My whole point in bringing this up is that the article talks about scientific and technological terms. Such terms are NOT typically used in the vernacular in any language (when was the last time you heard a native English speaker say "I must take my canine outside to evacuate its bowels"?), but they are vital for those working in those fields. Shall we say, then, that we are willing to limit technological and scientific terms in Irish to those that native speakers may happen to come up with on their own, if and when they happen to go into scientific and technological fields, and that otherwise we'll just use English? That's pretty much guaranteed to keep the language stuck in the 19th century.

Many kids in Gaelscoileanna are ultimately going to be entering scientific and technological fields. Do we tell them "sorry, there's no native term for these things" or are we going to give them terminology to use?

The reason I brought up the "ham/liamhas" thing again is that I'm so sick of the rigidity that people, most of whom are NOT native speakers themselves, bring to this discussion.

Redwolf

Redwolf,

I didn't bring any rigidity to this discussion.

I said simply - whatever the native speakers say for ham - whatever that is - I would accept. If they start saying liamhás tomorrow - I would accept that.

I have made clear that any terms used by native speakers are right, whether they are a) traditional, b) loanwords, with or without phonetic adaptation or c) words made up by committee that have subsequently entered speech. Some of the words on focail.ie are likely to enter speech. Benjamin pointed out that ríomhaire is a word that has been fully accepted.

This is quite a broad formula for accepting almost anything, as long as the actual native speakers use it. I would oppose any rigid formula, and have gone for a formula that is the opposite of rigid.

As you say, technical terms are not used in the vernacular of any language, but they are vital for those working in the fields concerned. I accept that way of presenting the issue -- you put it well there. In English, there are technical terms that are only used by those working in the relevant field. Anti-charmed quarks springs to mind as a phrase not commonly used within the home - but vital for particle physicists.

But - did you notice what you said? - "vital for those working in those fields". There ARE particle physicists doing work on particle physics in English - they need those terms, and they DO use them. If they didn't say Anti-Charmed Quark, they would have to say something else, and whatever that something else was, it wouldn't be colloquial. So the English speakers who do particle physics in English use special English terms - terms that are probably invented by someone at some point and that are then taken up by the community of those who need them.

But - there is no particle physics being done through Irish. Unless there is a particle accelerator in Connemara, where the scientists are all Gaeltacht natives naturally discussing protons and electrons and subatomic particles as Gaelainn - I would suggest to you a) that no work on subatomic particles is being done in Irish; b) none has ever been done in Irish; and c) none will ever be done in Irish. The words are a nonsense - because no native speaker will ever use them, because no native speaker will ever need to use them.

Now when Breandán said recently that it must be possible to modernise the language - I accepted that way of putting it. Words can be devised - and if ever they are needed, then they might be taken up by the community of those who need them - and ***IF*** that happens - they will have entered the real language. So I accepted and accept the possibility that if particle physics begins to be done in Irish, those words may become the Irish terms used by the native-speaking particle physicists. I just doubt this will ever happen - but, hey, if it does, then the language will have been extended to a new field.

No children in Gaelscoileannaibh will ever need more than 1% of the made-up terms on focail.ie, as those words are words about things the WORK ON WHICH IS DONE EXCLUSIVELY IN ENGLISH IN IRELAND TODAY. That is the point. I can sit here making up words for proton to be used by the Navajo Indians, but unless they begin to do particle physics in Navajo - the words I devise for them won't be real.

No language can be bigger than its real field of usage.

I do agree with Redwolf that we need newly coined words for science and maths and other fields. A lot of them we will never hear in use. But needed for official translations etc.

I don't think the Coiste Téarmaíochta is receptive enough with naturally borrowed words for common usage.
Words that are often direct from English but spelled and pronounced differently. For example - teilibhiseán. Few people say "teilifís" in the Gaeltacht.
Or the micreabhaibh

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Ha ha the second I clicked and saw ham being mentioned I was literally eating a piece of ham the same second while reading.

Ah, but what word was in your MIND then, Benjamin? Not that it would matter to Patrick, I'm afraid!

To be honest ''ham'' because I use what ever words native speakers use.

Ispíní is another word that is replaced by English as well but I don't think thats a made up word because in Gaelic its almost the same.

One thing theres words coined naturally in the Gaeltacht for stuff that the Coiste Téarmaíochta don't know about...

Fascinating. Until I came on ILF I did not know about teilibhiseán, and this sort of thing is really great. Are there any more?

What about raidió? I've been told that word is absolutely not pronounced raidió. It is réidió, but that wouldn't be obvious to every learner, myself included. I don't listen to TV or Radio in Irish - I just read - and I try to read some Irish every day - and so the pronunciations can often escape me.

In fairness you will never get the ear for it if you never listen, theres plenty of Munster recordings online.

Irish is a language that even when becoming fluent that its still hard to understand native speakers unless they are listened to all the time.

Get your ear tuned by listening to the réidío!

I couldnt agree more, you need to listen at least once a day. Listen to Radio na Gaeltacht , I do every day when doing stuff around the house or in the car.
I seldom watch tv, but when i do its TG4 70% of the time and i find it great for seeing how words are employed.

Then I listen to at least a hour or two of audio a day, normally words and phrases ive taken from various sources. I have over 6,000 to listen too, helps me practice my pronunciation.

I have got better at speaking and more importantly comprehending what people are saying after i started to listening to audio every day. I still miss a huge amount, but if people are speaking slowly for my benefit i can generally follow, and sometimes even reply, despite feeling that I dont know exactly what im saying the other people seem to and respond accordingly, I think the Audio has MASSIVELY improved my pronunciation.

As for the terms, I agree they are needed a language should have terms for new things , just seems it would make more sense to have actual native speakers devise something which fits in to the flow of the language, rather than some language buffs who are second language speakers devise terms they think are very clever.

Academics love using overly complex and flowery terms to make the subject matter seem harder than it is and increase the perception of their worth and intelligence as they can discipher this complex subject and limit this ability to the small clique who are "in the know" . I studied Sociology in Uni, armed with a thesaurus most of the concepts were very easily understood but they liked to obscure in convoluted vocabulary to increase their own self importance.

Having a bunch of very clever people sitting about coming up with terms and words which they think are extremely clever will have a similar result, the average person will find them unusual and are unlikely to employ them.

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall