agus cad é a tharlann nuair a bíos duifear mór eatarthu?



native speakers brought up by non-native speakers, which means they may not speak properly. So to me they aren't really native speakers, because they can't be compared with Gaeltacht native speakers...



the problem isn't about creating new words, it's about how these words are made up. Some are very strange.



it's quite clear though. Maybe you don't find coherence because you don't agree with them?



Just as in the example of that young girl in Gort a' Choirce I talked about last time. That happened 10 years ago... And I don't think it has changed since 2002...



I hope it's a joke. ALL regional languages of (continental) France are threatened, when they aren't almost dead. And all regional languages of France are minoritary within their own regions ! There not one single area where more than 50% of the people speak the local traditional language. While 99,9999% speak French.



Nowadays, the "dialects of French" are simply French with a local accent, and sometimes a few local words. That's all. But the usual spelling works for those, because there's only these few differences. The "real" historical dialects of French have been absorbed (?) by standard French and now, only local accents are left. I hope what happened in France won't happen in Ireland, ie. replacing all French dialects and other languages by standardised French.

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

Cad é a tharlaíonn i mBéarla nuair a bhíonn difear mór idir canúint labhartha agus caighdeán scríofa?



Actually, third generation native speakers. In Belfast, for example. So yes, they can be compared to Gaeltacht speakers. To not see them as native speakers is either because one is ill-equipped to make that judgement or bigoted in a way that's difficult to understand.




Yes, I believe I addressed that point. The more native-speakers that get involved in the process of creating new terms (and there are already many!) the better.



It's possible to find ideas coherent, even if we don't agree with them.



Thanks Bríd, I understand. And commiserate! But I also know native speakers of more recent generations who loved their study of Irish at school.



I suspect there are probably other anecdotes that suggest for some young native speakers this does not have to be a catastrophe.

It's far more likely that English will replace Irish in Ireland than that the local dialects will be replaced by the Caighdeán.

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Both are likely. However, I think there will always be at least a few people who'll want to keep speaking a real dialect. See on this forum, most of us have chosen a dialect and prefer using a dialect rather that standard Irish. The problem is the lack of material to learn real dialects -- have to be very motivated to do it, but it's possible. But if there were more stuff to learn real dialects, it'd be better and in the future, more people would speak them, because many people want to speak them.
I think there will always be people who'll want to speak Irish. But I think it's important that the natural transmission from generation to generations continues, if we don't want a situation as that of Cornish etc...

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

I'm sorry, but idiotic individual projects do not amount to reasons why a standard should not exist. The goal of this discussion (and I mean in general, not here on this board) should be to establish a balance between the dialects and the standard. Please do not presume that all native Gaeltacht speakers feel that the standard should not exist - that's not the case! Yes, the problem is worsened by state negligence, but I feel you are under-estimating the number of Gaeltacht speakers involved in Irish-language term creation, for example.

What's frustrating for me is the extremity of the positions here, bordering on sectarianism at times. I'm more optimistic I think. I don't think the dialects are going anywhere, even if they're under threat. The language is experiencing unprecedented growth (at least in modern times) and finds itself in a state of flux. Let's hope things balance out.

I just worry that attitudes like the one you expressed before – that native speakers from outside the Gaeltacht whose native dialect is CO aren't "real native speakers" – will hurt rather than help the cause of preserving the language against replacement by English, because if non-Gaeltacht revivalists are told that their Irish isn't "good enough", then they won't bother raising their children in Irish at all. And however worthy of preservation the traditional dialects may be, the more native speakers of any variety of Irish (including CO) there are, the longer the language will survive.

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If I want to bring my children up with English, will you consider them as native speakers of English? And could you consider their English is equally good and right and rich as the English spoken by an English (or American or Irish or Australian etc) child?
Since English isn't my native language, although I'm quite fluent I'm VERY far from speaking like a native, I lack much vocabulary and I make grammar mistakes (and I don't pronounce as a native).
Think about it ; with Irish it's exactly the same problem.

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

It's Ciot-thurraing in the old spelling and in more recent Déise novels and letters Ciotarainn.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

If you put your children in English-language preschools and schools with other children being raised by very fluent but nonnative parents and in which the teachers are also very fluent but nonnative speakers, and if you read books to your children that were written by "actual" native speakers (in addition to ones that were written by very fluent but nonnative speakers), then sure, why not? If there's a big enough community of such children of nonnative speakers, they'll develop a new dialect of English that's unlike any existing dialect, but it's still their own native dialect and just as "real" and valid as any dialect of English that's in the linguistic "Apostolic Succession".

How do you think Israeli Hebrew got off the ground? By nonnative speakers raising children in what was to them a foreign language. Children mostly acquire language from other children, not from their parents, anyway. The case of Nicaraguan Sign Language is a great example: an entire language that developed among children without any interference from adults at all.

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Is léir nach bhfuil aithne agat ar duine ar bith as Béal Feirste a bhfuil Gaeilge dhúchasach aige. Ach is thusa an saineolaí i gcúrsaí dúchasacha de réir dealraimh!

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Ultach mé agus Gaeilg Uladh a labhraim go measardha maith!