Learn Irish in Kansas City?
My sources tell me that Irish language classes are under consideration for Kansas City’s Irish Museum & Cultural Center (IMCC).
The IMCC is based in Union Station and has already successfully hosted traditional Irish music classes as taught by the Turlach Boylan’s Irish Trad School.
It’s an event here at Irish KC if I get a day where I’m not asked how to say something in Irish.
I’m also daily looking at posters, websites, stained glass windows, and anything where words appear and people behind them want to create a greater impression of Irishness than might really exist.
And perhaps unsurprisingly with such cynical use of a language, I see dreadful Irish; gibberish copied and pasted from somebody else who didn’t really care about the language either; Irish assembled from dictionaries like it’s a set of Lincoln Logs; and an arrogant disregard for the fada. And not all of it is on my site.
What we refer to as the fada, an síneadh fada, is the accute accent that when used lengthens vowels. Effectively it gives you another five letters in the alphabet. Choosing to leave it out is like choosing to leave out letters in English, and can mean you are spelling a word with a completely different meaning.
In English telling somebody there is a big spot on their face is not the same as telling them there is a big spout on their face. In Irish the noun céad means the number ‘hundred’, but the noun cead means ‘permission’. When I see a sign for “permission for a thousand welcomes”, I say permission not granted.
In Kansas City I have been asked to translate English words into Irish but not to bother with fadas. I ask these people if they easily spot nonsense.
Please don’t misunderstand. There is a phrase in Irish Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste which exists to encourage the learning of the language specifically by English speakers. In this learning context it means that a broken form of Irish is better than a clever fluent English i.e. don’t be so afraid of making mistakes that you instead resort to the language you are fluent in.
I am not criticising people who are learning, and therefore making mistakes; but I am most definitely criticizing people who have no intention of learning and want to wear the language like a badge. If that is your sole aim, then at least get the badge right.
Years ago, though I hated doing it, I sometimes deliberately omitted fadas purely to facilitate search engines like Google and Yahoo. In the last couple of years however that excuse has gone, as the search engines, though not perfect, can now search with fadas.
So the reason you see the odd one missing (in so much as you can see anything that is missing) here on Irish KC, is that just like my words in English my Irish suffers from the sheer volume and speed I vomit stuff out.
I never use a spell checker for English, and I vary spellings for both sides of the Atlantic - to aid the flow of information i.e. to help people find what they are looking for, regardless of whether they use the American or the British spelling. (It’s the same reason I use the word “movie” sometimes, when in conversation I use the word “film”)
So I make typos a lot, especially through the night when my eyes are gloopy and I can’t see the screen. In the hours and days after, I fix them as I see them.
In Irish I make the same mistakes, and that includes the omission of fadas. Mostly this occurs because I write in Irish without fadas and then apply them afterwards. It’s not a natural way to write, and if the dog sidetracks me I may forget to go back to the two or three words in a post as Gaeilge, and apply the relevant fadas.
But they matter. Just like any letter matters, or aspiration matters.
For no other reason than the selfish one of not having to look at stupid Irish, nor listen to the arrogance that it’s fine to represent a language in a deliberately mangled abused form, I would be very happy to see Irish taught to a large group of people in Kansas City.
Here on Irish KC I need to add more Gaeilge lessons, and you can always keep an eye on the ever-expanding glossary of words as Gaeilge used on the site.
RELATED: Ban The Irish Language
Note: There is an Irish Language Spell-Checker Firefox plug-in. (Hat-tip to Primal Sneeze)
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Ba mhaith liom an plugin Firefox a tháistáíl, ach ní bhfuair mé faic nuair a lean mé an nasc. An bhfuil comhairle agat?
Go raibh maith agat!
Hmm. Bhuel, chuir mé isteach é, ach ní thuigim fós cá bhfuil sé ar fáil (cnaipe?).
Gabh mo leithscéal, stwidgie, bhí mé ag obair ar rud eile le cúpla uair.
Caithfidh mé a rá, ach ní úsáidim aon plugins le Firefox mé féin.
B’fhéidir go mbeidh an freagra ar an tUasal Sneezy. Tá a fhios agam gur bhain sé úsáid as an plugin.
A Phrimal, an bhfuil tú ansin?
Tabharfaidh mé cuairt ar a áit chun an ceist a chur air.
Make sure you have restarted Firefox.
Type something in a comments box or a new post.
Right click your mouse. You will see a Languages option. Select Irish / Ireland.
Type the text below. You will see a line under scriobh. Place the cursor over it and right click. You will see scríobh and scrobh suggested.
Scríobh rud sna comments seo, nó scriobh post nua duit féin. Má tá focal mícheart feiceann tú líne faoi.
I don’t remember how a MAC does right click - ctrl-click or something?
Notes: It is no where near perfect, so be careful. And sometimes a previously written paragraph will not show errors even though there are some in it. Place the mouse anywhere in the paragraph; right click and select Spell check this field; right click again and again select Spell check this field.
Just for the record, we’ve been providing Gaelic instruction in our Tá Fáilte Romhat go Baile Bréige series in Midwest Irish Focus for almost four years and two years’ worth of similar Irish lessons prior to that in Heart of America Irish Life.
Complete with fadas.
So it’s about time someone else in this town got into the Irish language business as well and stop pestering our Irish cousins.
Later this month, we will be featuring the series on our MySpace page (www.myspace.com/midwestirishfocus) as well.
How do I add the fada when I leave a comment?
I’ve always felt bad about omitting them. I realize this is a “duh” point for you guys so I appreciate your patience. Plus there have to be others who don’t know how to do it online.
Thanks!
Medbh - Methods vary and I’m not the most efficient given that I don’t create them on the fly but apply them afterwards. That said for comments that’s usually not too inefficient.
What I do for comments is typically have an Irish language website open, a site like:
• Daltaí na Gaeilge
• Lá Nua
• Gaeilge.ie
• Beo
• Bord na Leabhar Gaeilge
-and just copy and paste letters as I need them.
There are other things you can do, like have your keyboard on the Irish/Ireland setting and then type in a combination of keys (the single quote followed by the vowel), or typing the ASCII numeric code, and methods also vary depending on whether you’re using a Mac or PC.
In MS-Word, for example, there is an insert object option where you can find the right letter, lowercase or uppercase, with the desired fada - though you may have five pages of options to page through.
I should stress though that I’m not railing against all non-use of fadas, just the cynical exploitation of their non-use by people who have no intent of learning the language. That doesn’t apply to you.
You may notice that “Eolaí” often appears on here, and other sites without the fada on the “i”. That’s because there are problems retaining diacritic marks in certain kind of fields.
Pete - Thanks for that. I had intended a paragraph in my post to refer to the excellent Baile Bréige series in your paper, but then forgot as I went off on a rant.
Primal - Thank you very much.
Hey, thanks very much, Eolai, you were kind to take the time to list the options. I’ll experiment and see.
Medbh - If you’re a Windows user, hold down alt gr and the letter. shift + alt gr + the letter for capitals.
Not sure if this works on US Keyboard configs. It should though.
Another thing I do for more complex character sets such as the German umlaut, French è, ç etc. or the Polish ?, ?, ? etc. is similar to Eolaí’s workaround - I made a small txt file with all of them and copy and paste from there.
The frustrating part is when, after doing all this, again as Eolaí points out, the website displays them as gobbeldy-gook because it’s not setup for extended character sets.