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Welsh or Irish (Gaelic) | ||
Tags: Welsh | Gaelic (Irish) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| amoeba Newbie Canada Joined 7110 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes | Message 1 of 9 06 June 2005 at 1:40am | IP Logged |
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In this my first post, I'd like before all to send my greetings to all the language lovers on the forum and I'd like also to send my gratitudes to the webmaster for giving me the opportunity to participate in this exciting online community.
I'm an undergraduate student of linguistics at the University of Toronto with a particular interest in Indo-European languages. I hope to gain an understanding of as many Indo-European sub-groups as I can. My university offers two introductory courses in Celtic languages: one for Welsh, and one for Irish (both in modern variants). Since I know relatively little about either or about Celtic languages in general, I throw the question to all of you: which of these two would I benefit from most? My primary consideration is to simply get exercise in an unfamiliar linguistic domain. Secondly, I'd like to gain basic knowledge of a language that might help me understand Indo-European linguistics. The practical use of either language is of relatively little concern for me, as I don't expect to ever communicate with either isolated language community. So which would you deem more useful - Welsh or Irish? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7120 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 2 of 9 06 June 2005 at 2:29am | IP Logged |
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To be honest with you, if you have no personal preference, then there is really nothing to choose between them for what you want to do with them. Welsh is very much alive in Wales, kept alive by the spirit of the people. But then again, Irish probably is too. I know the BBC runs programming in Welsh - check out the BBC Welsh site - if it doesn't come up on Google, I'll post a link. Personally I like the sound of Weslh far more than Irish, but Irish is pretty closely related to Scots Gaelic so if it's numbers of speakers you are interested in then that might be a way to go. Also, there is likley to be a bigger Irish speaking community in teh US than a Welsh one.
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| Nick Newbie United States Joined 7146 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 9 06 June 2005 at 7:02am | IP Logged |
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Edit: This reply was largely irrelevent to the original post. I was really tired this morning. Edited by Nick on 06 June 2005 at 10:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7206 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 4 of 9 06 June 2005 at 9:24am | IP Logged |
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I think it would be a good idea to start with "Learning Irish" by Micheal O. Siadhail (Yale University Press).
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| Niall Gallagher Groupie Ireland Joined 7134 days ago 81 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 9 09 June 2005 at 5:52pm | IP Logged |
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There is a Pimsleur Irish compact course which, at 10 lessons long, is a nice introduction to the Irish language.*
If you like, I can also recommend other online resources if you're going to persue Gaeilge. *This recommendation from a native Irish person who after 8+ years of being taught Irish in both primary and secondary school can only say, "I like cake" (Is maith líom caca milis) :) Edited by Niall Gallagher on 09 June 2005 at 5:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7255 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 6 of 9 25 June 2005 at 10:52pm | IP Logged |
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When I had to decide between Welsh and Irish, I opted for the latter because of its literature. While Welsh does have a long and rich literary tradition, Irish has a longer one--indeed, it has the longest of any European language outside of Latin and Greek. Thus, more has been written in the language, which means that you are both more likely to be able to find materials to read, and that you are more likely to find something that interests you.
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| Ronan Newbie France Joined 7089 days ago 5 posts - 10 votes | Message 7 of 9 27 June 2005 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
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I speak good Irish and I know more or less all 6 modern Celtic languages.
I'd say that Irish is much more difficult than Welsh, for grammar, pronounciation, spelling... all. Welsh is much more spoken than Irish: you'll easily find native speakers of Welsh. For Irish, if you 're looking for native speakers, there aren't many, you'll have to go to the western areas of Ireland where Irish is the common language between people. For literature, Literary Welsh is very different from colloquial Welsh: you'll need to learn two quite different grammars and a bit different vocabulary. Not such a problem with Irish. Welsh dialects aren't very different. Irish dialects are very different from each other, and you'll need to get used to others dialects grammar, pronounciation and vocabulary. Knowing literary Welsh will allow you to read texts as old as XIIth century. With Modern Irish you won't be able to understand texts older than, say, XVIIth century. Before that, Irish uses a bit different grammar and especially different vocabulary (you may understand what is a text about, but you won't understand everything). TO know modern Irish helps you a lot if you want to read and learn Old Irish, but then with only Modern Irish, you may not be able to understand what an Old Irish text is about (Old Irish vocabulary is very different, and its grammar is really... it'll make you bang your head against the wall!). That's it. I prefer Irish because it's much more beautiful to my ears (especially Ulster Irish) and more fascinating. But choose your language according to what you want to do with it. If you have questions, just ask me :-) Edited by administrator on 28 June 2005 at 12:20am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| lomko Newbie Slovakia Joined 5737 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 8 of 9 04 October 2009 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
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Irish pronunciation is just weird. It is, to all appearances, even more difficult than the french one. Grammar is full of strange rules which are not to be found in languages outside goidelic branch. That said, Irish is a beautiful language but with no future. I ve been to Ireland and nobody speaks it good enough to be able to communicate. Students have it at school but once they leave the classroom they switch to English.
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