Low-tech, yes, but still effective. Our email exchanges were interesting. Like my mother’s other sister, she thought that Irish was simply the heavily accented Hiberno English that she had heard spoken by Irish immigrants in Philadelphia. Nope, Irish is not even in the same language group as English. I’ve heard about how immigrants to the U.S. have learned English by watching American soap operas. Maybe it’ll work for me with Irish.
Now this is a beautiful picture of snowfall in Tipperary, Ireland.
[ Link from IrishEyes ] Maybe one of these years I’ll experience it for myself. Also, report in from Minnesota CyberBug (AKA my sister June) – it was a mere minus-36 in Bemidji, and school wasn’t even cancelled. At minus-13 she takes off the jacket outside, and when they hit the plus side of zero she digs out the bikini. And this is a woman who grew up in sunny Kihei, Maui.
TG4 soap ‘Ros na Run’ has been sold to a television station in Philadelphia.
Cool. I have family in Philadelphia; hopefully one of them receives WBYE and can record some episodes for me.
iTunes Music Store Gets Its Irish Up.
If they’d just get some more Irish music in there. Actually there is a considerable amount of Irish music there, but some some of my favorites, including Paul Brady and Sean Keane, are no where to be found. Cost is .99 Euro per song, currently approximately $1.30 US at the currently exchange rates.
Geoffrey K. Pullum makes an interesting post on the the future of Cornish on Language Log.
A timely follow up to our earlier discussion. I’m sure Scott won’t like this news. “Cornish is dead, stone dead” and Irish “will be dead in thirty years.” Thankfully there are people who will continue to fight for their survival. We can only hope that it is not in vain, because most of us won’t live long enough to see what happens one way or another. I can relate to his observation of that “almost every story they (“The Economist”) do on language is goofy.” I’ve done very few newspaper and magazine interviews on any subject, from Hawaiian language to…
Scott Waters gently reminds me that Irish is not the only Celtic language still being used.
Of course not, it’s just the one I’m most interested in. Scott points to this site dedicated to Cornish, or Kernewek. The language received some good publicity some time back on the cartoon “The Simpsons” when Lisa Simpson shouted ‘rydhsys rag Kernow lemmyn’ (Freedom for Cornwall now). There is a page dedicated to this episode on the Warlinenn site. So Scott, I’ll learn Irish, you learn Kernewek, and we’ll meet over a few and determine between us if there is mutual intelligibility
Modernise Irish?
An Teanga Nua, The Millennium Gaelic Society, is a pressure group for “the modernisation, standardisation and regalicisation of the Irish language.” Is “grammar” spelled “grammer” in Ireland? They seem to have some HTML problems as well.
In Ireland, an Irish language comeback.
A TG4 executive asserts that interest in the language is due to trendiness, calling it a ‘yuppification’ of the language. I certainly hope that there is more to it than that. Nice to see the numbers growing, however.
Irish Only Placename Signs In Gaeltacht.
Beginning next March, placename signs in the Gaeltacht (designated Irish-speaking areas) of Ireland will be in Irish only. Some interesting discussion going on as to how this will affect visitors to the area.
The Quiet Man to Speak Irish.
It is only fitting that this classic, already translated into a dozen languages, but will be translated into Irish as well. I’ll buy it when it’s available.