real sounds

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

Cad chiuge nár chóir? Go mbíonn daoine ag gabháil cheoil i gcibé teanga ar mian leo!

I would say it depends on how much effort the singer appears to have put into learning to pronounce the words properly. It doesn't have to be perfect, but anglicised or otherwise sloppy pronunciation does detract from the song.

But then there is the extra allowance people make for a really good singer with a foreign accent ...

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Alright! Thanks for the varied opinions!

Irish songs, I believe, need to be sung by people that not just can pronounce them, but also can understand them properly. The shift of emphasis on certain words and tone are key to properly expressing the emotions in the song, whether they be: sadness, love or passion etc... Its very difficult for a non-Irish speaker to properly display such emotions properly. The non-Irish speakers may have an English translated understanding of the song, but not an Irish one.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong with non-Irish speakers recording Irish language songs, once it reflects their passion and love for Irish culture. I don't agree with people, who don't really understand or can't pronounce the songs recording them in order to make quick money, and pretending that they do understand them.

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

Of course if you're going to record a song in language that isn't your native language you should learn to pronounce it correctly. That's as true for Irish as it is for English, German, French, Italian, Russian, etc. But the idea that only a native speaker of the language can truly understand the emotions of the song is ridiculous. Are bands like ABBA and Aha not able to express the emotions of their own songs, just because they sing them in English instead of in Swedish and Norwegian? At this moment I'm listening to a gorgeous recording of the Mozart Requiem and I can almost guarantee you that not one singer in the recording is a native speaker of Latin, but you can't tell me the singers are incapable of expressing emotions in Latin.

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What about singers like Pavorotti, etc who did not pronounce English as native speakers do. I don't thnk too may people faulted them because of that. If a singer has an understanding of the meaning , less than perfect pronunciation is alright

That's not the problem. To me, the problem is that Irish is an endangered language, and most people who "speak" it (more or less) or sing in it don't speak it properly. So learners, who don't always know if a singer is a native speaker of Irish or not, may try to pronounce like them, and then, they won't pronounce properly.

There's no such problem with languages like French or English or German, because it's easy to know when they are pronounced properly, to know if the singer is a native speaker, and btw most people who sing in these languages are native speakers so learner know who they should imitate.

If 100% of the Irish citizens and 95% of the singers who sing in Irish were native speakers of Irish there wouldn't be such a problem. And if more native Irish (Gaeltacht Irish) were heard in the media, all learners would also know how correct Irish pronunciation sounds like and they'd easily know what is the model to follow...

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

This falls into the category of my second statement above. If you are a superb singer, people can make allowances.

But I can also see Lughaidh's point. There are some lovely Irish singers whose accents when speaking Irish are quite horribly anglicised. Unfortunately, many learners just assume that all Irish people are native speakers, which is of couse not the case (and quite a few Irish singers profit from the fact by not disclosing that they are not native speakers of the language).

As a learner of Irish, if you wish to learn a song and sing it properly, it is important to find out which singers have native-level pronunciation and which do not, and learn from the pronunciation of the competent speakers not the sloppy ones, although if you learn to speak the language properly, you can learn to fix the mistakes yourself.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).