Deconstructing Myths about the Irish Language | Colm Ó Broin | TEDxBallyroanLibrary

Colm Ó Broin is an Irish speaker from Clondalkin, Dublin, and a member of Conradh na Gaeilge. He has been involved with Áras Chrónáin in Clondalkin and Cainteoirí Chill Mhantáin in Wicklow Town organising social events for Irish speakers for several years. He worked as a journalist for the Irish language newspapers Gaelscéal and Lá and has spoken and written widely about the many myths that surround the Irish language, including articles in The Irish Times, The Journal and Broadsheet.ie Colm Ó Broin is an Irish speaker from Clondalkin, Dublin, and a member of Conradh na Gaeilge. He has been involved with Áras Chrónáin in Clondalkin and Cainteoirí Chill Mhantáin in Wicklow Town organising social events for Irish speakers for several years. He worked as a journalist for the Irish language newspapers Gaelscéal and Lá and has spoken and written widely about the many myths that surround the Irish language, including articles in The Irish Times, The Journal and Broadsheet.ie This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx

[@meganhasreturnedtorome4971]

People say "Irish names are weird" and then name their child MycKayinleigh

[@michelleflood8220]

Megan R's Avignon Account I know what you mean ! I’ve got cousins with Irish names mairead , diedre , eamonn , and one that’s a blend of two names katherese .

[@mzanahenriques]

There's an entire group on facebook dedicated to that phenomenon: 'That name is a tragedeigh'

[@kgreene2533]

Lol

[@gloin10]

Please tell Mr Sheehan we're here with the she-hite!

[@johnpower9652]

Irish names don't sound like they should in English because its Irish. The same way Polish names don't sound like they should in English, why? Because its Polish.

[@michelleflood8220]

John Power great point

[@mzanahenriques]

That's the entire conversation in a nutshell.

[@justanormalyoutubeuser3868]

Actually Irish spelling is more consistent than English spelling

[@ak5659]

@@justanormalyoutubeuser3868 ... Most languages are :-) Unfortuately, two completely different spelling systems had a head on collision in 1066. It took 500 years just to sort things out even half way coherently and another 500 years of work just to get to where we are today. Totally agree. A thousand years later we still have a complete mess.

[@ak5659]

Exactly. If you pronounce a Polish name in English Poles don't even recognize it, lol. But it goes both ways. I stared at the last name 'Szulc' for like 5 minutes before I realized it was the Polish spelling of 'Schultz'.

[@florafauna5883]

Keep the Irish language alive. If you lose this heritage of yours, you'll be much much poorer, culturally bankrupt.

[@michelleflood8220]

francisco guevara there is a saying in Irish the life of a language is to speak it if just forgotten the phrase but I do believe this one tir na teanga tor ni anam - a land without a language without a soul .

[@peterfitzgerald7734]

The language is the last thing we should be worried about, the next Direct provision centre will breed this language out soon enough

[@michelleflood8220]

Peter Fitzgerald move elsewhere then seeing you seem so anti this beautiful language ! You probably can’t speak a word of it is why you’re so pissed off at those who can get over your snobbish attitude .

[@peterfitzgerald7734]

@@michelleflood8220 Move elsewhere............how Irish of you, if you don't agree, get out...........I spend my pass time telling everyone, especially kids to ignore this feral language, and the only snobs I know attend Irish schools funnily enough.

[@michelleflood8220]

Peter Fitzgerald just proved my point then that you’re so pathetic that you waste time telling children to ignore part of the Irish culture and a beautiful part at that ! Bet you can’t speak a word of it and that’s why I pity you ! All my cousins are fluent gaelgoirs ( Irish speakers ) something you’ll never be or appreciate

[@gastonmartinez6316]

I'm an argentinian guy watching this and I am learning Irish at the moment because it's truly a magical language with its unique ways to express feelings and things. Is as an Argaintín mé agus táim na Gaeilge a fhoghlaim anois. Is teanga go h-álainn agus le lán driocht í, mar sim táim sásta go mbeidh sí go luath ionam 😀

[@j.obrien4990]

Saludos de Mexico Gastón! Is meicsiceanach me, agus taim ag fhoghlaim Gaeilge, ach labhrann fearr tú an bhfuil mé. Dia dhuit o Meicsiceo Gastón, Soy Mexicano, y aprendo Irlandés, pero tu lo hablas mejor que yo. Busca "Mundy -- Meicsiceo (as Gaeilge)" es una cancion chido para me. ..

[@gastonmartinez6316]

Táim sásta go bhfeicim daoine atá ar an mbothar ceanna liom. Cén fáth a dhéanamh sibh é seo? An bhfuil sibh i bhur gcónaí in Éireann?

[@j.obrien4990]

@@gastonmartinez6316 si entiendo bien preguntas porque aprendo gaelico, y si vivo en Irelanda? Foghlaim gaeilge mar is as h Éireann mo sheanathair agus táim fiosreach faoi a theanga. Ach ta me mo gcónaí i Meicsiceo. Aprendo gaelico por curiosidad, mi abuelo estaba de Irlanda y tenia curiosidad eschuchar su idioma. Pero vivo en Mexico.

[@lilianagardom]

¿Dónde estudiaste, Gastón? Estoy buscando dónde. También soy argentina. ¡Muchas gracias!

[@dob1997]

[@dissonanceparadiddle]

I love Gaeilge. I was raised on it. It's a beautiful language and I hope it's spoken for centuries to come

[@c.miller2460]

I love it too! It's the most beautiful language ever. I live in America and have been learning Gaeilge. Hope people won't let it die. In fact, I'd love to see a renewal of this poetic and historic language. Go raibh milé maith agat!

[@dissonanceparadiddle]

@@c.miller2460 luckily it's doing very well.

[@michelleflood8220]

Dissonance Paradiddle agree don’t think it’s going anywhere given the fact it’s a part of the school curriculum well at least in ROI Unfortunately NI only has it on a voluntary basis meaning only certain schools have it on a regular basis , but when you have the above plus RTE programming in it and the president and Taoiseach promoting its use plus the gaeltachts then it doesn’t and hopefully won’t die . My family in Ireland are fairly fluent in it and it’s a beautiful language that does lend itself brilliantly to music and poetry , if interested there’s two channels I subscribe to on here tg lurgan which is a band from one of the Gaeltacht schools they do gaeilge versions of popular music and then learn Irish with Dane that I’m learning off of .

[@dissonanceparadiddle]

@@michelleflood8220 thank you I'll check those out ❤️

[@michelleflood8220]

Dissonance Paradiddle no problem a chara

[@just_depie]

Is Gréagach mé and I'm learning Gaeilge. Please protect this beautiful language and be proud of your heritage 🇬🇷❤️🇮🇪

[@xotan]

Bí cinnte. Ta sí beo fós. Να είσαι σίγουρος. Είναι ακόμα μια ζωντανή γλώσσα.

[@darrensingsintheshower1104]

Tréaslaím leat. Beidh tú in ann 'An Buachaill Gealgháireach' a léamh sa mbunleagan anois

[@songtraveler]

I have studied Irish and I can assure you that Irish spelling is far more consistent than English spelling. It's a question of learning the spelling conventions, that's all. Once you learn them you can pronounce any word with confidence. Irish is a beautiful, expressive language. Especially beautiful when sung.

[@alsoascot02]

Surely an argrument for reform of English spelling.

[@cigh7445]

Then why do Irish people not learn to pronounce Irish correctly based on Irish orthography and in accordance with the phonetics of the native Irish language? Irish people learn to spell Irish but the pronunciations they are taught/learn are just English approximations of the words on the paper.

[@songtraveler]

@@cigh7445 For the vast majority of Irish people Irish is a foreign language. Irish phonology is not the same as English phonology. To pronounce Irish you must master the sounds that Irish spelling represents, like the palatalized and non-palatalized consonants. For a speaker of English that presents a real challenge (I know).

[@ansh9236]

A fun way to learn Irish is to start by rote learning a few songs such as buachaill ón Eirne mé or Éamonn an cnoic. You will learn useful phrases and be the life of the party and maybe compete in singing in Irish at a fleadh. With youtube, almost everything is possible.

[@testosteronic]

The names thing always gets me, it's a different language! Why would you presume they would be pronounced with English pronunciations?

[@michelleflood8220]

Lozzatron exactly that’s why the fadas are there ! It’s for lenition purposes to tell you how to elongate the vowel sounds it changes depending upon which vowels it is over it that makes sense .

[@MarctheSwissIrishman]

Well, there's monolingualism for you... If you only speak English (cuz why bother learning anything else), you'll only have the English frame of reference. I'm not trying to say Gaelic spelling is intuitive, though, because to be franck it isn't for anyone.

[@faelan1950]

@@MarctheSwissIrishman Irish spelling is, if anything, quite consistent. Especially compared to the likes of English. It doesn't take too long to get a very basic understanding of it, even just to give people the basic respect of having their names being pronounced at least half-correctly.

[@MarctheSwissIrishman]

@@faelan1950 I absolutely agree that the basics are easy enough to grasp - although I still understand how it can be confusing to other Indo-European language speakers, as many multigraphs have pronunciations that cannot be guessed from looking only at their constituants (, , ). Whether it's more or less confusing than English is a question of perspective, I suppose. But I wouldn't go as far as calling Irish spelling consistent. In the three phrases "dhá phunt", "bádh é", and "mo dheartháir", "dh" is pronounced in three different ways, ranging between [j], [g], [x] and [w] depending on both context and dialect. Not to mention "ina dhiaidh" where it has two different pronunciations in the same word (at least in my dialect).

[@faelan1950]

@@MarctheSwissIrishman An important rule to keep in mind with irish spelling, and something that people don't consider when learning Irish, is the spelling rule "Slender with slender, broad with broad". Although this is an unetymological rule (I don't think it was used in Old Irish), it's still useful in Irish spelling to determine whether or not a consonant is "broad" (i.e velarised) or "slender" (i.e palatalised) in the examples you've given, besides perhaps "bádh", this rule is very much relevant. Of course you could get dialectal variation, but AFAIK for most dialects the broad dh in "dhá" would be pronounced with [ɣ]. This is the case for most other words beginning with broad "dh" or "gh". In "mo dheartháir", there is a slender dh, the only confusion coming from the standard spelling of the word. In most dialects in Connaught and Munster the word is actually pronounced "Driotháir/driothair" but isn't spelt as such in the caighdeán. Fair point with "bádh", though I wouldn't really say learning how to pronounce the ending of the past tense impersonal of words is particularly difficult, at least in my dialect (in which it's pretty much always pronounced [ɡˠ]) In fairness though, I can see why the average English speaker would have trouble with discerning the proper pronunciation of these words, however I'd say that a Romance language speaker would have the same problem trying to get the proper pronunciation of many English words.

[@caoimhe3236]

We also need to realise that the world doesn't revolve around the English language. We don't need to explain why our names are pronounced this way. The way we use the alphabet is completely different to the way the English use it. It's just ridiculous that people get so confused about our names. Our names follow the Irish rules of pronounciation because it's a completely different language lol. Amadán tú má cheapann tú mar sin 🙃

[@cigh7445]

Yeah except we don't follow the rules of Irish pronunciation. We map English phonetics onto Irish words For example 'Labhair' Most Irish people don't have the Irish Gaelic broad L or slender R in their English, so they just read that word with what their English orientated ears and tongues think of as the only r and l. There are as many examples of the above kind of mispronunciation as there are words in the Irish language because we don't learn Irish language phonetics at all, not even basics. The above speaker does not pronounce Irish well for example, classic 'learner' pronunciation that's never been ironed out, like 'gwaylga' instead of Gaeilge, interpreting the glide after the G as a w since the glide sound is rare in English, saying the -e at the end of the word as the vowel 'ah' when it should be a schwa. Your own name, Caoimhe, for example. Often mispronounced as Kweeva or Keeva by native English speakers, again misinterpreting the glide after the broad C as a w and the schwa as a vowel. On top of the countless mispronunciations and anglicised approximations, we also bring our English language stress patterns into the language by stressing words like 'mo' and 'do' as you'd sometimes do with 'my' and 'your' in English, rendering the native Irish way of stressing in sentences defunct, the -ne and -se endings. So no, the world shouldn't revolve around the English language, but clearly in Ireland it does, as the majority of people, including many who consider themselves Irish speakers, anglicise every Irish word they read off a page

[@fionnmaccurtain8896]

Ancient Irish culture and mythology are hugely interesting

[@MrFearDubh]

Carr is not a word loaned from English. The Irish language had the word carr for a wheeled vehicle since the beginning. It comes from proto-celtic. The English word car is loaned from the Latin carrus. The Romans got this word from another Celtic people, the Gauls, and their word carr for wheeled vehicles (primarily chariots which Romans hadn't seen before). In fact the English word chariot also ultimately comes from the Celtic word carr.

[@philipmcluskey6805]

Well said. there are lots of related words to prove /support this also

[@johnpatrick5307]

The Gaels ARE the Gauls - including the language.

[@set7938]

I'd use glústáin. Not carr

[@MrFearDubh]

@@set7938 That's fine. I believe glústáin is specifically a "motor car" whereas carr can either be that or a number of other wheeled vehicles including the cars on a train. Glústáin is more specific. Carr is more general, but they are both wonderful native Irish words.

[@1papester]

Keep it alive! I love Irish; It's beautiful and romantic.

[@bboppppppppppppp]

i am part irish from my dad's mother, i have been getting more of an urge to learn gaelic learn about irish culture within the past two years like a cow slowly being drawn to a stream. thanks for what you do!

[@philipmcluskey6805]

go for it.....the way your heart leads you

[@eadahh]

Gaeilge gaelic is Scottish but yeah our language is beautiful

[@cigh7445]

​@@eadahhIrish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic. Gaeilge, Gaidhlig and Gaelg are all dialectal names for the one language - Gaelic - but I guess borders and nation building are more important than what the Gaels themselves actually thought.

[@eadahh]

@@cigh7445 nobody uses the term Irish Gaelic it’s gaeilge or Irish, in Ireland gaelic is our national sport.

[@jimobrien84]

It’s sickening whenever any people are contemptuous of their own culture

[@caitrionaweafer2993]

A weapon imbedded in our psyche by empire and passed down through generations. Having another empire in charge of our education system doesn't help. Ciníochas ann. Ní saoirse go saoirse ó na hImpireachtaí. Labhair í is mairfidh sí.

[@dershogun6396]

The word "carr" (car) is not a borrowed word. Carr was alsways and is a celtic word. The romans borrowed it from the celts, the french borrowed it from latin (which borrowed it from gaulish i assume) and english borrowed it from french. Also my native language german borrowed the word "Karren" from carr. karren means wheelbarrow or cart in modern high german and the english word Car or the latin Karrus ment wheelbarrow also until the Automobile was invented and because Automobile sounds so "scientific" , "car" was used in the english language. You see: Irish (or more precisely: Gaulish but irish is a brother language of gaulish, at least old irish) has spread one of it's words through the whole of western europe ;)

[@peterfitzgerald7734]

Wake me up when your finished

[@derzocker9428]

@@peterfitzgerald7734 Haha

[@derzocker9428]

Wie kann man soviel Müll labern.

[@michelleflood8220]

Der Shogun nope it’s from kjarr it’s where the surnames Carr and Kerr come from

[@dd1607]

@@peterfitzgerald7734 Come back to me when you arent such a dry shite lmao dont you have somewhere else to be bitter

[@cbabick]

I'm American and have a degree in linguistics. Although I haven't got a drop of Irish blood (all ancestry is Russian/Ukrainian), I love the Irish language for some reason and think it is beautiful and fascinating. It contains echoes of an ancient past. I'm sure you know that many Americans with an Irish background study the language. We don't have the biases and misconceptions you outline. I intend to keep studying it and share my love for it with others. Thank you for making this presentation, which is logical and solid. And I absolutely love the way you talk, BTW!

[@peterfitzgerald7734]

You would have a different view if you went to a school system in Ireland in the 80s that beat the kids for a slight mispronunciation of an Irish word, most people in Ireland hate the language, it costs the tax payer millions every year

[@hexwolfi]

@@peterfitzgerald7734 Speaking as a soon-to-be English teacher in Japan, I can thankfully tell you language education has been changing drastically for the better since the 80s. Personally I think Irish is a beautiful language whose reputation has been slandered by English colonialism.

[@peterfitzgerald7734]

@@hexwolfi I disagree Wolfgang, us Irish blame everything on the British, thankfully we inherited their language, morals, housing, law, architecture, engineering, sport, tea, shops, morals, sense of fair play and T.V. More people speak Polish in Ireland, we have to pay millions every year printing every Government document in English and Irish and only about 10 are ever requested in Irish. English colonialism is used by lazy nations like ours as an excuse to divert attention from the fact that most countries never achieved anything after the British left them.

[@cbabick]

@@peterfitzgerald7734 I went to Catholic school in NYC in the 70s, and they beat us for many more things than that. And yet that did not result in hatred of anything I learned in school. But I understand what you mean. We all have different perspectives as a result of different experiences.

[@michelleflood8220]

Peter Fitzgerald lazy really that’s how you’re going to describe the country you call home you should be ashamed of yourself so much for the land of 1000 welcomes with attitudes like yours ! The English oppressed starved and killed thousands of innocent Irish people if that to you should make the Irish grateful then obviously you don’t know shut about history do you ? You are pathetic

[@billnicks2362]

Peigs book doesn't even properly show how Peig was. SHe was an incredible storyteller and not the bore people make her out to be. Her house was always full till well past midnight most nights with people dancing and telling stories. She was known for her love of jokes and bawdy stories.

[@CCc-sb9oj]

Peig was a great scéalai and fascinating woman, as was Bab Feiritéar from the same village who came after her.

[@ngatihine6072]

Fascinating language I speak Maori from NZ and the English smacked it out of kids at school

[@jasonallen9144]

Could well be it was an Irish English teacher that smacked it out of you.

[@gemmagomez3556]

The mountain thing reminds me of that rock formation in Scotland which was anglicized to "The Old Man of Storr," but which in Gaidhlig is "The [male genitalia] of Storr".

[@patwinders2894]

My grandad refused to speak to speak English. He only spoke Gaelic. Wish I had learned to speak it when I was younger.

[@29kyne]

Really interesting stuff - I thought the rugby analogy was quite clever and a good explanation

[@benedictelaine4927]

Is there anything not nice, interesting or beautiful about Ireland and the Irish? As a French woman who can't get enough of it, especially at the moment, I haven't found it yet...

[@ambermcardle2054]

Don’t let the language die just because it’s different or “not useful.” As someone who can’t speak my family’s language, it’s a cultural identity blow for my family’s future generations. As the first generation not to speak my family’s language, I’m not accepted among others of the came culturally identity because I cannot “prove” it.

[@johnjoenugent6359]

In Ireland we treat Irish in most schools as a foreign language, we learn it for many years yet we can't even speak it (vast majority) by the time we leave school. I agree with what he says in the video however that doesn't change the harsh reality, in my opinion, Irish is heading for the cliffs if things are not changed and radically. For a language to truly remain alive you need to be able to read it, listen to it, write it and most importantly speak it. I have learnt a few languages fluently since I left school French (C1), Catalan (B2), Spanish (B2) and German (A2), mostly by immersion and some social obligation (to speak to in laws) however Irish escaped me. I have seen where the system goes wrong. You can't use Irish for daily use in a non Gaeltacht area, good luck going to the supermarket, doctor, shops etc... and doing that all in Irish. For most people it seems futile to learn a language you can't practice, a few hours on Duolingo just isn't going to keep the language alive. More focus needs to be put on speaking it. It needs to be taught more widely to all generations who are interested in learning it, that means subsidised Irish classes for over 18s, like in Catalonia (or free for unemployed people), to learn Catalan it costs €150 per year. Otherwise it's just something you have to learn until you are 18 and then you rejoice that it's over or forget what you have learnt. If there is more Irish in circulation, it's good, if it can make its way back into homes then it might stand a chance. So more modern Tv series, movies and music. It's an uphill battle, many people are either ashamed that they never learned to speak it or are afraid to try again. There isn't the popular support to save/resurrect it like Hebrew.

[@kyzendelaguia1063]

All they gotta do is remove a bunch of English signs and replace with Gaelige signs, make more movies and children's books in Gaelige, and teach it the first year of school so kids will grow up not feeling its a foreign language

[@benoconnor3160]

@@kyzendelaguia1063 Absolutely agree with you on that one, I’m from Liverpool but I’ve heard that schools in Wales teach their children early and hold attendances/prayer in Welsh etc. etc.

[@kyzendelaguia1063]

@@benoconnor3160 yep that's very true. Essentially the folks in wales learn there countries language so they can have a welsh identity

[@philipmcluskey6805]

well, understand the nature of Irish people more....BAN the language- and everyone will speak it. yes, i'm serious! and joking too

[@env0x]

learning a foreign language is mandatory in american schools too. they make you learn either spanish or french as a second language all through highschool until you graduate. and here's a secret, nobody remembers any of it after graduating.

[@eamonnleyden7040]

5 fluent children were raised in my house in Belfast

[@EI5EM]

Eamonn, Linda Irvine does our language proud and has shown that it does not belong to just one sector of our people. It is part of our shared heritage.

[@rasmusvanwerkhoven1962]

Actually, both Hugh and Aodh make perfect sense, because “gh” and “dh” we’re both very weak sounds, and thus they could lost, but they’ve also influenced the vowels in front of them, to make them sound the way like they sound now.

[@davidmccormack99]

In Irish, that softening is called séimhiú (lenition). Until the 1950s, Aodh would have been written Aod but with a little dot over the d. This dot could appear over nine of the 13 consonants traditionally used in Irish. The dot caused lenition of the consonant which usually means the sound is softened. But for some consonants, depending on where they appear in the word, and sometimes depending on where in the country the speaker is located, lenition causes the consonant’s sound to disappear completely. Unfortunately, the government introduced a spelling reform in the 1950s which (amongst lots of other things) replaced all these dots with a succeeding ‘h’. It has made the language very unwieldy visually because the dots were used a lot, e.g. the Medb became Medhbh, Sadb became Sadhbh, etc.

[@bastiaanvannijlen9244]

English is considered international standard and most of its native speakers never had to think outside their language except for possibly a few hours of Spanish or French in school. There lies the problem, not in the Irish language or any other less spoken language.

[@alsoascot02]

There is no standard English form only forms with more or less currency or scope of understanding. It status a world language is mostly an accident if history. With a little bit of ease of learning chucked in. Most English native speakers spend most of their time speaking their own dialect. And operating in the domain of their their local prestige form. The current wide recognition and use of increasing Amer-English forms is again all about chance, access and ease of use.

[@carpelinguae9097]

The Irish who don't like speaking Irish are just sad. Be proud!!!

[@bjpcorp]

I'd like to de-anglicize my name and learn to speak and write Irish.

[@michelleflood8220]

bjpcorp go to learn Irish with Dane on here or bite size Gaelic but I’d say if you want to learn to write it grammar is key learn the importance of the fada and how it works also the seimthrius which is the other accents over the vowels this is important for getting context right when writing or speaking

[@BridMhor]

What is your English name? Maybe we could do that for you.

[@diarmaiddrummer3707]

Lots of options. The north american gaeltacht is holding an online course next month with teachers from Ireland for a reasonable price. Look up Cumann ná Gaeltachta on facebook

[@seanmcgonegon]

@@michelleflood8220 and Gaeilge i mo chroí

[@benoconnor3160]

@@BridMhor Would Ben O’Connor be translatable? I know the O’Connor is translatable to Ó Conchobhair/Ní Conchobhair but I’m having trouble finding the Irish version of Ben ...

[@niallmartin9063]

Currently learning Scots Gaelic, holy moly it’s almost identical to our own. Dochreidte. Would love to be as fluent as I am 8n our own beautiful language. Tha sibh sgoinneall 🇮🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@seanmcgonegon]

Irish is a mothertounge of Scott's gaelic and manx gaelg

[@lisadixon5886]

I'm Australian, trying to learn Irish Scots Gaelic and Welsh...

[@DieFlabbergast]

You should learn Welsh, a sister Celtic language, although a bit further removed. There are still lots of native speakers in parts of Wales.

[@brianboru7684]

Manx is another one. T'eh yindyssagh.

[@inbriefbookfilmreviews2539]

Food for thought 👌🏽 and very true

[@vincenthickey8622]

I am American of 2 native Irish (Gaelic) speakers who integrated in 60s. I love this Ted-talk. I wish my own parents had spoken more to me in Irish. Your points you made should well taken. I believe Yeats, as well other Irish great writers, ability as native speaker influence and enriched the English language for better. I hope this another point you can use. Language trains the mind in pathways of thought. It would never a cure to an English speaker to think that way. Not just phrase a sentience that way. Irish is enriching language. There is more contributions to world this language and it speakers have to contribute to world. Please keep your passion for this language. It down, wounded but not out.

[@eadahh]

Gaeilge gaelic is Scottish

[@britanniafirst1254]

I believe in encouraging the use of all of the regional languages within the British Isles, we are richer for the experience.

[@fionnmaccurtain8896]

British and Irish isles

[@eadahh]

Irish isles

[@mjjjjjjjjjjjjjj]

Currently trying to learn this language 🧡

[@1papester]

me too!

[@tainahollo8567]

@@1papester Me too!

[@Novocainea07]

Hows that going?🤔

[@emmetor]

The word "carrus" in latin originates in the ancient celtic word for a chariot. This is where Carr actually comes from - Celtic languages passed it into Latin.

[@monasJourneys]

Thank you so much I wish I knew how to speak in my heritage language of Ireland my great great grandparents came to the USA in the 1800's

[@dibujodecroquis1684]

Irish speakers should follow the example of the Basque language spread and spread their language in the same way or in a similar one that works.

[@basimahmadkhan04]

Support from india

[@s.a.mo.d5020]

Go raibh maith agat

[@nigelmurphy6761]

Go rainh maith agat mo chara

[@raydmurphy]

Maith thú a chara. Iontach gasta agus soiléir go leor faoin pointí a bhfuil deirtear go minic.

[@colmobroin71]

Go raibh maith agat!

[@rosswhitaker290]

faoin + úrú. Tut tut... caithfidh tú a bheith níos curamaí an chéad uair eile!

[@lofdraws7006]

@@rosswhitaker290 it's also atá not a bhfuil

[@MartyULC]

is fearr gaeilge briste ná béarla cliste ;-)

[@robertmccaffrey4708]

Well done!

[@jerrycargill5062]

Never give up. Language is a particular cultural lens through which a group sees the world. Imagine the French having this argument about their language. They would, if the English had been successful in conquering France. Thank god, they failed. Otherwise the Crown would have sent in English "teachers" and landlords to beat and shame the French language out of them. Making a language part of daily life and not shaming people when they make pronunciation/grammar mistakes are things that empower language learning.

[@alsoascot02]

Bad argument. The French (Normans) did invade England and used Anglo Norman French as the main language of governance for about 300 years. Richard the Lion heart for example didn't really speak a word of English. The Invasion didn't end the English language indeed the reduction in status of English for 2 or 3 centuries saw the transition from the fully Germanic Old Anglo Saxon languages of Pre Norman England into the simplified easier to learn and disseminate Middle English on which modern English is built. English survived because the Middle order folk still used it at home and in their every day work. The loss of Irish and Scots Gaelic was more because the Middle classes, and clergy stopped using it than because it was forbidden in schools. Had the wider civic society of the Gaelic speaking regions of Scotland and Ireland still used the languages and produced literature etc then the languages would have faired better. As it was they didn't instead colluding with "the oppressors". The same can be said about Scots which is now essentially reduced to rump dialects spoken by mostly working class folk who of course don't count. Flemish for example survived Francophone persecution in Belgium because the middle classes never stopped using it. The same can said for multiple European languages.

[@bubbles7964]

‚Car‘ is an Irish word that gave itself to English, not the other way round, which most people don‘t seem to know. :-)

[@kerryevans1562]

Maìth thú Most exellent... Gaelic is alive and well Thank you....

[@alanbarnett718]

The elephant in the room - most Irish language teachers don't know how to pronounce it properly!

[@pmhcare]

Learning Irish myself right now. Planning to trip out to the country so I can get some exposure to some real authentic accents

[@richardsalisbury5322]

All languages come from and take words from other languages otherwise we would not have language

[@michelleflood7225]

I think Irish names are beautiful I’ve got cousins in Ireland with them such as aislinn , cian , Mairead , eamonn and even a donnachadh ( Dennis )

[@GalaicoWarrior]

The word word from your list of "made-up words" is actually Celtic. The Romans borrowed the Gaulish "carros/carrus".

[@matildaswaltz]

attended a linguistics conference by chance (invited by the lady sitting next to me when attending a writing conference to spend the following day with the linguists), and the linguists had a conversation about not knowing why Hebrew has had more success at making a comeback into cultural dominance than Irish Gaelic, (since both got taught more in schools from the same time period, and Ireland is an island, everybody expected the Irish to do better), . . . and then the Hebrew speakers talked a lot about using cooking together as the skill set they had attached Hebrew lessons to, . . . couldn't help but remember how my ex- from Coolock, could only remember how to say "please may I go to the toilet" in gaelic, . . . might be an Irish joke in that, but I'll let that be made by the gael sounds

[@kyzendelaguia1063]

"There are no advantages to speaking Irish" Absolutely true, in fact there are no advantages to speaking Spanish, or Swahili, or Creole, or Tibetan, or Hungarian, heck why do we even speak English, there clearly isn't any advatages to it when you can just text everything, better yet why do we even still speak languages?

[@Novocainea07]

There is plenty of advantages to learning Spanish, you can go through most of south america and communicate (assuming you can actually converse) with locals (hopefully) without having to point at things😁

[@andreaandrea6716]

The 'gh' in English is the craziest pair of letters and have a multitude of different pronunciations!! Hugh, Gogh, enough, through, spaghetti (etc. etc. feel free to add to the list). The most schizophrenic pair of letters!

[@michaelhalsall5684]

Van Gogh is correctly pronounced "van hhokh" is Dutch.. Spaghetti is originally Italian. The silent h is there to seperate the "g" and the "I" "Sagetti" would be pronounced "spazhetti". In original English words "gh" was pronounced as "kh" in Middle English, thus "night" would have originally pronouced as "nikht" ("kh" is pronounced as the "ch" in the Scottish word "loch"

[@andreaandrea6716]

@@michaelhalsall5684 I had a Dutch friend of whom I used to request the correct pronunciation of Van Gogh. I am very good with accents but the "van hhokh" was beyond my reach. (I got it once out of 7 tries? Or maybe simply almost?). Perhaps if I had had more time...? (It took a month for me to capture the Australian "No" ...which seems to have 3 syllables). SO interesting that Middle English had the "gh" as "kh"! If only we had recordings! The regional accents in England/Britain are disappearing with the advent of television and the globalization of the world and it saddens me hugely. I think all the different spoken sounds ... are a bit like handwriting; unique and important. (But I didn't understand: The silent h is there to seperate the "g" and the "I" "Sagetti" would be pronounced "spazhetti" ... where's the "l"?)

[@Alexandra_Hill]

I can't believe they took Peig off the curriculum, she was a rite of passage almost, admittedly I was hopeless at Irish and I somehow muddled through it but Peig is an institution in herself!

[@brianboru7684]

It's written in lovely Munster Irish too.

[@lorenzodelre7001]

I'm Roman and feel totally Irish, by choice. Love the Celtic culture and I A D O R E the Irish accent. Mr. O Broin, let them talk, dude....... they might not have much else to take care of, ya know... ; ) Peace.

[@lorenzodelre7001]

@@PatAudreyK 🤩 thx

[@aodhaganriordan2337]

Go diabhal ar fad!Curtha ós ár gcomhair go hiontach agus go hiomlán fíor faoin teanga dhúchais againn.Tá súil mhór agam go rachaidh an teanga chun cinn ar fud fad na tíre agus go leanfaidh muintir na hÉireann á labhairt san ar feadh na blianta athá le teacht!

[@anfearaerach]

I mean I'm a Belgian living in Dublin, juggling between Dutch, German and English in my day to day work and life. I think Irish is not too bad. It's hard to learn though, but so is dutch.

[@michaelhalsall5684]

Dutch is much easier language for an English speaker to learn than Irish. Irish is a Celtic language whereas English is a Germanic language with a French overlay. I can "half read" written Dutch whereas Irish has nothing I can recognize.

[@eadahh]

Learn the language of the country you live in 😂

[@MarleneSTaylor]

Any language, as I teach people languages, that has a word for Hi Definition as I used to say, is NOT a dead language. LOL

[@faelan1950]

The idea that "carr" came from the English "car" is incorrect. It originally came from the ancestor language to Irish, Proto-Celtic and isn't really related to "car" at all.

[@meepulp]

I use gluastáin anyway

[@kilcar]

Having never known my Irish grandparents from Donegal and Cork, I relish hearing the language to at least have known how they spoke and sounded. The French, Spanish, and Japanese languages are familiar to me, and now, why not the mother tongue of my grandparents? Seems fitting.

[@raphaellemcgowan358]

Love thé Dublin accent

[@EI5EM]

I am sure that when Irish was the majority language in Dublin it was spoken in a Dublin accent Raphaelle!

[@brianboru7684]

@@EI5EM But would it be exactly the same as a modern Dublin accent? Accents change over time.

[@EoinP]

Tá sé seo ar fheabhas ar fad. Molaim an obair.

[@colmobroin71]

Go raibh maith agat!

[@amandabeaty1492]

Because I'm Canadian, everyone assumes i can speak English and French. I'm from Western Canada. 1% of the population of my province can speak French. When I moved to Dublin, I had people assuming that I was bilingual. I told them that French in Western Canada was spoken as much as Irish is in Dublin. I think I knew a small hand full of people who spoke Irish fluently. The rest of them could speak Irish as well as I can speak French.

[@MartinShannonHayes]

Could it be that Irish is spoken by fewer people after the British Invasion and occupation that outlawed the speaking of Irish by the Irish natives?

[@michelleflood8220]

Pretty close to the truth it was banned by the English ( sassanach ) for thirty years till the Republic of Ireland ( piobliocht na eireann ) was declared in 1949 then the Irish education board brought it in the following year however the Irish ( gaeilge ) taught in schools is a standardized version of the language and not taught in a dialectical way .Also the only other flaw is it’s not taught in a conversational way so that it can be used when You’ve left school this would keep it alive in my view because language is communication and languages like the goidelic ones of which Irish is one should be taught that way and also dialects and the phrases within them don’t translate area to area that well yes you can still be understood but that would be the changes I’d make if I was the education minister .

[@mesofius]

@@michelleflood8220 I hear that the education system is so poor in Ireland that children graduating from school with ten years of Irish language learning behind them are unable to have a basic conversation in Irish!

[@michelleflood8220]

Phiusmes yes you’d be right I wouldn’t say the education system is poor more that the way the Irish language is taught needs to change to include conversational Irish as part of the way of teaching it if that makes sense .

[@peterfitzgerald7734]

Your right, we should thank the English for letting us communicate with the rest of the world, instead of that dead language spoken by goats west of the shannon

[@michelleflood8220]

Peter Fitzgerald you’re a gobshite it’s not true statistics would tell you as much and if it’s such a dead language why does the president promote , RTE have programmed in it , all signage is in it and do all civil servants have to pass an exam in it to get jobs ? And why are all children taught it from age five please explain how that to you equals a dead language .

[@nesaalli8778]

Our British some of us expect other to speak English but they do not know other language but we should adapt other languages because there is lots of other people from other Country and we should adapt and learn more

[@brianboru7684]

Enoch Powell could speak fourteen languages.

[@Muirlinn]

What about Dutch? Mostly only Dutch speak it and yet they have a vibrant community and international respect because they cherish who they are. A majority of them speak English too. Why not Ireland and the Irish? Don’t get lost in the mono culture of only one type of tree in the forest. Not healthy for the forest or humanity.

[@muireann.s296]

Did the English invade and oppress your country for centuries and make it illegal for you to speak and teach your native language? Cos they did that to us😊

[@nieczerwony]

Tym to imagine how Ireland, Scotland and Wales used to be with all these lyrical people speaking Gaelic languages and with all the forest still present. How magical an mystical these places were.

[@eadahh]

Gaeilge is still spoke in Éire

[@nieczerwony]

@@eadahh I know as I live in Ireland, but it is a very small minority which is using it in everyday life.

[@eadahh]

@@nieczerwony most people have an understanding of it and the language is increasing

[@kinchabass6242]

Did he say, "Northern Ireland"? I must tune in for his "Londonderry" talk, in the North of Ireland.

[@solidus784]

Teigh trasna ort fein

[@caoimhe3236]

Is fuath liom sin :/ tá sé tuaisceart na hÉireann ✔️ níl sé tuaisceart Éireann ❌

[@Youokhun]

It is Northern Ireland? The island of Ireland is divided into Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland and Great Britain = United Kingdom)

[@brianboru7684]

Well it's more accurate than "Ulster", "Six Counties" or "North Ireland" or even "North of Ireland". Donegal is in the North of Ireland but not Northern Ireland. The Six Counties are "northern" but not technically not "the North".

[@eadahh]

@@Youokhunnope one island one country, are you even Irish

[@eamonnmacniallais5441]

An-mhaith!

[@AzogDefilerFromMordor]

I wonder how many Irish people can actually speak their language. Not just a few words or sentences but have a real fluent conversation in Irish.

[@cigh7445]

That depends. The higher the standard the lower the number. My educated estimates: Fluently but ranging from terrible pronunciation and grammar to good - 200,000 Fluently and with ok pronunciation and grammar - 70,000 To native level - 20,000

[@eadahh]

Me

[@jonathandamonte174]

Maith thu!

[@megaloblabber2948]

He's an O'Driscoll

[@sofiaduran4241]

I love that game

[@s.a.mo.d5020]

That’s my name :)

[@zlessly]

nothing screams hundreds of years of colonial rule like a man doing a ted talk saying "our langauge is important too!"

[@johnboyce8279]

Those who ask whether there is any point in speaking Irish need to answer the necessary prior question : Is there any point in being/continuing to be Irish?

[@manusharte1160]

✊👍

[@Ned-ke3ui]

Irish is taught very badly in schools so most students lose interest Fact Don’t get me started on Peig Sweet jesus

[@michelleflood8220]

Ned 70 50 I agree to a point it should be taught the way other languages are in a conversational way this is the major issue I see more Irish would use it if they could carry on a conversation in it I feel but as you say because of the way it’s taught many go to the leaving certificate without those skills ,

[@saidhbhnichionnfhaolaidh4740]

I think the main problem with Irish education is that it is barely taught in primary schools so people don’t enter secondary school with the basic foundations of the language and are then trying to learn poetry and prose on top of a very poor understanding of Irish. Primary schools need to be re-evaluated on this issue!

[@COM70]

I think quite a large problem with the language is that for teachers it’s compulsory and instead of learning it properly, (emphasising the spoken word and lore) they rote learn essays and passages in order to qualify. I sat my leaving cert in the late 80’s and as a fluent Irish speaker from birth I got a B. When I sat my Oral test the examiner had to apologise and change to English after a few sentences as he could not understand or follow my dialect or vocabulary. I sat my leaving in an English speaking area in Meath. The examiners Irish would have been more than adequate for the majority of my classmates who learned reams of conversations from notes (based on pre arranged topics) given by the Irish teacher. The teacher taught from notes she got in college and she did not have enough Irish tho hold a conversation with me either. I assume that most English speaking areas are exactly the same today ?? If Irish was taught in primary school by a teacher who spoke at a very high level and parents made their children watch exclusively Irish programming (I learned English from the tv) then I think it could be much better in a few generations.

[@johnraftery1568]

Irish should be taught for communication not examination.

[@brianboru7684]

What's wrong with Peig? I love her. My great grandparents spoke the same dialect.

[@Dulamankelly]

Maith thú! Pointí iontacha.

[@colmobroin71]

Go raibh maith agat!

[@moradakoudad1020]

Am morrocan hey speak the best dublin accent perfect voice

[@artlover3120]

@@moradakoudad1020 a fellow Moroccan here too!

[@moradakoudad1020]

Am from nador rif barbare

[@artlover3120]

@@moradakoudad1020 and I'm from Marrakech, Nice to meet you

[@mathiaslist6705]

6:18 English people are also doing a great job in pronouncing German words catastrophically unrecognizeable

[@mathiaslist6705]

@@PatAudreyK where's the problem? the syllable theory is just based on consonant and vowel as the most primitive element --- should work with any language

[@masonmorgan4]

I don't want Irish Gaelic to end up like cornish or manx did I should probably learn some Gaelic

[@legonlavia]

1:33 I think this is the dumbest reason to say Irish is bad language, I mean words in most european languages be like: computer, music, humour, democracy, dilemma, internet; Irish: ríomhaire, ceol, greann, daonlathas, aincheist, idirlíon

[@emmetor]

Chinese names are difficult to pronounce properly, so people from China use alternative names just so that we can remember their names. Irish names follow Irish language pronunciation. There are a few archaic features that have become silent.. just as in English, or Dutch they have the exact same thing. Personally, every time I hear of someone Irish who has studied the language in school and thinks it's pointless.. I think there's something wrong with them..

[@Karl_with_a_K]

Colm, go raibh maith agat, bhí sé an mhaith. Tá an áthas orm a fheicail sé.

[@ronaldonmg]

My experience as an Esperantist makes me wonder... are they just myths, or are they deliberate propagandalies? There clearly are forces that want to reduce the number of languages in general, with the excuse that it would be more "efficient" . What they overlook or besilence is that some things worth saying are unsayable in the "major" languages. From my own experience... some things easily said in German or Dutch have no real equivalent in English and/or French. I don't doubt that Gaeilge has words and expressions for things that English doesn't.

[@colmobroin71]

I believe they are driven by a number of factors, incl prejudice and a 'shame' about the language that started in the colonial period and hasn't entirely gone

[@seanoriain8294]

As a speaker of both Irish and Esperanto I agree. The word 'dúchas' in Irish, or 'samideano' in Esperanto, are very hard to express in English or French. Bhaineas ana-thaitneamh as do chaint, a Choilm.

[@sheilabegley1920]

Ana shimùil, ❤️ An teanga

[@mollymcnaughton3133]

Irish names are beautiful...💚🤍🧡

[@torrawel]

If there is one language in Europe with weird spelling, it is of course English... Proof of that? Just think about the vowels for a moment. In almost every European language the 5 vowels are pronounced more or less the same. EXCEPT weird English :) Common European --> English a --> e e --> i i --> ay o --> o! (amazing!!) u --> yu??? As for the English names given in this video. In Dutch (one of my native languages and seemingly the closest one to English...) I would have to spell them like this: Dzjon (why is there an h?!?!) Stie-fen (why does ph equals f? Irish!?? ;)) Ste-fa-nie (ie/e/ee... same sound? weird...) Maj-kel (why is ch like k while just c or k is also k?) kgree-hem (interesting fact: there is no g sound in Dutch. But English g also sounds like dj... like j..) Se-sie-lia The other way around, if I would apply English spelling to Dutch pronunciation, these names would sound like this: Yon Step-hen Step-ha-nee Mi-kha-el (kh = our lovely guttural sound! Official name of The Hague? 's Gravenhage! KHKHKHKH!!) Khrah-hahm Say-see-lee-ya (similar!) my own name: I'm pretty sure that in most European countries it would be pronounced the same. Even with the Dutch spelling... But the English spelling of the name is just weird: Leonard?? It's pronounced the same but what about these o and a??? ;) My name is NOT pronounced: Lay-oh-nahrd...! :)

[@kevingriffin1376]

In English: I, eye, and aye are all homophones!

[@vincenthickey8622]

Another point is typewriter for ruining the language. Look at Chinese language and the keyboard problem. It take 3,000 character to read a Chinese newspaper. Yes, the Gaelic uses Rome numericals but how the keyboard letter are arrange on keyboard. Muscle memory is the is Issue. Old Gaelic speakers had thier language taken from them. It was not practical to have different typewriter in every office just for Gaelic language.

[@michealjohnny]

Maith fear, a Choilm. Is maith liom an pointe scoir a dhéanann tú faoin rugbaí (maith thú as an gceangal ar ais leis an bhfocal úd!), ní aon ionadh go bhfuil daoine in Éirinn a leanann foirne as tíortha eile seachas a bhfoirne áitiúla féin! An-chaint, maith fear.

[@colmobroin71]

Go raibh maith agat!

[@OkieGal123]

Hello im American with irish ancestry im trying to learn but not any good at it😆😂

[@EI5EM]

Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Bearla cliste! ... Broken Irish is better than posh English! Keep learning LMK!

[@peteymax]

Maith thú Colm

[@ronaldl9085]

Language = identity. Don't let them take your identity, it makes you who you are.

[@bigyoshi7134]

Language does not make an identity. Identity comes from many factors, your home, your friends, your hobbies, your history, your country etc. Irish is a useless language that people should not be forced to learn if they don't want to.

[@eadahh]

@@bigyoshi7134it’s not a useless language are you even Irish

[@EI5EM]

An Gaeilge Abú!

[@cathal3688]

Maith thú féin, a Choilm!

[@colmobroin71]

GRMA!

[@alsoascot02]

I have argued that if you want to better encourage use of Irish or Scots Gaelic then dropping the "weird" spelling would help. Since all the weird spelling does is create a largely unnecessary barrier. I guess you could make the same argument for other other languages eg Russian, Greek or Hindi but in those cases you are not trying to revitalise a language for a largely anglophone audience. Changing script and spelling etc has history Kemal Ataturk changed the written form of Turkish from a complex modified Arabic alaphbet base to a Latin alphabet base to make literacy easier. So Chevon or Shevon rather than Soibhan removes the barrier instantly . Exactly why can't Irish have a V? Saying it didn't before us not a good reason at all. And diacritics can take care of sounds not found in English . I would also suggest for English there is an argument for more diacritics or even other letters for example to differentiate the various Th sounds.

[@michaelhalsall5684]

English is one of the few languages that doesn't use diacritics, which makes the our spelling harder to read for non-English speakers. The joke is that English doesn't use diacritics because thec French invented them! Old English used separate letters for unvoiced th and voiced th sounds - "Thorn" for unvoiced th and "Eth" for voiced th. The Icelandic language still uses these letters in their spelling. Do a Wikipedia search about these letters. The Irish language uses a diacritic mark called a "fada" over the all 5 vowels. This mark, which looks like the French "acute", enlongates the vowels in Irish. Irish uses a different version of the Latin alphabet to English. The letters J, X and Z aren't used as those sounds didn't exist in native Irish words. K is not used as C is always ":hard" and QU is replaced by CU in Irish. The letters V, W, and Y are replaced by combinations of other consonants in Irish. Placing H immediately after another consonant softens or modifies its pronunciation (example G is pronounced as a hard "g" whereas GH is pronounced as a breath.) The Irish CH (guttural k) and GH (breath) sounds don't exist in standard English. Regards the name "Siobhan", it makes sense in Irish spelling conventions "si" = sh and "bh" = v .

[@brianboru7684]

Actually the weird spelling isn't that hard, Irish and Scots Gaelic people are familiar with it. If anything the Manx orthography which English speakers love gives Irish and Scots Gaelic people a headache trying to figure it out. I think the syntax is a lot harder. You can't translate words in the same order from Irish to English. And bringing in a new alphabet would create another barrier making older books harder to read. This was done before when the sean chlo was replaced by modern script.

[@brianboru7684]

*English English speakers

[@johnorsomeone4609]

Irish is a “verb first” language and I can’t understand how it became so as a descendent of P.I.E.. I know that languages change over time but how could such a fundamental shift occur? It’s difficult to imagine happening, whether quickly *or* over time.

[@davidcollins4144]

PIE was likely Subject first, like Latin (SOV) with a “late” change to SVO as we have in French. VSO is thought to always have been a part of the language(s) for emphasis. So, not a shift. 2 important points- there was/is outside influence from other languages and all we think about PIE is reconstructed (guesswork too)

[@AndrewRAMontgomery]

Although it's nice saying that violent republicans haven't highjacked the language and that others are making an effort sadly it's not true up here in Northern Ireland. I come from a mixed background (mum Catholic, dad protestant) but was raised in a unionist school. I'm a practicing evangelical Christian (protestant). I want to learn about my Irish heritage and I'm not even a unionist but because of my background I wouldn't feel welcome in anything Irish. Sad but true. Also I witness a similar attitude when I'm down south working. If barriers like this could be lifted you'd see alot more interest in the language

[@kerryevans1562]

Tír gan teanga is Tír gan Anam A country without a language has no soul...

[@alsoascot02]

Pish. What is "the Language" of Belgium, Hungary or Romania etc.

[@Supertomiman]

You could have also mentioned Sean Combs's endless list of objectively ridiculous names that he forced people to address him by.

[@1995AndrewC]

Ar fheabhas!!

[@colmobroin71]

Go raibh maith agat!

[@mathiaslist6705]

Irish Gaelic --- the national Esperanto of Ireland

[@brianboru7684]

You must mean the Caighdeán invented by the Irish government.

[@eadahh]

Gaeilge**

[@martha881]

To be fair almost all Irish stories and literature are tragedies