The best way to improve your language abilites is to just get out there and speak it. It’s wh so many teenagers every year get parcelled off on exchanges to foreign countries and why Gaelscoils and Gaeltacht summer camps exist. However, this isn’t always accessible to everyone for a number of reasons.
At the moment your best bet for immersion in Irish is Pop Up Gaeltacht. It was founded by Peter Kavanagh and Osgur Ó Chiardha two years ago in Dublin when they got tired of seeing constant negativity surrounding the language and its future. Essentially once a month they organise a pub for Irish speakers to go to through Facebook and spend the evening speaking an Ghaeilge.These events have become so popular that they spill out onto the streets nearby. They’ve also spread across the world. They exist in London, New York and Dubai just to name a few. Some have started lunchtime Pop up Gaeltachts for those who don’t want to drink and others have arranged some for parents oan d their children. The best way to see if there’s one near you is to look it up and check. Or even start one yourself.
There’s no need to worry about grammar or insufficient Irish as well. I think Irish speakers on the whole tend to be pretty understanding about that. Esp when you consider that most people don’t even follow the same forms of grammar anyway.
Mar a deirtear, ‘Níos fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste’
Most people who have had any exposure to the Irish language are aware of this rule. The basic concept of broad and slender vowels comes into play in nearly every aspect of the Irish language.
The basic conceit is this, a,o,u are broad (leathan) vowels and i,eare slender (caol) vowels. The rule mentioned above means that when two vowels are separated by consonants in a word, oftentimes they have to match. Personally this helped immensely when I was was first figuring out spelling.
See how this plays out in a word like Comhlacht (company; in the commercial sense). Oandaare both broad so the word follows the rule.
Other words include, páirceáil (to park), cailín (girl), foclóír (dictionary), seoinín (shoneen), báisteach (rain), ríomhaire (computer), etc.
But all good rules have their exceptions as we see in words like bunreacht (constitution; in a legal sense) and ospidéal (hospital)
There are many musicians releasing songs in Irish at the minute. Music is a great way to get exposure to the language one can listen to it independent of understanding the lyrics.
Kneecap: A rap duo from Belfast. Not very popular among the purists. Let’s just say that the subject matter tends to be outside the range of traditional forms of learning. Loads of new vocab you won’t get anywhere else. I really enjoy their stuff. Done in a way that’s closer to the actual speech patterns of speakers than the caighdeán. My favourite song of theirs is C.E.A.R.T.A.
IMLÉ: More of a collective than a band. They hop around between genres depending on who’s in the song. Some are native speakers, some aren’t. Motherfoclóir had two of them on for an interview. My favourite songs are Peacach and Go Deo, Go Deo.
Seo Linn: Anyone who’s seen a Coláiste Lurgan video from the early days probably knows these guys. Used to be schoolteachers. For a long time they did translations of pop songs but now have their own bilingual album. I haven’t actually listened to much of them but they did a good cover of Óró. Their music sounds a lot like stuff from boybands to me.
Thatchers of the Acropolis: They’ve only two songs on Spotify but they’re quite good. Load of spoken word mixed with music. Hard to describe. Like poems over a strong beat and melody. It’s like they’re remixing what you expect from Irish language music. Experimental?
Bruadar: Really nice chill music. I’m a fan of their song Géill Slí about public transport. Some brass and a male lead singer. Two songs on Spotify so far. Whimsical lyrics.
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: Much more in the line of traditional stuff. Sean Nós and all that jazz. She has a nice voice.
Síle Denvir: She appears on a couple of Irish language albums and sang a bunch of songs by Pádraig Pearse in her album Caithréim. He was kind of a big deal in Irish history and the revival of the language. Founded the first bilingual school. His stuff is nice enough if you like stuff from the early 20th century… and uillinn pipes.
Rís Ceol: A band which is a bit more old school? They seem to do some satire stuff as well. They’re not on Spotify but their album is out and called ‘Aon Seans ar Riot?’. Which might give you an idea of their vibe.
Árchú: A bit more weird. Some spoken word stuff as well. This is how they describe themselves ‘Ceol iar-rac leictreo-acústach’. Not much music available online yet from what I can see.
The Gloaming: Again more traditional. A bit orchestra in style. Their songs often exceed 7 minutes in length. I listen to The Pilgrim’s Song often. Nice trad stuff.
Another way to learn Irish is to read articles and pick up vocab that way. One thing to keep in mind for exams tho is that the way a native speaker might write is different from what an examiner might want see. Irish in particular is very loanword friendly.
Tuairisc - a news site of sorts. There tends to be a lot of articles about Irish and its status by default of who is doing the writing.
Nós - this is a bit more of a fun site. A site for articles but the subject matter is a bit more frivolous than tuairisc. This is the place to go if you want the forbidden vocab of Irish
RTÉ - The national broadcaster has a Gaeilge section on their website where you can find news articles through Irish.
Various Blogs - Indigenous Tweets has a section on their blog dedicated solely to blogs that write as Gaeilge. http://indigenoustweets.com/blogs/ga/
lads we need our own tumblrverse tag for Irish, Personally I nominate Gaelblr as our lovely little sub-section of langblr. Cá bhfuil mo chairde Gaelacha?? An bhfuil cad agam dul go dtí an leithreas??
It is incredibly important to preserve and promote indigenous languages all over the world. At least 43% of the estimated 7000 languages spoken in the world are endangered.
Although I’m no where near fluent in Irish, I do my best to include our native language wherever I can in my business. This year, I’m also making a conscious effort to include more gaeilge in my work - so I started a series of seanfhocail designs for kits. You’ve probably already seen the first one (níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin) and here’s two more I’m working on. Which one is your favourite?
I got this little booklet from Galway Pride last year but never got round to captioning it, hence the delay. Galway Pride/Bród na Gaillimhe makes everything available in both English and Irish and in fact it was after attending an Anseo agus Aiteach (Here and Queer) meeting at Teach Solais in Galway that I was inspired to start this page.
Image description: a series of images showing the four pages of a small black paper booklet containing LGBT terms in Irish. The first image is of the front of the booklet - along the right side is the progress pride flag and it says “Gaeilge Aiteach - Queer Irish, by Galway Pride 2020 - le Bród na Gaillimhe.” The second image is of the back page which has text at the top and bottom and Galway Pride’s logo in the centre (the logo is a small rainbow with three people standing under it).
The top text reads “Bhí an leabhrán seo déanta le tagairtí ó ‘An Foclóir Aiteach’. Tuilleadh eolais air anseo: https://usi.ie/focloir-aiteach/ *** This booklet was made with references from 'The Queer Dictionary’. More info on it here: https://usi.ie/focloir-aiteach/.”
The bottom text reads “Más mian leat tuiulleadh cleachtú a dhéanamh ar do Ghaeilge, bígí linn ag Anseo agus Aiteach! Tuilleadh eolais ar Facebook 'Teach Solais LGBT+ Resource Centre’ *** If you’d like to practice more of your Irish, join us at Anseo agus Aiteach! More info on the 'Teach Solais LGBT+ Resource Centre’ Facebook.”
The third and fourth images contain the following LGBT+ terms in Irish:
Forainmneacha (fur-ann-um-ugh-ah) - pronouns
siad/iad (sheed/eed) - they/them
sí/í (she/ee) - she/her
sé/é (shay/ay) - he/him
Mar shampla: “Úsáidim siad/iad” (mar hahmp-lah: oo-sawj-um sheed/eed) - For example: “I use they/them”
“Is leispiach mé” (is lesh-pee-uck may) - I am a lesbian
“Is duine neamh-dhénartha mé” (is dih-nah nuh-yav - jay-nawr-ha may) - I am a nonbinary person
Note: I previously got an ask about how to say “I am queer” which I feel is pertinent to this booklet as they appear to have answered the question much more succinctly than I could.
I’ve helped make a language café discord server, so that people can practice speaking, listening, writing and reading in foreign languages even when they’re unable to attend classes in real life.
We currently have conversations going in the Mandarin, Spanish, Irish, and English learner channels.
If you are a native speaker of any language, or someone with an interest in learning languages, please join!
Tá a lán grá agam ar mo chairde éighnéasach sa seachtain seo!
(24ú - 30ú lá de Deireadh Fómhair)
[image description: both images are of the asexual flag (black, grey, white, purple) with light yellow text. Image one has the words “Seachtain na daoine éighnéasach” (asexual people week) while image two simply reads “Seachtain éighnéasach” (asexual week). End image description.]
[ID as Gaeilge: na bratach éighnéasach (dubh, liath, bán, corcra) agus na focail “Seachtain na daoine éighnéasach” ar phictiúr a haon agus na focail “Seachtain éighnéasach” ar phictiúr a a dó. Tá na focail buí. Críoch.]
Image description: a series of tumblr messages reading:
“Hello! I’m Marta and I’m a student of 2nd year Celtic Studies in Poland :)
I’m a part of a student project that is investigating the existence of Welsh-language fanfiction/fandom spaces and what are its members’ relations with the Welsh language.
We are currently conducting surveys on Welsh language fanfiction readers and we need to have a pilot survey to make sure it all runs smoothly. However, there are very few Welsh language fanfiction readers already, and we cannot count in the respondents from the pilot to our final study, for the sake of research.
Which is why we are looking to run the pilot on Irish-language fanfiction readers, and I hope you would be interested, as I’ve seen you post about Irish fic :)
It should take a maximum of 20 minutes, but most likely less. The questions are anonymous and mostly concern your relationship with fanfiction and language. Would you be willing to take part?”
End description.]
Marta reached out to me recently about their survey which sounds fascinating. So if any of you feel that you fit what they are looking for, please contact @estullefavric as soon as possible.
![IN [LANGUAGE] WE DON'T SAY ...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/avatar_84ac7e4b41dc_30.png){kind=avatar}
