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littlecelt
Posts: 331
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Posted:
16 Feb 2005 at 21:08 |
I would like to thank Hamish very much for recommending a Scots Gaelic course for beginners. I sent off for the textbooks and they arrived today. They are aimed basically at schoolchildren, so I may have a fighting chance, even as a humble Lowlander, of picking up some of this wonderful language.
If anyone has any advice, or some useful phrases with translations (and even a hint about pronounciation) , I would be very grateful. |
Hamish
Posts: 127
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Posted:
16 Feb 2005 at 21:15 |
| You're very welcome Littlecelt. Good luck with the Gaelic. |
viola
Posts: 423
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Posted:
17 Feb 2005 at 10:23 |
Hi, Littlecelt,
I've just started a Scots Gaelic course as well, and am learning along with the children, who are a great deal better than I am.The BBC gaelic learning site, Beag air Bheag is also v good for revision and fun to do.Good luck , yours viola |
"Oidhche bha math tha"
Posts: 33
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Posted:
17 Feb 2005 at 23:07 |
hey little celt i see your getting on ok!
well i was bored a i did a little gaelic research for u !
Here is an email address for you for pronunciation help all you do is email this guy ask him anything and help you no bother to do with gaelic! word problems or phrases donaldmacdonald@sympatico.ca
I always found a gaelic to english online dictionary it's guiet good http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/faclair/bb/bb. html
My favoured best way of learning gaelic was watching a video called speaking our lanuage i think you should check out this website it brilliant for beginners it even gives you lessons...
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/ionnsachadh/bac/
hope everthing is good but i would check out the last website i gave u, u will enjoy it
let me know how u get on!
xXX |
Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
17 Feb 2005 at 23:26 |
I'm not only surprised there's any English on the homepage but shocked that the only piece of English is designed to tell us how Prince Charles thinks smo.uhi etc are nice people.
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised; we've seen his friends. |
Gastaman
Posts: 110
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 11:36 |
A Cheiltich Bhig (Little Celt), sin thu fhein a charaid, cum ort (keep it up!)
Onny, do you really not like Gaelic? Every time anything about it appears on this forum, you're are straight in there with some snide little comments. Its not big or clever to be a bigot, even if for 'comedic' purposes, you make think your just having a laugh, it's not much of a step from your 'witty' banter to the kind of bilge spouted by folks like Allan Brown in the Sunday Times Ecosse, not just about Gaels and Gaelic but pretty much any form of Scottish culture, music and tradition.
Duin do chab mur eil cail math agad ri radh.
SMO is a place where people go to learn Gaelic as well as study in the language, (i.e. they don't have sufficient Gaelic to read or write at the time.) Most of the SMO website is in Gaelic, but there are bits in English to help people navigate around,thus allowing 99.99% of the World's population to go on the website. You also don't have to go to SMO to benefit, they also do distance learning courses check out inntrig.smo.uhi.ac.uk
for more information.
The following sites are reasonably helpful
www.taic.btinternet.co.uk
www.learn-gaelic.info |
Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 12:04 |
It's not that I don't like Gaelic. I don't pretend to know enough about it to have an opinion one way or the other.
What I know I dislike is when someone posting as "Oidhche bha math tha" says "its amazing the lanuage of gaelic and most best thing of all about it is that when you are talking to someone else in gaelic and u have a person who only speaks english thats the best cause they dont have a clue what we're saying its great!"
I really dislike anything which is used to exclude rather than include or to make the non Gaelic speaker out to be less of a Scot because they don't speak Gaelic.
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Auldtimer
Posts: 2921
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 12:31 |
Actually as someone who has tried for years to learn Gaelic I've suffered from the innate good manners of the Gaels who switch to speaking English when I join them. I've trained my friends not to do this and occasionally they have been rebuked by someone else in the company for being rude!
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Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 12:40 |
I'm sure most of them are well mannered and considerate but whilst there are still those who use Gaelic as means of excluding those they feel to be lesser beings, I'll keep giving their balloons a prick.
PS Yes, I did mean to say their, not these! |
Gastaman
Posts: 110
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 13:11 |
Whatever Onny.
If any one is enough of a "prick" to act like that, then whay would anyone want to speak to them at all, in English or Gaelic. But I've never encountered anyone that has spoken Gaelic as a means of Exclusion (except in rare cases where somebody was going to get their head panned in or when debating a beautiful woman's merits, both situations where privacy is a virtue). It isn't the restaruant scene in the Godfather by any means.
However, when people speak Gaelic, they should not be expected to instantly have to revert to English when a Monoglot Anglo/Saxon walks into the room.
Like the people who rebuke Gaelic speakers for speaking their native tongue who Auldtimer mentions, there is a simple word for it 'Racism' which stems from bloody minded ignorance. No right minded person would even think to say this about Punjabi speakers, but for some reason a lot of Scots who are open-minded for the most part still have an inherent hostility to Gaelic. Also its only wannabe wind swept and interesting plaids and bandanas types who actually think that not speaking Gaelic makes you less of a Scot (most of whom don't even speak it themselves past slainte). However all Scots should appreciate Gaelic for what it is, instead of the usual line that 'Gaelic was never spoken here' that you hear from people even living on the NW coast of Sutherland. you want to talk about Exclusion and being made to feel like lesser beings, Onny? Look at the history of Gaelic and the Gaels, the facts are there, they don't need spelled out.
Gaelic is Scotland's National Language,. in that it is unique to Scotland and belongs to all the Scottish People, whether they speak it or not, whther they are Black or White, or live in Lerwick, Leurbost, Linlithgow or Stranraer (I couldn't keep the alliteration going.) You don't have to speak it, you don't have to learn it, just love it for what it is.
Mo bheannachdan dha a h-uile duine ag ionnsachadh na Gaidhlig an-seo. Cum Oirbh Uile.
"you're quite hostile"
"Man I got a right to be hostile, my people been persecuted" - Public Enemy - Prophets of Rage |
Auldtimer
Posts: 2921
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 13:56 |
You could have put in Lochee, Gastaman!
Actually it was other Gaelic speakers who objected to my friends continuing to speak Gaelic in my presence. That's a much more pernicious form of racism from which both Gaelic and Scots speakers have suffered.
I can remember my elderly relatives struggling to speak 'richt' to a teacher or a minister and recall with great affection our Indian GP who spoke pure Dundonian Scots to most of his patients. |
Gastaman
Posts: 110
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 14:05 |
Right you are, Auldtimer, its the major feature of imperial oppression around the world, engender self-loathing amongst the oppressed and soon enough they police themselves, doing the oppressors job far more zealously and vigorously than one could have imagined possible. Uncle Toms gun teagamh.
Anybody heard the new Afrocelts Stuff on the Hotel Rwanda soundtrack yet,? Love those guys.
Suas leis a' Ghaidhlig! |
Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 14:07 |
| Sorry to be so slow, I've been trying to find slainte on the map. |
littlecelt
Posts: 331
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 15:13 |
Hamish, Viola, OBWT and Gastaman, thanks so much for your help and encouragement in my efforts to learn Gaelic. I will follow up all of the leads you have given me.
Aren't people nice...
Gastaman, you speak well and with real passion on behalf of the Gaelic language, and about the oppression of people everywhere. I am impressed, for what it is worth.
Your words about how engendering self-loathing amongst the oppressed leads them to police themselves and do the oppressor's job with breathtaking efficiency is a great truth.
As human beings, we strive constantly, and often fail, to rise above our own weaknesses.
Is this all getting a bit deep for Onny?
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Gastaman
Posts: 110
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 15:30 |
Onny seems to have a problem with anybody who doesn't speak or write in a style which he seems to think is proper, in any language, be it Gaidhlig, English or Swahili. I think it is really sad when people pick up on Typos (oops sorry I think that should be lower case) in Internet forums, its really the last reserve of the scoundrel to pick on someones language skills, making people feel like 'leser beings' perhaps.
He knows fine well what Slainte means, I'm assuming when people say they can't see past something as regards a favorite for a sporting event for example, i.e. I can't see past Chelsea, Onny takes that to mean that the Thames is very foggy and the South Bank is obscured. Abair Pedant! :-)
'S e do bheatha, a cheiltich bhig agus cum ort!
'S e Stoirm ann an Srupag a tha seo!
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domhnull
Posts: 510
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 15:35 |
I agree with Auldtimer -- as I usually to do on important matters -- that the natural good manners of the Gael tend to turn Gaelic conversations into English ones if there is a non-Gaelic speaker present. I acknowledge that there are occasions when Gaelic speakers will use their bi-lingual superiority to get the better of English-speaking monoglots. But this tends to be the exception. And is usually fully justified! A story (perhaps apocryphal) of anti-Gaelic feeling:
A university student is tending his father's cattle in Skye during the summer vacation. A car stops and two English visitors get out.
'I say, do you speak English?'
'Och, I haff a word or two' replies the young fella.
'And can you read -- you seem to have a book in your hand?
Setting aside his textbook he replies diffidently:
'Och, chust a little.'
Ah, but can you count?' persist the pair. 'For example, how many of us are here now?'
'A hundred! says the lad confidently.
The visitors collapse in mirth.
'How on Earth do you make that out?'
'Well', says he, 'there's myself; that's one. And there's you........ the two nothings!
Le gach deagh dhurachd,
D
Secon |
Deirdre
Posts: 2982
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 17:07 |
"Onny seems to have a problem with anybody who doesn't speak or write in a style which he seems to think is proper, in any language, be it Gàidhlig, English or Swahili. I think it is really sad when people pick up on Typos (oops sorry I think that should be lower case) in Internet forums, its really the last reserve of the scoundrel to pick on someones language skills, making people feel like 'leser beings' perhaps."
No, Gastaman, the upper case "T" in "typo" was fine...quite Anglo-Saxon and harking back nicely to the Germanic roots of the English language. Very traditional, in fact. Not quite sure what a "leser" being is, though...one which has a lease? A laser? A lemur? There aren't that many English words with beginning with "les"...less than twenty as I recall which aren't borrowed from French since English tends to default to the double "s". (You'll note, however, I merely commented on your spelling and not the grammatical error with the possessive case.)
Onny isn't the only one who has a problem...Domhnull has gotten considerable grief in this forum for the same. I hold views similar to theirs, but I say less about it...I simply (quietly) form my own opinions about the contributor's attention to detail and apply that rubric to all future postings from them. (Inattention to detail in what they write might well translate into inattention to detail in how they think...apply grains of salt as necessary.)
What I've always found interesting about internet forums ("fora" for the particular) is how, when faced with a position which could be easily countered with logic and data, so many people opt for ad hominen on the person who wrote it. I really don't understand why that is. You started out well enough, Gastaman, with the "Onny, do you really not like Gaelic?" and he answered you straight enough...but instead of answering his point (that of exclusionary behaviour for which he had a quote from this very forum), you chose to say "Whatever" and go off on a tangential attack.
Why, Gastaman? You could have debated him, yet by poking instead you've destroyed any chance you might have had to exchange views in a courteous manner. Onny discusses things readily enough and even if his manner of presentation is a bit sly, the points he's making are clear. Onny has clearly expressed his opinion on errors (a position), while you seem to be more inclined to express your opinions of him (a person). I don't see him referring to anyone as a bigot, so who, in this discussion, is truly having the problem with what is written, Gastaman? From where I sit, it doesn't appear to be Onny. |
Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 17:25 |
| I'm not unhappy with the responses I've elicited. I see no point in seeking to mock the replies when they only serve to condemn the writers. |
Deirdre
Posts: 2982
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Posted:
18 Feb 2005 at 18:23 |
I know that, Onny, but sometimes the obvious needs to be said rather than merely alluded to...you're well aware I've no problem with the provocative manner with which you make your points. But I think it would be helpful if people who demand that others read around typos for intent understood that making such a demand obligates them to read pass your sardonic presentation for the intent also.
Most swords have two edges and while you're perfectly willing to let someone impale themselves on the blade of hypocrisy, I'm more inclined to give fair warning...mind you, if they do it anyway, I'm not above an "I told you so." ;-) |
johnnyguitar
Posts: 1748
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Posted:
19 Feb 2005 at 19:16 |
Myself and partner went to meeting months in advance of course to judge merit for having course
it went through but after enrolment and turning up to start it was cancelled due to no teacher available .Or funds to pay teacher .ive heard that Scottish Parliment is to offer more funding ?
p.s is there no threads completed in gaelic only .? |
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