Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

[DanieMarie]

So, lately I've been interested in learning a bit of Gaelic. I can't quite figure out why it's so interesting to me...usually I'm interested in learning languages based on function (visiting an area where few people speak English or German, learning a language with a lot of speakers, etc...Gaelic doesn't fit into those at all!) but for some reason, it's interesting to me. The thing is, I've always learned better by immersion and there aren't exactly any Gaelic speakers here, or any courses I could go to here. I don't have enough money to go back to the Hebrides anytime soon, and definitely don't have the money to go long enough to learn Gaelic!

Anyway, I know they're all very different, but I was wondering if anyone speaks languages like Gaelic, Irish, or Welsh (I know a couple of members speak Welsh!) If so, can someone maybe point me in the right direction? I found some resources on BBC, but other than that, I don't really know where to look!

I don't know -any- Gaelic, except for some phrases I just learned today!

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

Welsh is functional... in Wales, not so much Gaelic, not sure anyone uses it really anymore...
Sounds like fun though!

[Shahaku]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

I know when I was a teenager there were a couple towns in Ireland where the folks still spoke either Irish or Gaelic. But it's really hard tip find sources for learning it. I tried. Of course I was like 16 at the time.

[Rhaethe]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

Welsh is functional... in Wales, not so much Gaelic, not sure anyone uses it really anymore...
Sounds like fun though!

There has been an upswing in interest in the Celtic languages. I checked the numbers, just to make sure, and the breakdown of the remaining living Celtic languages are as so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_...s#Demographics

Many years ago, I attempted to teach myself Welsh. All I remember of it at this point is how to pronounce, and a scattering of words. My brother in law is reasonably fluent in Gaelic, though I forget which form. He taught himself, and I can ask him for any tips or tricks on learning if you like, DanieMarie.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

Welsh is functional... in Wales, not so much Gaelic, not sure anyone uses it really anymore...
Sounds like fun though!

They do! I got interested in learning it after I went to the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, where a few people still do speak Gaelic. I doubt there are many (if any) people who can't also speak English, but a few people spoke it to each other in shops and stuff.

I meant less functional in the sense that there aren't that many people who speak it and it's not really necessary. It's not like Spanish or Italian, where you can easily end up somewhere and not be able to communicate with people. It's more like Dutch, which has wayyyyy more native speakers, but Dutch people who can't speak English or German are few and far between.

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There has been an upswing in interest in the Celtic languages. I checked the numbers, just to make sure, and the breakdown of the remaining living Celtic languages are as so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_...s#Demographics

Many years ago, I attempted to teach myself Welsh. All I remember of it at this point is how to pronounce, and a scattering of words. My brother in law is reasonably fluent in Gaelic, though I forget which form. He taught himself, and I can ask him for any tips or tricks on learning if you like, DanieMarie.

That would be fantastic!

[Doc_Holliday]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

I think the celtic nations should speak it as a culture thing. It's a great part of their histories. Does anybody know if the area of Brittany in France has any celtic language speakers?

[DanieMarie]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

They have Breton, but that was brought over from people from the UK in the Middle Ages (apparently). I don't think they have their earlier Gaulish language. It's sort of like that in Germany as well. Part of western Germany used to be Celtic (Gaulish as well, I think), but there are pretty much no traces of that left. Too many groups coming in, especially after the Romans.


It's not even a culture thing for me. I am 1/8 Scottish (so, barely), and my family from that part of the world came from the Lowlands (not Gaelic there...though I've hard my dad's grandmother had quite the Scots dialect). I'm more Irish than I am Scottish and I'm wayyy more German than I am either.

[Rhaethe]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

That would be fantastic!

He said that the single greatest thing that helped him learn was to "find and listen to music and news casts everyday. Makes all the difference. even if not actively listening it helps to get the cadence of the speech down and helps develop an ear for the pronunciation(or the variations thereof)".

[DanieMarie]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

He said that the single greatest thing that helped him learn was to "find and listen to music and news casts everyday. Makes all the difference. even if not actively listening it helps to get the cadence of the speech down and helps develop an ear for the pronunciation(or the variations thereof)".

Tell him thanks for me! That's a helpful tip. I find it near impossible to work out pronunciation from the spelling. In German, words are pronounced almost exactly as they are spelled...if you see a letter, you pronounce it, and there are only a few letters that have different pronunciations from English. Gaelic seems to work much differently.

[Evaine]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

I don't think DanieMarie is quite right about Breton being brought over from Britain in the Middle Ages - she may be thinking of the legend that Romano-British refugees left Britain and settled in Brittany (or Little Britain) when the Saxons began their invasions in the 5th and 6th centuries.
It is true, though that Breton and Welsh are mutually intelligible to each other. Before the Second World War, "Onion Johnnies" used to come from France to sell their onions, on bicycles, around England - though in fact most of these "Frenchmen" were Breton (and so were the onions) and they often started off by taking a ferry to Fishguard in Wales because they could speak in their own language and be understood there.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

Mr Penry speaks Welsh and it sounds beautiful. I speak a sort of really awful Welsh... not good or fluent at all, and my English comes out often as Wenglish (though not on the videos!) which is something weird in its own right.

People do speak Welsh in some areas of Wales, mostly parts of the west (Cardigan, Carmarthenshire) and the north. They also speak in small pockets, such as Merthyr Tydfil. And there are some, it must be said with a heavy heart who will speak it as a way of distancing themselves from the 'common heard' especially in cities.

For example...
When my children were little, we'd often hear yuppies start speaking in 'Welsh' when we approached (we were a thoroughly scruffy lot). I remember hearing one woman repeating 'un dau tri' (one, two three) endlessly, as though we couldn't understand her! And then another, who changed from English into Welsh as we approached with our dogs... when I thanked her in Welsh and told her she was very kind to let us pass, she was totally dumbfounded and stammered, 'Oooh, there's a lovely doggie!!' in English.

Evaine is right about the onion sellers 'Shwni onion' we used to call them (think of Johnie beginning with SH instead for the pronounciation). And sometimes people speaking German could converse easily in Welsh too.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

I don't think DanieMarie is quite right about Breton being brought over from Britain in the Middle Ages - she may be thinking of the legend that Romano-British refugees left Britain and settled in Brittany (or Little Britain) when the Saxons began their invasions in the 5th and 6th centuries.
It is true, though that Breton and Welsh are mutually intelligible to each other. Before the Second World War, "Onion Johnnies" used to come from France to sell their onions, on bicycles, around England - though in fact most of these "Frenchmen" were Breton (and so were the onions) and they often started off by taking a ferry to Fishguard in Wales because they could speak in their own language and be understood there.

I'm probably wrong. I'm by no means an expert.

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Evaine is right about the onion sellers 'Shwni onion' we used to call them (think of Johnie beginning with SH instead for the pronounciation). And sometimes people speaking German could converse easily in Welsh too.

I'm wondering if this is a thing. I'm finding that the pronunciation of Gaelic isn't that hard as a German speaker (non-native, admittedly). When I was in the Hebrides, a woman told me that she had an easier time learning German than French because she could speak Gaelic.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

I'm wondering if this is a thing. I'm finding that the pronunciation of Gaelic isn't that hard as a German speaker (non-native, admittedly). When I was in the Hebrides, a woman told me that she had an easier time learning German than French because she could speak Gaelic.

Could well be. Although linguistically there are many similarities with French, Welsh and Cornish, there are also similarities with German in my own experience.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

In a lot of ways it feels totally different (though, I'm learning very basic phrases, so maybe more similarities could pop up). No common words, totally different spellings, etc. But the pronunciation is doable between the two languages. There are a lot of similar sounds. Most aren't exactly the same, but if you can do German sounds, you can do Gaelic sounds (I'm thinking specifically of the way Germans pronounce "ch" and a similar sound in Gaelic!)

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For the record, I got my info about Breton from sources like this:
http://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/breto/an/i1/i1.html
http://www.camino-eu.com/brezhoneg/brezhoneg-the-language/the-breton-language-english/
https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Breton_language.html

I just wanted to throw it out there that I wasn't just plucking info from wikipedia and legends. I'm interested in languages (but am by no means an expert!), and I enjoy reading about them from time to time.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: Learning Gaelic/Irish/Welsh/etc

The closest I ever got to speaking any Welsh was trying to copy the phrase Tom Jones said at the end of his tv show every week, back in the 70's! And I'm sure I had it all wrong....but I tried!