'Dying languages archived for future generations'

[akerbeltz]

Have you met some of their parents? (And, more worryingly, teachers?)

I'm aware of the problem. But condemming the child here is totally unhelpful. Blame the lack of good input by all means but if you only feed your dog hay, you can't blame the dog if it starts hee-hawing

That is change from within the native language community -- that's fine.

That's a simplistic view. Neither the Norse nor the Picts were language internal. Changes caused in English by Norman French weren't internal either. It's always a tug of war between internal and external unless you get a totally isolated community, the like of which we haven't had in Europe since the neolithic. Even St Kilda was exposed to non-internal "stuff".

[Níall Beag]

Have you met some of their parents? (And, more worryingly, teachers?)

I'm aware of the problem. But condemming the child here is totally unhelpful. Blame the lack of good input by all means but if you only feed your dog hay, you can't blame the dog if it starts hee-hawing

I'm not condemning the children, but the policy. The children are a result of the policy, a symptom of the malaise.

[Changes caused in English by Norman French weren't internal either.

But those changes were for the most part isolated by social strata. Says he, entirely cogniscent of the fact that he is currently "talking posh".

[akerbeltz]

But those changes were for the most part isolated by social strata.

Wherever they started life, they soon permeated society. Otherwise you'd call change 'weahsal', isolated 'foreinazeld' and strata a 'shiht' (taken some liberties in constructing these but they serve to make a point).

[horogheallaidh]

I see what you're saying Niall ach surely it is still the same though - the person who says 'seen' and the person who says 'tha' are making the same mistakes regardless of whether it is their first language or not. If wee jimmy kept on saying 'I seen him the other day' and wee seumas says 'tha' when asked 'am faca tu esan?' they would need to be corrected and learn that way.

I am sure there's a lot of native speakers out there who make a lot of mistakes when they speak. To say that it is a change within the community is not a change but a mistake - plain and simple - they say it wrong so they need to be taught how to say it right.

[faoileag]

Dangerous ground, horo!

Ever since Peter Trudgill' s 'Bad English ain't wrong', back in the 70's. Battles bloody between prescriptive and descriptive grammarians, and students of sociolinguistics.

[Seonaidh]

Bidh cànan beò fhathast ag atharrachadh. Agus 's e "moving target" a th' againn nuair a dh'fheuchas sinn cànan ionnsachadh, an dà cuid mas e ciad chànan no ath chànan a th' ann. Cò an seo bhruidhneas a c[h]iad chànan a-nis mar a bhruidhneadh i/e o chionn 5 no 10 bliadhna e? Mar leanabh (uill, pàiste beag), an robh thu a' cleachdadh facail mar "google - a' googladh", "USB stick", "FYROM"? A bheil blas ionadail agad a th' air atharrachadh? Cànan gun atharrachadh, cànan marbh.

[deardron]

'S e dà sheòrsa de chànan a th'ann, "a' chànan bheò" agus "the norm". Tha nan dithis ag atharrachadh a rèir laghannan dìofraichte, agus 's e a' chiad tè a tha na buailtiche do atharrachadh na an dàrna.

Carson nach sgrìobh a h-uile duine ach "Beurla riaghailteach" an seo, cha "dualchainntean beò"?

[Níall Beag]

Setting aside "right and wrong", "good and bad", "posh and common", "a chànan beò and the norm", there's a more insidious point at play here, which I tried to point out earlier.

Many of the changes taking place in learner Gaelic stay in the learner community and don't cross back over into the native communities. (And it should be noted that some of these changes are the result of sticking slavishly to the grammar book, even where the reality is that native speakers rarely use that particular form.)

This results in a new, radically different, dialect which I like to call Neo-Gaelic*. I'm not particularly keen on this new dialect and I have no intention of learning it myself, and while in principle I have no objection to the formation of new dialects, my concern is that the rapid rise of Neo-Gaelic in the education sector, the Gaelic-development sector and the media places it in a position of increasing prestige and disadvantages speakers of the existing dialects.


* Neo is a Greek-derived prefix indicating "new".

[horogheallaidh]

So what you're saying Niall is that we are faced with a lose-lose situation then?

If Gaelic is to evolve and keep up to date with modern terminology, then it has to create neo-gaelic words to keep it going - otherwise we will end up with people speaking beurlaig - half and half - which harks back to the old quips about 'hurdy gurdy helicopter television ma ha ma hon'.

But if we do create new terminology, the original native speakers will be left behind? Surely not? I mean, that's a bit unfair is it not?

I think what's importnat is that the youngsters of today who are brought up with Gaelic can keep up with the current trends and thus avoiding the image of Gaelic being an old fashioned language.

Gaelic will never be what it was in the past, no amount of change or Gaelic only communities will see to that.

sad but true :/

[Níall Beag]

Chriosda air rothair (if you'll pardon the intentional irony) -- chan e sin na thuirt mi. I'm not talking about neologisms where they're needed, I'm talking about changing existing language (idioms, pronunciations, grammar) through simple bad teaching (note that I am not blaming the students).

What is it with the internet that everyone immediately assumes that someone who disagrees with them is an extremist lunatic with ludicrous views? Do you know how tiring it gets standing in the middle ground with the socialists calling you a bourgeois pig, while the capitalists simultaneously decry you as a commie b@st@rd? Or when atheists call you a fundamentalist religion bigot and creationists call you a godless heathen atheist intellectualist bigot? Or advocates of book study think you're an immersion freak and advocates of immersion think you're a bookworm? And the warmongers call you an apologist while the apologists call you a warmonger?

Why don't people on the internet actually read what other people write and see that there is life in between the extremes.

[Seonaidh]

Thuig mi dè chan thu, agus tha mi a' creidsinn gun do thuig HG cuideachd. 'S e an fhìrinn a chaidh HG a-mach air tangent beagan, leis na "neologisms", ach sin side-issue.

Tha rudan mar sin a' tachairt leis a' Chuimris. Mar eisimpleir, tha facal Cuimris "a" a tha a' ciallachach "agus", agus air a chùlaibh bidh seòrsa sèimheachadh a' tachairt far an atharraich C P T do CH PH TH. Ach chan eil mòran am measg na "Cymry Cymraeg" a' dèanamh seo nas motha. Cha chluinn sibh "brechdan caws a thomato" (ceapaire càise is tomato) no "halen a phybyr" (salann is piobar) gu tric idir. Ach nam biodh sibh a' sgrìobhadh ann an steile gu àrd, siud a bhiodh sibh gan cleachdadh. Ann an còmhradh, cha chreid mi gun rachadh iad a chluintinn idir.

Agus sin carson a tha aig neach-ionnsachaidh an dà cuid a dhèanamh - cainnt air labhairt is cainnt air sgrìobhadh. Chan eil mise a' sgrìobhadh na Cuimris mar a tha mi ga bruidhinn - no na Beurla ise. Mu dheidhinn na Gàidhlig, uill, the jury's still out - tha mi fhathast a' feuchainn ga h-ionnsachadh.

[akerbeltz]

But if we do create new terminology, the original native speakers will be left behind? Surely not? I mean, that's a bit unfair is it not?

That almost always happens to some extent. However, in minoritised languages with a good media scene that can disseminate new terms, that's less pronounced. Many countries also run special classes to teach literacy and terminology to native speakers.

In any case, education is the key in many ways. If people are made aware of the fact that using meanbh thonn and conn-riadhladh with a less educated native speaker and that loanwords are better in such situations unless there are clear signals they know such words, then the problem can be largely avoided.

[Thrissel]

What is it with the internet that everyone immediately assumes that someone who disagrees with them is an extremist lunatic with ludicrous views?

&c

Oh no, it's not about the internet, it's been here all along.

He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope.

People simply love to think in schemes. "He said A? Why, then he surely also must have meant B and C as well, for people who say A do!" Neither it's just about opinions: a distantly related side-aspect of this is the question you usually hear when you tell someone outside the anglophone world that you love Scotland: "And have you got a kilt?" Uill, the'd say "skirt" , but the matter is they'd be only half-joking... )