LL-L: "Language survival" LOWLANDS-L, 17.FEB.2001 (01) [E]

[Ian James Parsley]

Cristoir et al

I am glad to hear that Cristoir's own Irish and that which others use
with him retains the older Celtic colour spectrum. It is also helpful
to this list, because it leads on nicely to the points we were making.

In what I call 'Learners' Irish', i.e. that often taught at courses in
Belfast, colours are assigned directly to their English equivalents:

bán - white
liath - grey
glas - green
gorm - blue
donn - brown
dubh - black
dearg - red
oraiste - orange

'Rua' is retained for the hair colour, but other than that the only
difference with English is that 'glas' is used to describe a 'grey'
horse. I believe this indeed based on the modern standard as Cristoir
suggests. These courses also have a tendency towards 'Anglicized
simplification' not only with vocabulary but also with grammar (e.g.
conjunctions are simplified) and pronunciation (the /r/ in words such
as 'Eire' and 'Doire' is very distinct from anything in English, but
it is pronounced as in English even by teachers at some courses in
Belfast).

However, not all courses do this. Some teach 'Donegal Irish'
(occasionally played up as 'Ulster Gaelic'), and these, I would
imagine, retain all the structures of the Donegal Gaeltacht, including
a dative case distinction which is generally lost in 'Standard Irish'.

But I am missing the point, which is that this backs up what other
list members, most particularly Colin, have been saying in recent
submissions. Firstly, it shows that there would appear to be a divide
in terms of purpose with Irish. Some people seem content to teach a
'watered down' version, and even to base the 'standard' on it, and I
have been told even by Foras na Gaeilige Board members that this is
deliberate to simplify the language and therefore entice more people
to learn it. Personally I would feel betrayed by such a version, and
many others are determined not only that this particular lesser-used
language should survive, but that it should survive 'properly'.

Scots in Ireland is more obviously divided in this way. People are
content to use 'speir' in all positions for 'ask' simply because it
looks different, even though Scots speakers actually distinguish
between 'speir' (meaning more 'consult') and 'ask' (meaning more
'request'). Many activists are not remotely concerned even about using
'anent' ('about' in the sense of 'regarding', NOT 'approximately'!)
properly, and old words that have long since been lost in Ulster or
even in Scots generally are not only revived, but their meanings
extended. I cannot describe a lot of the Scots you see even in
official publications in Ireland as anything other than barbaric, with
a complete disregard for the intricacies of grammar and idiom but far
too much attention paid to 'maximally differentiating' from English,
while failing to recognize that Scots words that look like English are
as much a part of the Scots tongue as those that aren't. I personally
have no time for this 'cheat version' (nor for the 'learners'
standard' version of Irish) - I hold to the firm belief that if you
are going to teach it, you teach it properly. But that's maybe because
I'm not politically motivated?

Regards,
--------------------
Ian James Parsley