In Conamara again!
Conamara and Corca Dhuibhne are the destinations I most frequently venture back to. Both popular with tourists, though from my personal experience there is more people around Corca Dhuibhne – maybe because we all meet in An Daingean, and both in each own an Ghaeltacht, both offering beautiful views of the mountains and the sea. From my personal experience, again, there is much less Irish spoken in Corca Dhuibhne, or maybe I just didn’t try hard enough.
This was my fourth trip to Conamara and this one in particular was with a purpose of meeting some local Irish speakers in An Cheathrú Rua. On my second and my third trip I was mostly just driving around for a day, stopping in pubs and shops, therefore I was not too upset over the fact that I did not hear much Irish spoken. The first trip included an overnight stay in a B&B whose owners spoke Irish, but that was as far as it went. This time around, however, we mingled with the locals and despite their special Conamara twang it was easy to hear that the old and the young were speaking Irish (except one waitress in Pádraicín’s, but that’s just outised of Gaeltacht and we forgave her).
As I only have a couple of words of Irish and can’t seem to make it to any courses available, I was just listening. Normally, listening to the “Clare Irish” I’m used to, I can pick up several words and understand the meaning of the conversation (sometimes maybe even surprising people with my knowledge when they thought they could keep secrets from me!). With Conamara Irish it was a completely different story! Nothing, neamhní is an understatement. But I kept on trying anyway and on the second day I was able to pick up words again.
When I was telling this story to the native speaker she confirmed the known fact that Conamara Irish is a bit special. For example, they tend to not say the letter “r”. Which makes a carr a “kah” and madra is “mada”. But what made my experience even more special was when I asked her how do they say práta and I got a blank face. So I tried to correct my pronunciation – práta. Another blank. So giving up on my Irish completely I said: “You know, práta, potato!”
“Aaaah,” was the reply, “fata, that’s what we call them!” And that’s a fata with a very soft “t”, hardly recognisable for me. But the Irish speakers understood each other and that is all that matters.
Here are some pictures from the trip.
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I don’t have any idea why you bother with Connemara Irish. If you study the history of the Irish language you will find that it’s purist form is spoken in Ulster.
The language they speak elsewhere is a bastardization of Ulster Irish. When fishermen from Donegal traveled south the people of Connemara picked up the language from them but neithir had the intelligence nor the intellect to grasp it properly, hence Fata! Pratá, i could list many others but i have neither the time nor the desire.
The reason that Ulster Irish sounds more like Gaelic Alba as they are one and the same. Only the dialect and the accents changed. The reason is that the language was brought over the waves by people who were in search of foreign lands. It’s just a pity that when the sailors of Ulster traveled South to Connemara and Cork / Kerry that a less ignorant and more educated people were there to be taught the beautiful language.
Stay well away from Connemara. They can speak neither Irish nor English in that part of Ireland. The capital of the Gaeltacht is in the Rosses in Donegal.
I assure you, it is not to be found in Connemara, Cork or Kerry.
That is a very harsh thing to say and I hope people make their own opinions about what language is or isn’t.
I wouldn’t want to offend anybody’s intellect as I can see the person who wrote this comment is very learned, however extremely narrow-minded at the same time. Suffices to say that there is no wrong way in a natural development of a language, any language!
Saise, if i agreed with you we’d both be wrong.
By that rational Saise, if one was sitting an exam in German and decided to, just for the hell of it, start making up some words, vague sound alikes that you heard your tutor say one day in the lecture. Perhaps mistaking the word for window with the word for a small headed weasel with gout? What if this continued throughout the exam?
Do you think you would pass the aforementioned exam?
Neither did i.
That is the fundamental problem with the Irish language. The people of Connemara, Kerry, Dublin, decide, for reasons unknown, perhaps they know not the correct Gaeilge term so they devise their own terms.
Fataí.
Lagachan.
Barrúil.
Goille.
Gaothúlach.
Absolute doggerel.
Debasing the language because of their own ignorance.
Some of these people who sit on Irish language committees are educated far beyond their intellect and the constant dross they peddle from their dark rooms in Dublin beggars belief!
Héileacaptar! (Helicopter)
What genius wordsmith came up with that gem?
Dumbfounded, absolutely dumbfounded is what i was when this was brought to my ears. But as the saying goes ‘Every now and then the sun shines on a baboons arse.
And whomever has concocted this word, well he can proudly boast by the fireside to his grand children that he has left a legacy for generations to come in the form of ‘Héileacaptar’. He must be proud.
What is wrong with Bád Spéire? or must we erstwhile copy the English in everything we do?
Like i said in my previous post i could list many others but neither have the desire nor the desire.
Congratulations on writing the above paragraph without resorting to the ‘natural development of a language’ as you so eloquently phrased it, in this case the English language, as i’m sure you are a fervent advocate of text speak.
As that is the foreseeable ‘natural progression’ of the language that i have mentioned.
C U L8R. THANX.
Well, it just happens that we won’t agree, but I would like to get my point across anyway.
My mother tongue is Slovenian. 2 million people, a third the size of Ireland, according to wikipedia with 32 dialects and dozens subdialects. Also, 2 dialects are so individual and independent they have their own grammar. Yet they’re still “Slovenian” – used as a noun here rather than an adjective.
There is about 400km between the west of the country and the east of the country and if they don’t resort to a version of standard Slovene, they won’t understand each other. Yet it’s the same language. But you don’t have to travel 400km to not understand a fellow Slovenian. In secondary school there were 33 students in my class and we spoke 6 distinctive dialects with further nuances. Yet we sat exams in the same language.
When you sit an exam, it’s standard Slovene – nobody speaks that but the lovely ladies on the news team. More people write it. As I’m sure is the case with Hoch Deutsch and Plattdeutsch. I don’t think I’d be too far off if I assumed the same for Irish.
The richness of dialects is what keeps the dual number alive in Slovenia. Yes, it’s there in the standard – text book Slovenian, but (too) many dialects ignore it. In that sense I am an advocate of text speak. It gives the support, the spine, to the spoken language. I am aware that the dual could disappear as a natural development of the language, but hopefully it won’t. The silly people from the east of the country will keep it alive.
And yes, we had an old linguistic fool in Slovenia who about 15 years ago decided to introduce a Slovene expression for a CD and literally translated it. Made a laughing stock of himself (should be noted that he was always considered a bit special), but now that word is widely used. People forget they laughed at it.
An example to the other side is Croatia after the war in the 90s. Croatian being so closely connected to Serbian during the years in Yugoslavia, they attempted to create new words for their now independent language. It was the helicopter they called the “air-beater”. I’m not sure how the word was accepted among Croatians, but the Slovenes surely did laugh at Croatians’ folly.
And of course the text book language will always tend towards the dialect tendencies of people sitting on the boards…