Am taking a (Scottish) Gaelic class this Fall

[LostinVA]

The SO thought it would be fun if we took a language class together. She has a background in French, and I've had French and Italian... so, did we pick Italian, Spanish? Something easy? Oh no...

Anyone on here ever attempt this?

[bridgit]

1. that's tremendous news, so you'll be able to speak with an accent...

virtually no one else will be able to understand :headbang:

[LostinVA]

3. That's what we figured!

My Mom's family is very Irish, and the SO has a great interest in All Things Scottish... and, I found this great group in the area who study this seriously.... plus, it's something really geeky to put on your resume..

[bridgit]

9. i'm Scots/German, but even at that rate certain regions are so thick...

you really need to pay close attention the way their mouths wrap ar-oond the words themselves :hi:


"Outlawed tunes, played on outlawed pipes..." :cry:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

2. I've looked at the basic structure of both Scottish and Irish Gaelic.

(I'm a Celtic fanatic. :D)

By far the hardest thing, at least as I see it, is the pronounciation--there are many weird consonant combos (dh, bh, etc.) Not much of it seems to be pronounced phonetically!

I didn't get into much of the grammar, but as I understand it, it isn't *TOO* bad. Hell, if you can do English, I suppose you can learn to do most anything! :D

Have fun! ;)

On Edit: A good example of weird pronounciation is the Irish name Siobhan. "Sio" is pronounced like "Show" here, and "bh" has a "v" sound. So Siobhan roughly = "Show-VAWN"

[LostinVA]

6. I agree with you about the grammar!

PLus, I had Latin in HS and Koine Greek in college....

Yeah, the diphthongs, etc. look kinda weird... but, I got used to reading and writing the Greek alphabet, so I hope I get used to it sooner or later.

We go to Celtic festivals all the time, so I share your interest.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

11. That's cool!

What's "Koine" Greek? I take Latin now in school, but I don't know beans about Greek, really.... :D

I PMed you back, btw. :)

[LostinVA]

12. It's New Testament Greek

I went to a Methodist college, so there I was -- the lone Catholic hedonist -- surrounded by students going on to Methodist seminaries....

If you've had Latin, you could handle Greek.

Thanks for the PM. Just read it.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

15. No problem.

Again, have fun with the Gaelic! I think it'd be a great joint venture, since you both apparently love it so.

;)

:hi:

On Edit: Damned typos. :grr:

[supernova]

14. Koine Greek

is the Greek that we are familiar (well, some seminarians, anway) with in the Gospels.

Here is an interesting History of Greek page:

After the conquests of Alexander the Great (roughly 336-323 BCE) the language underwent far-reaching changes. Alexander carried the Attic-Ionic form of the language, along with Greek culture more generally, far into the Near East where it became the standard language of commerce and government, existing along side many local languages. Greek was adopted as a second language by the native people of these regions and was ultimately transformed into what has come to be called the Hellenistic Koiné or common Greek. This new form of the language remained essentially a further development of the Attic-Ionic synthesis.
http://www.greek-language.com/historyofgreek/

[WritingIsMyReligion]

16. Hunh. Interesting.

Thanks!

:hi:

[ZombieNixon]

20. Hell, a weirder example is "fadhb."

Pronounced like "foop" in the north and "fipe" in the south. $20 if you can tell me how to pronounce "bhfuil." :D

[Xithras]

27. LOL, I've used that same word.

People have asked me in the past "How hard is gaelic?", and I've used that word as an example.

It is, of course, pronounced with a V. Sounds like VWIL. Nobody has ever answered it correctly :)

[ZombieNixon]

28. Unless you're from Munster, in which case you can drop the V sound.

Throw in some dialectical variation there to really throw people off. :rofl:

[LostinVA]

29. Pudding?

[ZombieNixon]

23. Easy grammar, eh?

So when I say that "there is love at me on you" (tá an ghrá agam ort), what am I saying?

Gaelic is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it is freakin' cool! :D

[supernova]

4. Scottish brogues are very charming, LiV

FYI - Scots pronounce it "galic," (short "a") not "gaylic" (like the Irish). ;-)

Do you have a native speaker for an instructor?

[LostinVA]

7. Yes, there is a native speaker for an instructor

Which I suspect will be either a blessing or a curse....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. A blessing if the native speaker has training in how to teach a language

A curse if s/he doesn't.

I had some real bad experiences with untrained native speakers of Chinese. Basically, they just talked ABOUT Chinese in English.

[LostinVA]

13. I had a native Italian speaker when I took Italian a few years ago

She spoke great English, too. EXcept for the first class, she tried really, really hard to never speak English... which helped alot. It was an informal class, too, in that we sat around on sofas sucking down hot drinks, and watching Italian movies and such.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Warning: It's a beautiful language, but not spelled very phonetically

(Nor is Irish Gaelic. The Irish Gaelic name for Dublin is "Baile atha Cliath," pronounced "Bal-ah-cle-ah.")

[LostinVA]

8. And "uisge beatha" for whisky!

[China_cat]

17. You'll also be able to communicate with Frisian

speakers if you learn Scots Gaelic. They're very close.

[LostinVA]

18. That I didn't know -- interesting

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. That's the first I've heard of it

I thought Scots Gaelic was related to Breton and Welsh.

(Frisian is spoken in the northern Netherlands and the northeastern edge of Germany and is the Germanic language that is closest to English, or rather, Old English.)

[ZombieNixon]

21. Actually that's Scots.

Some would call it a dialect of English, which, yes, is very close to Western Frisian. Scots is a West Germanic language, as is English, Frisian and Dutch, Scots Gaelic is an Goidelic Insular Celtic language like Irish Gaelic and Manx.

[China_cat]

24. Frisian speakers and Dutch speakers

have a very hard time understanding each other. In fact, when my in-laws didn't want my husband to know what they were talking about, they'd switch to Frisian. He only had Dutch, English, German and French and never learned Frysk.

[ZombieNixon]

25. Well, English and Dutch monoglots can't understand each other.

Old Dutch (Lower Franconian), Old Frisian and Old English were highly similar, but the degree of separation has increased over time.

Still, "brea, bûter, en groene tsiis is god Engelsk en god Frysk" ("bread, butter, and green cheese is good English and good Friese).

[ZombieNixon]

22. I learned to speak Irish Gaelic independently.

In terms of spelling, it's slighly easier than Scots Gaelic, due to a spelling reform which eliminated silent letters (cf. Irish saol "life" to Scottish saghol, both pronounced like "see-ool" or "sool"), but the grammar is harder due to the persistence of eclipsis in Irish (eclipsis is responsible for the consonant combos like "bp," "dt," "mb," "nd," "ng," and "bhf" at the beginning of words in Irish - Scots Gaelic doesn't have this, but does have lenition, the ones like "mh," "bh," "dh," "gh," etc.)

[LostinVA]

30. I would have preferred learning Irish, but couldn't find a class

closer than almost 200 miles away.

[Katina]

31. but if you are in the west of Ireland DO NOT call it Gaelic

they call it Irish. I learned that the "direct" way when we went out on the Dingle Penninsula. :yoiks:

[ZombieNixon]

32. And yet I know descendents of Irish immigrants

(we're talking like third-gen or more here) who get pissed when you call it Irish. x(

Jeebus, you can't please anybody! :D

[Xithras]

26. Maith thú!

My grandfather was a fluent Gaelic speaker who grew up in a Gaelic speaking house. I asked him to teach me the language when I was younger, and he told me flat out that it would be "impossible". His thoughts: "You might learn enough to muddle through, but the only way to be fluent in Gaelic is to grow up speaking it." He did manage to teach me a little, but it was mostly phrases, and I can understand it far better than I can speak it.

Ádh mór ort!

[Redstone]

33. Cool. Now clear your throat. Now, do it again. Get some practice, because

you'll be making that sound quite frequently.

Redstone