Gàidhlig

[islandhopper]

What's with my a a in that last post?

So Gay-lick is always wrong? Who'd have thunk?

Is it Gay-lick in Irish?

Sorry for asking Irish questions in the not Irish thread.

Scottish gaelic is pretty much pronounced the same in english or gaidhlig but I think Irish is something more like gay-lick-uh (Gaeilge) in the mother tongue.
It's strange - I think I could mostly follow a conversation in Irish Gaelic, but once it gets to poetry or anything like that, then I get completely lost.

[squirrelboutique]

I'm going to be the best Irish poet this world's ever seen, all in an attempt to say things about you that you won't understand.

[islandhopper]

I gather Scottish Gaelic is the least widely spoken of the mainstream gaelics celtic languages (of which there are, I suppose, only three).

What are you referring to as the third gaelic celtic language?

[gloom button]

I meant to say, in reply to something Gordon mentioned, that the h performs that same function in Irish Gaelic as well - sort of softening the sound of the consonant it comes after a bit. So "an bóthar" ("on bow-her") is "the road" and it becomes "on voh-her" when the 'h' (i think it's called a séimhiú in Irish) is introduced - "an bhóthar", though I don't quite remember all the places you're supposed to change the consonant sound. It's funny how you get used to the idea that words can be modified by letters going inside the word. When I start to think about it it's pretty crazy.

Anyway I was going to say Marcy, I really wouldn't be worried by accent or anything. I'm sure they used to try to make us learn more appropriate "accents" even and my Irish accent was always shite and I can still carry on a conversation. And if Scots Gaelic is anything like Irish, it's much easier to speak than it is to pick up the arcane grammar!

[islandhopper]

Anyway I was going to say Marcy, I really wouldn't be worried by accent or anything. I'm sure they used to try to make us learn more appropriate "accents" even and my Irish accent was always shite and I can still carry on a conversation. And if Scots Gaelic is anything like Irish, it's much easier to speak than it is to pick up the arcane grammar!

Yeah, I don't really have the first idea about the grammar rules - they can get pretty ridiculous - but thankfully it ends up coming fairly intuitively in speech.
I consider myself embarrassingly deficient in written gaelic though. It just does not come naturally at all and is far too much of a struggle to ever be considered in any way pleasurable.

Oh, I should plug the Gaelic film I was involved with - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seachd-Inaccess ... 713&sr=8-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
I pretty much worked on it for a whole year, so I can't find it in myself to give it anything like an objective review. It's quite good though apparently! It includes special guest appearances from both my thumb and my very muffled voice.

[Concrete]

Nuts!

No, Gordon - trees and other plants, not necessarily nut-bearing ones. Mad though, isn't it? Sounds quite an interesting language.

[Gordon]

I gather Scottish Gaelic is the least widely spoken of the mainstream gaelics celtic languages (of which there are, I suppose, only three).

What are you referring to as the third gaelic celtic language?

Oh, I meant to delete the word gaelics, there, but I was thinking Welsh > Irish > Scottish

[islandhopper]

What are you referring to as the third gaelic celtic language?

Oh, I meant to delete the word gaelics, there, but I was thinking Welsh > Irish > Scottish[/quote]

Oh, ok. You'd be right there then. I thought you'd somehow got some crazy idea about the number of people that spoke Manx Gaelic! We're talking 59 native speakers there according to wikipedia.

[alongwalkhome]

I have received the bound-to-be-shit CD-ROM and am going to pop that puppy in at some point today. It apparently has a voice recognition feature that tells you whether you're pronouncing something correctly(!) I hope it doesn't have a preprogrammed guffaw or "tsk tsk" sound.

Wish me luck (in Gaelic; go on, I can take it--just can pronounce it).

[islandhopper]

I have received the bound-to-be-shit CD-ROM and am going to pop that puppy in at some point today. It apparently has a voice recognition feature that tells you whether you're pronouncing something correctly(!) I hope it doesn't have a preprogrammed guffaw or "tsk tsk" sound.

Wish me luck (in Gaelic; go on, I can take it--just can pronounce it).

Gu math thèid leat a Mharcy. I've gone and done the whole adding an h after the first letter of your name (Varcy) thing as well - as people do. Bet you don't get that in your CD-ROM!

[Gordon]

See there's that lenition I'm talking about. and I understand for masculine names you have to do something to he final vowel? like 'a Ghordoin?'

[Gordon]

Oh, and I was reading about BBC Alba, something along the lines of a PFI deal/shared investment scheme? Interesting.

If you have any pull, I'd like to be in the daily soap opera as they boy from Canada who doesn't speak Gaelic yet (or act).

[Gordon]

Triple post. Reading about Gaelic on wikipedia is fun times.

And you find gems like:


And for gloomy buttons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference ... _and_Irish" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[islandhopper]

See there's that lenition I'm talking about. and I understand for masculine names you have to do something to he final vowel? like 'a Ghordoin?'

You're going to start losing me with words like lenition, but I think I know what you mean! Again, I should say I'm no good with the hard and fast rules, but I'd say you're pretty close with your name. I'd probably say it was a Ghòrdain.

Oh, and I was reading about BBC Alba, something along the lines of a PFI deal/shared investment scheme? Interesting.

If you have any pull, I'd like to be in the daily soap opera as they boy from Canada who doesn't speak Gaelic yet (or act).

"BBC ALBA will be funded by MG Alba, which is financed by the Scottish Government, and BBC Scotland.

The BBC's existing spend is £3.2 million on radio content and £2.1 million for TV and online. The BBC will contribute an additional £2.5 million to BBC ALBA. (BBC figures exclude distribution costs.) MG ALBA will apply the majority of its budget (£12.4 million in 2008/09) to the Gaelic Digital Service."

I think a lot of people were quite surprised that it ended up being given the BBC name when they actually have the smaller role in the partnership. It's a bit odd really. MG Alba call all the shots as far as I can see, and the BBC doesn't appear to be anything more than a production arm.

The Soap Opera was in the first commissioning round, but I guess it takes a while to get these things off the ground. Plenty of time for you to work your way up to Canadian boy with a smattering of Gaelic!

[Gordon]

See there's that lenition I'm talking about. and I understand for masculine names you have to do something to he final vowel? like 'a Ghordoin?'

You're going to start losing me with words like lenition, but I think I know what you mean! Again, I should say I'm no good with the hard and fast rules, but I'd say you're pretty close with your name. I'd probably say it was a Ghòrdain. '

Now I see how people can get excited by English grammar.

Have you got any idea if BBC Alba will be on iPlayer? It's interesting there's no BBC Cymru on TV, I guess they're getting their foot in here before someone else does, like with S4C (although that seems to have a lot Of BBC commissioned programmes).

[islandhopper]

[
Now I see how people can get excited by English grammar.

Have you got any idea if BBC Alba will be on iPlayer? It's interesting there's no BBC Cymru on TV, I guess they're getting their foot in here before someone else does, like with S4C (although that seems to have a lot Of BBC commissioned programmes).

I'd have thought, now that it is an official BBC channel, that it will be on iplayer. I think the BBC are actually involved to about the same level with s4c as they are with BBC Alba - it's just that due to whatever decisions were made at the time, it was never branded it that way. I guess because it's because it was actually the 4th channel in Wales and not just an additional multiplatform digital channel like this.
I think BBC Alba's now turned up on the Sky channel guide somewhere in the 160's by the way.

[Gordon]

Yeah, you're right, I've just been filling myself in. Unfortunately I get all my TV from iPlayer, so can't have a look on anything like a real TV. Apparently it's operating and currently showing archive material?

[islandhopper]

Yeah, you're right, I've just been filling myself in. Unfortunately I get all my TV from iPlayer, so can't have a look on anything like a real TV. Apparently it's operating and currently showing archive material?

Apparently. I don't have Sky either and neither do many people at work, so very few of us making the programmes are going to actually get to see it!

edit - Actually, I think it maybe shows archive programming for a few hours a day, but it's mostly just a holding screen with Radio nan Gaidheal playing.

[Gordon]

Is it not on freeview yet? What are the archive programmes? Gaelic language stuff from the BBC/STV?

Sorry this is too many questions.

[islandhopper]

Is it not on freeview yet? What are the archive programmes? Gaelic language stuff from the BBC/STV?

It won't be on freeview until 2010, providing it lives up to some BBC public value test of some sort. And yes, I imagine it's old BBC/STV stuff.