Comments

gaelic language

gaelic language

hi .. im new french from quebec canada .i am a piper in a scotish band a friend of mine came here last week with his uinleann pipe. i falled in love with the intrument .and sound ..(not the guy lol) well i have a couple of question .... is gaelic the same old language . from scotland and ireland .??


i also saw nuthberuian pipes on a site . is it a chanter like a great highland bagpipes 8 holes total ? realy cheaper than a uliean pipe i heard the sound of this on a site .. i dont realy like this,,,well its like electronic game cube sound ..

. i think a uinleann half set is a better buy for a beginner than only practice kit ... if i buy a complete set i save 600. at end than if i buy beginning kit and i add other parts . but if i buy a full set maybe i will not be able to play with and ajust .. i lot of question in my mind ...sorry for my bad english speaking thanks sylvain

# Posted on April 22nd 2007 by turquoise

Re: gaelic language

Scot's Gaelic and Irish come from the same family. Uileann pipes are wonderful but you really need a good teacher to help you.
Perhaps you have somebody in the Pipe band who could help?
Vive Quebec!

# Posted on April 22nd 2007 by John B

Re: gaelic language

the 2 languages are similar and basic words would probably be similar (i know failte means welcome in both for sure) although my irish is poor (stupid irish schooling system) and my scots gaelic worse.

as for the pipes, theres a whoel diffrent feel to playing the pipes with and without the drones. probably better to get the practice set.
just my reccomendation.

# Posted on April 22nd 2007 by Kevo32A

Re: gaelic language

Northumbrian pipes: These come from North-East England. They are very difficult to learn to play, and the chanter & playing method are very different from both the Highland pipes and the Irish pipes. People do play Irish music on the Northumbrian pipes, but it is not the best instrument to get if Irish music is your priority.

# Posted on April 22nd 2007 by nicholas

Re: gaelic language

Modern Irish (Gaeilge) and Scottish Gaelic both come from Early Irish which was introduced into Scotland by Irish settlers. The two languages were virtually identical up until around the 16th century.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Crionadh

Re: gaelic language

Not to hijack this thread, but has Gaelic been able to maintain a revival in Scotland the way it has in Ireland?

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Greg the Piano Tuner

Re: gaelic language

Greg
I'd say so, certainly in Lewis and the Outer Hebrides. My roots are in Lewis and I've been visiting the island for decades - I don't think I've heard as much Gaelic spoken as I do when I visit these days. There is also a drive to promote the language by replacing all the English town and street name signs with the Gaelic equivalent. Also more Gaelic radio and TV has expanded tremendously. Great to see!

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by domnull

Re: gaelic language

Why would you want to promote any dead or dying language?
Surely communicating in English, Arabic or Chinese is more likely to get your message across to more people.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by yhaalhouse

Re: gaelic language

You make me sick.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Dow

Re: gaelic language

Dow, How often do you use Scottish or Irish Gaelic then?

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by yhaalhouse

Re: gaelic language

I wouldn't worry about him Mark. How can you possibly take seriously the views of someone who plays Irish music on ukelele?
But to answer the question, Hebrew is an example of a so-called "dying language" which made a comeback, and the other question, we use Irish and Scottish Gaelic words on a daily basis: craic, session, sma-sinn (smashing), ceilidh, and so on. Then there are place names. The list goes on.
Keep on cleaning windows YH. Who knows one day you may work your way up to the top storey - that's promotion for you.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Alf Tupper

Re: gaelic language

Yes, there are always certain words that will be absorbed into the main current languages.
But language (like music) is a continually evolving into something new.
And it beats me why you would want to step back and hold up this evolution.
Do you see yourselves as museum curators or innovators?

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by yhaalhouse

Re: gaelic language

People with your attitude make me puke YH. Your saying that trying to promote gaeilge is a step backwards????? by that reckoning do you believe that playing traditional irish music is a step backwards?? Is playing an old reel going to stop the evolution of music YH or would you sooner see us all playing riffs on electric fiddles and amped pipes des through a WAH peddal with distortion up to the max??

You spanner

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by session savage

Re: gaelic language

Mr. Savage are you implying that :

(i) in someway playing "ITM" and speaking the Irish Gaelic language are linked?
(ii) "ITM" has never evolved and you are hearing/ playing it as it was in the Garden of Eden (or whatever)?

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by yhaalhouse

Re: gaelic language

The Irish language is also evolving; it's a living language despite what you or anyone else might believe.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Conán McDonnell

Re: gaelic language

no

"But language (like music) is a continually evolving into something new"

You are!

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by session savage

Re: gaelic language

yhaalhouse what do you think of my dad's new jumper?

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Conán McDonnell

Re: gaelic language

"in someway playing "ITM" and speaking the Irish Gaelic language are linked?"

Actually they are. To play a slow air properly, for instance, you really need to know how it's sung in Irish (assuming it has words---some airs do), to get the feel of the words and the phrasing.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by kennedy

Re: gaelic language

It seems that this is a real hot potato!

You plainly think that to study ITM one has to be supportive of all other "Irish" culture.
It's a bit like having to learn late-18th Century German in order to play Beethoven or smoke Peter Stuyvesant and drink Scotch & Coke to listen to the Beatles.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by yhaalhouse

Re: gaelic language

Huh? I don't think anyone has implied that you have to support all aspects of Irish culture. However you should try to find out a little bit about something instead of spouting mal-informed opinions. People might actually respect you.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Conán McDonnell

Re: gaelic language

Kennedy's hit it. There are tunes that, to get a full understanding of, it would be good to have some Gaelic. I wouldn't restrict that to slow airs, though.

I'm neither Irish nor Scots, and I have little or no Gaelic. But I had an epiphany this February on a short trip to Dublin. I'd got into a session with some old guys, and I suddenly realised that several of the tunes they were playing actually had words - at least to parts of the tune. And these were jigs and reels, not slow airs. Now, sometimes these words are in English - or at least, they are *now* - but I think some of them were in Gaelic. And I texted a friend of mine and said "You know, I think to *really* play this music properly I need to learn some Gaelic."

Of course, I was p*ssed at the time, but I still think it would be an advantage from time to time ...

(Before anybody asks how I knew that the tunes had words, I can only say there was something about the specific phrasing of several tunes that made me realise they must have words - not very evidential, I know ...)

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by benhall.1

Re: gaelic language

I think you are all being a little too precious!

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by yhaalhouse

Re: gaelic language

>are you implying that ....in someway playing "ITM" and speaking the Irish Gaelic language are linked?

Savage may have implied that, but that's not the point. YH dimissed the 2 main Gaelic languages as dying therefore should be left to die. The opposite should be the strategy, in fact, they should be, and are being, nursed back to health. Welsh is another example of a language which has been successfully revived relatively right under your English nose as well. Remember of course that it was English imperialist adventures that directly responsible for the demise of both tongues, so I wouldn't dismiss them so blythely if I were you, being an Englishman. I suppose you don't care either, YH, that tigers and other large mammals are in danger of extinction and this can all be put down to "evolution"? - nothing to do with human intervention I suppose? - You want to jam your hype and cop on, big time, son.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Alf Tupper

Re: gaelic language

Well said Danny, your a frickin legend

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by session savage

Re: gaelic language

Mmm. Dodgy one.I can't speak for Scotish or Irish gaelic but more people in Wales have Welsh as their first language than say, thirty years ago.I don't speak it very well myself but that doesn't stop me playing Welsh music.The problem with the Celtic languages is that because they were supressed for so long they didn't develop with the the times.They are fine for ordinary conversation but you try teaching quantum physics in Manx or Breton.There is a Welsh equivalent of The Academie Francaise who invent new words,such as "trydan" (earth fire) for electricity.Who knows which word would have been coined in Faraday's time if the Welsh had been left to their own devices.My kid's are grown up now,but if I was starting again now I'd have them learn Mandarin

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by dafydd

Re: gaelic language

Good point Dafydd. Irish does borrow from English for some technical and modern words. However, so do French and German, despite the best efforts of the Academie Francaise or that of the German government, which would have everyone speak Hoch Deutsch.

People seem to think that you must speak one or two languages to the exclusion of everything else. This is not the case; indeed the more languages you try to speak, the easier it is (in general) to pick up yet more.

I know some Gaeilge and, while I don't believe Irish should be forced upon anyone, I do like to see it encouraged, on T Na G for example.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Conán McDonnell

Re: gaelic language

No worries Savage, YH may or may not be a nice guy in real life, I don't know but he comes across as rather misguided. Precious? Jeez, we're talking about the very tongues that thousands of people speak every day - yes that bloody well IS precious. Try coming down to the Blythe and telling Frankie he's being a bit too precious for having Donegal Gaelge as the language he was brougt up with. Or one of our listeners Joe from Connemara Gaeltacht.
Fair point, Dafydd, but that shouldn't be a barrier for their growth in the future. They make up lots of long joined up words in German - and THEY were pretty good at quantum mechanics!

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Alf Tupper

Re: gaelic language

I hope they're retaining signs in English along with / beneath those in Gaelic, in the Outer Hebrides. Not to do so would be unfriendly and unhelpful to practically everyone who goes there from the UK and North America, and do the cause of the language no favours.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by nicholas

Re: gaelic language

I take the the point about Rrench and German borrowing technical words,but quantum physics (to use my example) is taught in those languages,as it is in Russian,Chinese etc. I may be totally wrong here,but I strongly suspect that if you wanted to teach difficult technical subjects like that in a Celtic language you would have to use so many borrowed words that you may as well teach it in English,so in that respect they are dead languages,sadly enough.Latin is a dead language but still comes in handy for understanding the structure and vocabulary of the romance laguages,and of course the legal world.Try finding short,pithy equivalents for status quo,dies non,a priori,sine qua non and many others.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by dafydd

Re: gaelic language

French of course.Quis stultus!

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by dafydd

Re: gaelic language

sic

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by benhall.1

Re: gaelic language

The language which has borrowed most from other languages is of course..... English.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Conán McDonnell

Re: gaelic language

http://www.krysstal.com/borrow.html

I suppose English may as well be dead, eh? :o)

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Conán McDonnell

Re: gaelic language

Good man Conán :)

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by session savage

Re: gaelic language

When Greece became an independent state in c19, intellectuals and politicians embarked on a programme to elevate the Greek language and also sense of nationhood by bringing back Ancient Greek (well, an amalgam of ancient words and forms). This 'Purified Greek' was imposed on schoolkids, civil servants etc. for generations.

I think it has died out now. Its problem was that it was literally unspeakable - the words didn't fit the natural rhythms of the everyday language (whose descent from Ancient Greek is very clear anyway). But as far as vocabulary went, it - and real Ancient Greek - certainly had the resources to describe modern things: the language contains a number of prepositions that can be combined with other words in any number of ways. However, the resulting words are often rather arid.

So, it's not the age of a language which stops it functioning in the present, or past traumas in its history, but its lack of built-in capacity to adapt and extend its vocabulary.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by nicholas

Re: gaelic language

Absolute tosh.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Dow

Re: gaelic language

well thank you very much . i read all lol...a lot.


ok hanks your answers are precius foor me . bye sylvain gagnon

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by turquoise

Re: gaelic language

What?

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by dafydd

Re: gaelic language

"Why would you want to promote any dead or dying language?
Surely communicating in English, Arabic or Chinese is more likely to get your message across to more people"

This is a very unfortunate attitude, and I'm sure it's just trying to get a rise out of people. I think every language has its own peculiar and unique way of viewing the world, and that as various language die, so do their distinctive ways of making sense of their environment. English is growing all the time, not because it is a superior language, but because of the past imperialist actions of the British empire, as well as the modern day spread of western culture. I live in Dublin city centre and I hear Irish being spoken every day.

# Posted on April 23rd 2007 by Crionadh

Re: gaelic language

So then, where can I learn to speak Welsh? Where in Australia, that is.... don't need to worry about quantum physics or anything, just want to hear the music, and be able to speak it when I get there...

# Posted on May 28th 2007 by bronhughes

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