Blog na Gaeilge

A new Irish dictionary has been published out that covers a potentially huge market for learners of the Irish language. It’s an Irish-Spanish dictionary.

According to EuropeanIrish.com the project began back in the 1970’s and continued right into the 1990’s. However, it didn’t seem to get off the ground until Pádraig Ó Domhnalláin obtained European LINGUA funding at his university in Madrid.

Finally, the Linguistics Institute of Ireland worked on the manuscript to end up with 19,000 Irish-Spanish entries.

It’s Foclóír Gaeilge-Spáinnise, by David Barnwell, Pádraig Ó Domhnalláin and Carmen Rodríguez Alonso, and is published by Coiscéim. If you have used the dictionary, why not tell us in your comments what you thought of it.

The light in which the Irish language is viewed by the Ireland’s population as a whole seems to be tipping in the right direction. It is being “normalised” for sure thanks especially to media such as TG4, with personalities including Hector, Des Mac an Easpaig, na Seoigí and Dáithí Ó Sé.

However, hostility towards the Irish language persists in Ireland. This view, probably alive for several hundred years in the majority of the population, continues to depress the language’s normalisation in everyday life.

This week “mikemac” asked on Boards.ie whether other people drop Irish words into English conversation like he does.

As we know too well on this site, forums can easily drop into name-calling and heated debates

But the 11-page conversation unfortunately shows just how easily the language can be attacked.

“My name is URL” said:

Admitting that it’s a dead language is admitting that evolution exists

I admire the Darwinism, but I don’t accept that it’s dead! Thousands of people choose to speak it every day.

The same passive-hatred was expressed “elyod”, who offered economics as to why the language “is dead”.

The Irish language is dead and serves no functional propose. Get over it.

If our primary language wasn’t English, we’d probably be 20 years behind where we are now as a country.

There’s also an unfortunate one-to-one connection drawn between the language and Irish republicanism.

from my experience the only people that are big into the irish language are provo types i.e shinners

This type of expression shows that the language still isn’t “normal” yet for many people. Let the language be. Don’t talk it into a hole, as it does indeed need every bit of help it can get.

I’ve never received a bilingual email newsletter before, so it was interesting to see this from An Bord Gáis.

What they have are the two languages, one after the other. The English at the top, and the Irish directly afterwards. The English bit as a link that jumps you to the Irish half of the email.

Funnily enough, the Irish interface also has a link to view the newsletter in Irish