Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

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Iversen
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Sun Jul 15, 2018 5:14 pm

And now something that has little do to with Irish (although it also is a sad tale): a few days ago my newspaper wrote an article about the abysmally low number of students of foreign languages at our universities, and now the information has been repeated in the leading article. The numbers for the main languages are as follows: 21 freshmen and -women have chosen German and 16 French at the university in Århus, and 26 for each language in Copenhagen - two universities with something like 85.000 students all together. Several smaller language studies have been closed down for economical reasons (since the spreadshit lovers have coupled the money streams to the number of students who follow the courses and take exams without taking into account that language students are cheaper to keep alive than science students).

This is a problem because you can predict that we soon will get a whole generation of linguistically challenged zombies who know Danish and English, but nothing else. Even the business organizations ought to be deeply worried now, since it will become harder to export goods when the companies can't get people with the necessary linguistic skills (the educational system in Denmark is organized with both 'cultural' and 'commercial' students in the same universities) - but they only seem to plead for more engineers and skilled workers from abroad so that doesn't become too evident that their member companies for years have neglected to educate the necessary number of apprentices.

So how did it come to this misery? The newspaper puts most of the blame on the students who are reported to fear endless drills and tedious hours of listening to incomprehensible stuff, but then those same students should also fear the science and technology topics, and ... well, actually they may do so, since the technical subjects barely manage to keep their number of applications, but even this would be better. So where do the rest go? Some choose loosely defined media educations because they sound smart and modern, and other study politics because they have discovered that the majority of the administrators and politicians have got that kind of exams. And then the language subjects are left to amateurs and foreigners and naive bussiness people who believe that Goggle translations are good enough.

EO: Ankaŭ la esperanto-organizuloj maltrankviliĝas pro tio ke la membrecaj nombroj stagnas en la tradiciaj kluboj. Mi regule ricevas revuon nomitan "Esperanto", kaj tie ĝi estas recurrente diskuto temo kiel vi povas adapti la Esperanto-movadon al la ŝanĝoj de konduto. Se la tradicia klubo-strukturo ne altiras la junajn internetuloj, kiel do povas oni kapti ilian atenton?

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Iversen
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:41 am

Monday I got 503 photos back from the photo shop (the price is lower if you exceed 500 prints), and it took me much of yesterday to glue them into my oldfashioned photo albums - plus one bottle of white glue. Of course I also have all 503 photos and several more stored in my digital system, but in some respects I still live in the 20. century and don't really want to get all-digital.

But before the monster gluing session I did manage to squeeze in a bit of Slovak study, and in the evening and this morning I have been reading about Irish subordinate clauses, in particular the relative ones.

Let's take Slovak first. I went back to a fairly long article about the red giant Betelgeuze, which I went through already a couple of months ago, but restudying a text is an effective way of keeping its specific vocabulary alive - alongside wordlists etc. So ...

SLK: Betelgeuse je červený obor v súhvezdí Orionu. Keď sa objekt rozširuje (bez sa stal ťažší), mal by sa otáčať pomalšie. Ale spoločnosť Betelgeuse sa prekvapujúco otáča a výskumný tím navrhol, že nedávno (v astronomickom časovom meradle) vymazala sprievodnú hviezdu a predpokladala hybnosť tejto hviezdy. Betelgeuse je tiež zaujímavé aj iným spôsobom: je to v skutočnosti veľmi blízko vybuchne ako supernova.

POR: Mas o homem não vive apenas de palavras eslovacas. Dentro de algumas semanas, o grande congresso mundial universal dos esperantistas começará em Lisboa. Então, quando eu quis verificar algumas informações sobre Betelgeuse na Wikipedia, eu obviamente li um artigo no português - e embora eu não tenhao trabalhado muito com o português recentemente, foi muito mais fácil do que ler o artigo paralelo sobre a estrela na versão eslovaca. Receio não ter conseguido o aperfeiçoamento de pelo menos uma língua eslava (que teria então sido a lingua russa) antes do meu hiato de 25 anos após a conclusão dos meus estudos universitários - não porque eu fosse mais eficaz naquela época, mas porque eu tinha tido então 25 anos mais de prática.

AND last, but not least: the Irish relative clauses (and the others). I have used my old light blue Teach Myself for the purpose because it may be conservative, but its explanations are fairly comprehensive - and complicated. NB: this venerable old book shouldn't be confused with the newer (and even more confusing) Teach Yourself Irish Grammar.

Let me first say that relative clauses in general are defined as subordinate sentences with a relative pronoun that refers back to an element in the parent clause (although this pronoun can be implicite in some languages, including Danish and English). Let's call that element the antecedent. When I was taught grammar long ago we were told that there also are "independent relative clauses", and they don't have an antecedent - instead they function themselves as the part in the uppermost sentence which the antecent would have had.

For instance "whoever comes to my party will get drunk", where "whoever comes to my party" functions as the subject of the verb at the uppermost sentence level. Here the pronoun will typically be an interrogative pronoun or a variant thereof (as "whoever"). In the corresponding relative construction "Any person that comes to my party will get drunk" the subject of "will get" is Any person that comes to my party, and the relative clause is just a subordinate element with an adjectival role. Actually you could also have used "who" here, but this "who" is analyzed as a relative pronoun. And by the way: most of my old grammars only accepted nominal pronouns (as shown in the name "prNOUN"), but this is of course rubbish. In a construction as "later when I have been to the party and got drunk" the antecedent and the relative pro-word are both adverbial, but apart from that the construction is exactly the same.

And Irish? Well, here that system doesn't really function. There are two main groups of so called relative clauses, and both have something called a relative particle "a" (formerly "do") or "go". In the first group the supposed relative element "a" (with lenition) is either subject or object, and in the second group the particle "go" with eclipsis (or "a" with lenition in the Northern dialects) and the role of the relative element is something else. In the first group the verb in the clause is in the normal independent form, in the second one it is in the dependent form if it exists (and only the irregular verbs have got a dependent form). But hey, couldn't you then say that the "a" is a relative pronoun? Bah, it is tempting but no - that's not what Irish grammarians have chosen to do. They all call the thingy a 'particle'. But there is a hilarious angle to this, namely cases like the following one (p.147): "an t-éan a chíonn an garsún", which according to the book can mean both "the bird that sees the boy" or "the bird that the boy sees". If you choose the last interpretation then "an garsún" is the subject and "a" is either a particle or the object. With the first one "an garsún" would be the object and "a" would be a particle or the subject of the clause. However in the old days the case of "garsún" would have shown which of the interpretations was the right one. Today where the nominative and the accusative have merged you have to guess who looks at who(m).

In the dependent clauses you have constructions with prepositions and constructions without them. First two examples without them from the book: "an fear go bhfuil a mhac chun pásadh" ('the man whose son is to be married') and "an tigh go rabhas ann" ('the house in which I was'). Just for fun I put the first sentence into Google Translate and got 'the man that his son is to hang' - which is a fairly pessimistic view on marriage, but it does show something about the structure of the example, namely that it is HARD to pinpoint the role of "go". Prepositions in front of the so called particle are allowed according to the TY book, but remember: this is a rather conservative book so take it with a pinch of salt: "an áit ina raibh sé" (the place in+[particle] be he), where the newer construction is said to be "an áit go raibh sé ann" (the place [particle] be he in-'it' - where "ann" literally means 'in + he', because the Irish divides the world into masculine and feminine with no room for neutral things).

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby galaxyrocker » Wed Jul 18, 2018 8:19 pm

Since I love relative clauses in Irish, I'm going to discuss this fairly in depth. Just a little thing before though.

Iversen wrote:
(or "a" with lenition in the Northern dialects)


It's actually eclipse in the other dialects, and only in the present tense is it a. In the past tense, it's ar. It's the type of relative clause seen in the Connemara "how are you", cén chaoi a bhfuil tú.


----------------

Now, on to relative clauses. I do feel that they fit your "independent" and "dependent" relative clauses fairly well, except that they're called "direct" and "indirect" in Irish. So the direct one is still the one that is expressed as a in Munster, whereas the indirect one is the one that's now go there and ar everywhere else. And they do relate back to the preceding clause much like you said.

The direct relative clause is used when the subject of the second clause is either the subject or the object of the first one, i.e. it's the antecedent of the second clause. If you were to take the sentences. *Feicim Mici.* and *Tá sé tinn* and put them together, you can see that the object of the first, Micil, is the subject of the second. Thus it'd be the antecedent of the clause, and you'd use the indirect relative clause -- *Feicim Micil atá tinn*. This works if it's the subject of the first clause. *Tá an fear sin dall.* *Níor ith sé a chuid cáca*. Here, the subject of the second one is also the subject of the first one, so it'd be the antecedent of the clause -- *Níor ith an fear atá dall a chuid cáca* (the man who is blind didn't eat his cake; a reference to the short film *Cáca Milis*, that you might have seen).

As you mentioned, there is ambiguity with this, as in the case *An gasúir a fheiceanns an t-éan*, to use the Connemara spellings. This ambiguity can be avoided, however, if need be. To do so, you just use the other relative clause type, and add a pronoun that references the object. It is much easier to see in the example *An bhean a phóganns an fear*, where you could say either *An bhean a bpóganns an fear í* to reveal that it's the *man* who is kissing the woman.

For the indirect relative clause, you use it when the antecedent is not what the clause is referring to. This is usually used in the case of the genitive, "whose", and prepositions, as well as with some set question words, such as cén chaoi. So, to take your first sentence in this case, a fear go/a bhfuil a mhac chun pósadh (again, putting it into the standard), the subject of the relative clause, 'his son', is not the antecedent of the particle, the man himself. So you need to use the indirect relative clause in this case. Same with the other example, an teach a raibh mé ann (a is used here instead of the normal past tense ar because it's one of the irregular verbs that use present tense particles in the past tense). The first thing you're talking about is "the house", whereas the second is "me". The antecedent of the particle is not the subject of the second clause, thus the indirect relative clause is needed. This is generally the case with prepostional phrases, as well as the genitive ones like the "whose" mentioned above. And, as you mentioned, when it's positive, the preposition can be moved before the clase: an teach ina raibh mé.

However, there are a few things to note about these. In Connemara, they're mostly collapsed together and, outside a few set phrases, all that exists is the direct relative clause. So you'll hear things like an teach atá mé ann instead of an teach a bhfuil mé ann. But, if you pull the preposition to the front, you still get the indirect, an teach ina bhfuil mé. It's very seldom done anymore, though, and the preference is definitely towards the direct relative clause.

The other thing you have to watch out for is the difference between the grammatical subject and the logical subject that occurs in Irish phrasal verbs. While it might seem like you'd use the direct relative clause to translate "that's the man who has my money", since the subject of the first is clearly the object of the second, this is not true in Irish. Why? Because the mark for possession is bí X ag Y, where the subject is what is possessed, not who has it. So you'd have to translate that one as sin an fear a bhfuil mo chuid airgid aige / sin an fear ag a bhfuil mo chuid airgid, using the indirect relative clause. But, if you wanted to say 'that's the one I have', you still use the direct, sin an ceann atá agamsa. There are also several other types of relative particles, which are, thankfully, mostly identical and interchangeable with the two already mentioned.

I hope that didn't confuse you, and if you have questions, please ask. As I said, I love talking about the relative clauses for some unknown reason, and I could go on for a while giving examples and discussing them. Also, please pardon my lack of use of go in favor of a + eclipse, as that's what I'm familiar with, not using Munster Irish. If you'd like me to rewrite them, I certainly can try!

You also might find information looking at Gramadach na Gaeilge's page on relative clauses. English site, German site.

And here's the video I was discussing, Cáca Milis. It can be an upsetting video, just a warning, but it's definitely become "part of the culture" now, much like Yu Ming (also placed below if you haven't seen it).



And Yu Ming:

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:10 pm

Ambiguity from Intermediate Irish Grammar (by Nancy Stenson):

an múinteoir a mhol na daltaí the teacher that the pupils praised
(cf. mhol na daltaí an múinteoir)
an múinteoir a mhol na daltaí the teacher who praised the pupils
(cf. mhol an múinteoir na daltaí)

Notice that when there is no subject suffix, or distinct subject and object pronoun forms, the Irish phrase may be ambiguous. It is usually possible
to tell from context which meaning is intended.


(Unit 1: Relative clauses I, p 2)

Galaxyrocker, how common are these kinds of sentences?
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:27 pm

Thanks to Galaxyrocker for the very elaborate answer. I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one to be fascinated by relative clauses.

In my own message I used the term ""independent relative clauses" while discussing non-Celtic syntax. It is a translation of "uafhængig relativsætning" which is the name in Danish grammatical tradition, but it has to be said that I near the end of my French studies rejected this name because it is idiotic - "whoever" in sentences like ""whoever comes to my party will get drunk" simply doesn't ahve an antecedent, and then the clause that uses it simply can't be a relative clause of any kind. I adopted the term "uafhængig bisætning" (i.e. 'independent clause') from P.Spore's Italian grammar, but uses is in a wider sense that also includes constructions with socalled adverbial subordinates - as in "if (or when) you come to my party you will get drunk". The pronoun in such clauses is generally an interrogative one (which may or may not resemble a relative pronoun)". You can replace a construction with an independent clause with on that contains a relative clause by inserting a dummy pronoun in the uppermost sentence which can function as antecedent for the relative pronoun in a relative clause: "Anyone who...".

OK, now over to Irish. Here the normal names for the two kinds of relative clauses definitely is direct and indrect. I should have mentioned explicitely that I deviated from standard nomenclature because I have read that direct clauses have independent verbal forms and indirect clauses have dependent verbal forms (when they exist), so therefore I tend to think in clause names derived from the verbal forms they contain. But this also means that neither kind of Irish relative clause can be an "independent (relative) clause" if it has an antecedent for - as it has in for instance Níor ith an fear atá dall a chuid cáca" (the French part of my brain shudders at the thought of blind men eating caca, but .. well, we are discussing Irish, not French). The relation to the antecedent is pretty clear with the direct relative clauses (except for cases of ambiguity), but less so with the indirect ones (and that's of course why they are called indirect in standard irish grammatical nomenclature). In a case like "an teach a bhfuil mé ann" the house is buried not in the relative particle (or whatever it is), but in "ann", so the nearest English correspondance would be a construction like "the house that I was in it", where the anaphoric realtion is taken over by a demonstrative, leaving the relative particle hanging in the air. So I'm not surprised if there is movement among modern Irish speakers to prefer the direct clauses where the structural logic is much clearer (even in the ambiguous case).

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby galaxyrocker » Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:33 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:Galaxyrocker, how common are these kinds of sentences?


They can be quite common, but context usually disambiguates them. Most of the times, the sentences will only make semantic sense one way, however, such as Chonaic mé an bhean a dúirt an abairt or some such. But the ambiguous ones can come up, generally when you have two animate things and a verb that can apply to both.

Iversen wrote:so the nearest English correspondance would be a construction like "the house that I was in it", where the anaphoric realtion is taken over by a demonstrative, leaving the relative particle hanging in the air.


One way to possibly look at it is with the age-old "English" rule that says you can't end a sentence with a preposition. In Irish, you literally can't, so you have to either inflect it to say, as you mentioned "the house that I was in it" or you have to move the preposition forward -- an teach ina raibh mé, "the house in which I was". Except, unlike English, it doesn't sound nearly as stilted in Irish!
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:01 pm

Today I haven't studied Irish.

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I have studied my music collection and rearranged some items, and that took several hours, including taking backup - and listening. Besides I'll have spend some time on rebrushing my Esperanto and my Portuguese. For Portuguese I have selected some old science mags which I intend to read during the weekend, and for Esperanto I am already now reading selected passages of the Detala Gramatiko de Esperanto de Wennergren, which is written in Esperanto so I can train my reading skill while I'm trying to find grammtical information I don't already know - but it is probably useful to get reminded about them now and then.

And in between I'll try my best to find time for other languages.

EO: La granda problemo kun Esperanto ne estas nekonataj vortoj, sed konjekti tiun vorton de aliaj lingvoj Zamenhof elektis inkludi en sia nova lingvo.. kaj eviti analitikajn perfektojn kiel ekzemple *Mi havas farita. Esperanto estas lingvo kiun mi demetas de la bretaro kaj deviŝas kiam nova numero de "Esperanto" aperus en mia leterkesto aŭ kiam estus kongreso aŭ kunveno. La plej bona afero, kiun mi povus fari por la lingvo ĉiutage, estus skribi plu, en kaj mi jam havas malgrandan projekton en menso, nome skribi mian venontan vojaĝadon de Lisbono en miksaĵo de esperanto kaj portugala. Mi skribis antaŭan vojaĝajn raportojn en la dana por savi ilin en la retejo de mia vojaĝklubo, sed nun ŝanĝis la klubo al nova retaĵon, kaj mi opinias ke estas tute neebla trovi iu ajn afero en ĝi - eĉ se vi scias ke ekzistas - kaj do logike rezultas eĉ pli malfacile, se vi ne scias kio estas stokita en la malklaraj keloj.

Ekzemple mi ne povis trovi mian malnovan artikolon pri irlanda lingvo kaj sukcesis nur kun la helpo de Google. Kaj jen kial ĝi ne plu publikiĝis ie iu ajn komunikadon ankaŭ ne plu bezonas skribi ĝin en dana. Dum jaroj, ni tutaj sendis mallongajn 'poŝtkartojn' pri niaj vojaĝoj, sed ĝi ne aŭtomate translokigis al la nova hejmpago. Oni informis nin ke ni mem povas rekuperi ilin el ia malnova retejo kaj savi ilin en la novaj artikoloj kiel artikoloj ... sed ni eĉ ne povas nune aliri la antaŭan retejon, kaj eĉ se tio estus ebla, mi ne deziras elspezi horojn kolekti ilin kaj poste ĵeti miajn malnovajn tekstojn en nigran truon. Ĉi tio estas ekvivalenta kun oferto por rekuperi niajn malnovajn mesaĝojn de HTLAL unu post alia kaj savi ilin kiel fono-artikoloj (ne mesaĝoj) ĉi tie. Kaj tiam mi povas bone skribi ilin en aliaj lingvoj, kiel ekzemple Esperanto aŭ portugala aŭ latina aŭ slovaka aŭ ...

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:51 pm

In the preceding message I mentioned my article about Irish which was published in an amended version in the club magazine of my Travel club (De Berejste) and later in its (former) homepage. This reminded me that some time ago I promised to publish the original uncensored version if I could find it in my mailprogram, and now I have done some searching and found it .. YEEAH!. It should however be said that you need to be fairly adept at reading faulty Danish AND know some of the bells and whistles of the Irish language to get unscathed through the reading process. The idea is that I start out writing in ordinary Danish, but then I begin to introduce eclipses, lenitions, VSO word order and verbal substantives galore, and this will of course make it harder and harder to read even for Danish readers.

Here comes...

Det er ikke nemt at rejse med tilbagevirkende kraft, men hvis én af de ærede berejste havde taget turen til Sydtyskland for 2500 år siden, ville befolkningen der have talt et keltisk sprog. Et par hundrede år senere strakte det keltiske område sig fra Transylvanien til Portugal og via Frankrig til de Britiske øer. Men den romerske ekspansion væltede det keltiske korthus på kontinentet, og i Storbritannien tog angelsakserne senere kontrollen med alt undtagen Cornwall, Wales og Skotland. I Irland holdt gælisk skansen indtil en gang i 1700-tallet, men siden er det gået drastisk nedad for sproget – selv efter at det blev gjort til nationalsprog efter uafhængigheden under det forpligtende navn "Irish". Dette stoppede imidlertid ikke tilbagegangen, og i dag ligger antallet af dem der bruger det dagligt på ca. 80.000 (ud af 4,6 mio.) i republikken Irland og dertil et mindre antal i Ulster. I betragtning af at irsk er tvunget skolefag for alle børn i landet er dette ikke store tal, men sproget har alligevel stor symbolsk betydning for irerne, og de få der endnu behersker det fuldtud har produceret fortræffelige grammatikker, ordbøger, en talesynthethizer (abair.ie) og sågar en irsksproget Wikipedia, der gør der muligt for for udenforstående at få et indblik i sproget. Og udenforstående, det er sådan nogen som mig. Jeg købte en del bøger på og om irsk i forbindelse med en esperantokongres i Galway i 2012, men begyndte først at studere sproget for alvor i starten af 2013. Og pt er vurderingen at jeg nok får lært at læse og måske skrive det til husbehov, men udtalen er et cirkus – værre end selv den danske udtale, der ellers er berygtet ude i verden- så det med at tale det som en indfødt bliver nok ikke til noget. Stavningen er også berygtet, men den er i grunden ret logisk – i betragtning af hvad det er for et morads den skal afbilde.

I det følgende vil jeg bruge at give et indtryk af det irske sprog ved at overføre træk efter træk fra det til dansk. Lad os starte med den konstatering at ord bøjes i slutningen som på mange andre sprog, men derudover ændrer de sig også i begyndelsen, afhængigt af hvad der står foran og af den syntaktiske sammenhæng. Én serie ændringer ses i skriften på at der dukker 'h'er op efter en indledende konsonant – det kaldes lenition eller aspiration. Og det bruges bl.a. i 2. del af sammensatte ord, til at markere fortidsfhormer, efter visse phræpositioner og phartikler i øvrigt på alle mulige uventede steder, som irerne knap nok tselv kan blive enige om. "Goddag" hedder "Dia dhuit" på irsk ('Gud med dig'), udtalt /dia Khrrruit/ . "fh" er stumt, så "an fhuinneog" (vinduet) udtales ca.som / Enjååg/ . Et andet sæt 'mutationer' hedder eclipse (formørkelse), og det ses i skriften ved at der dukker en ny konsonant op i starten af et ord. Den oprindelige startkonsonant bevares i skriften, men er stum. Det sker bl.a. i genitiv pluralis: "Is í an teanga náisiúnta agus an phríomhtheanga oifigiúil i bPoblacht na hÉireann í" (direkte oversat: er hun det nationale sprog og det primæreSprog officielt i Republikken Irlandets hende hun). Bemærk eclipsen i bPoblacht og de to lenitioner i phríomhtheanga. Bemærk også h'et foran hÉireann. De to andre typer mutationer rammer kun konsonanter, men vokaler indledende skal naturligvis heller ikke kunne være i fred. Bemærk herudover placeringerne af i'erne i "náisiúnta" og " oifigiúil". Der er en ufravigelig regel om at der skal være enten 'lyse' (i, e) eller mørket (a,o,u) vokaler på begge sider af enhver indre konsonant i et ord, hvilket har den konsekvens at mindst en tredjedel af alle vokaler i irsk er stumme (og dermed overflødige eller det der er værre).

Og så lidt syntaks. Som man kan se af eksemplet overfor står verbet som regel forrest i irske sætninger, mens tunge subjekter ender til sidst, foregrebet af et ubetonet pronomen lige efter verbet. Dette betyder ingenlunde at bliver de til spørgsmål – hvis ønsker man et spørgsmål, bruger man et spørgeord foran verbet – og har vi på dansk jo netop sådan et, nemlig "mon". Men har hun selvfølgelig forskellige spørgeord i nutid og fortid: "an bhfeiceann tu?" (mon ser du?), men "ar chonaic se" (mon så du ?– er han naturligvis uregelmæssig ordet for at se, men skal ret være ret: irsk har kun 11 uregelmæssige verber. Hos engelsk er mindst 200). Forresten er hos irsk ligesom russisk ikke et ord for 'har', er blot ting hos nogen eller noget. Og er hos irsk heller ikke ord for ja eller nej: gentager man blot verbet med eller uden nægtelse: "Mon spiser cornflakes spøgelser?" ("Na íthe calóga arbhair thaibhsí?") - "Ithe" ('spiser' = ja, de spiser cornflakes), "nach ithe" ('ikke spiser' – nej, spøgelser spiser ikke cornflakes – husk at subjektet står sidst, og "taibhse" betyder altså spøgelse , ikke cornflakes, som logisk nok hedder flager -'calóga'- af majs –'arbhair'). Til gengæld for mangel på verbum 'har' er hos irsk to verber for 'at være', og er hos dem formerne forskellige i sætninger positive og nægtende og spørgende og negativt spørgende , og går forresten også i sammensmeltning verbet 'at være' med konjunktioner ("gur" = at, "gurbh" = at er), ligegodtsom er hos præpositioner tendens til h-at gå i bhforbindelse h-uløselig med bpronominer phersonlige: ag + me -> "agam" 'vedmig', o + me -> "uaim" 'framig' og så fremdeles.

Jeg kunne fortsætte med at opregne den slags h-indlæringsforstyrrende dtræk ved h-irsk, men der er jo desværre ikke ubegrænset plads her i nGloben. I stedet vil jeg nævne det sted, hvor selv engelsktalende irere (og turister) typisk møder det irske sprog, nemlig på tosprogede skilte. Jernbanerne er således konsekvent tosprogede: ikke alene annonceres alle stationer på begge sprog, men skiltene på stationerne er også tosprogede. Og her kan man for alvor se hvordan de engelsktalende barbarer har maltrakteret de oprindelige irske stednavne. Lad os starte med hovedstaden Dublin, hvis navn kommer af "Dubh Linn" (sort vandhul – hvilket faktisk var vikingernes betegnelse for stedet). Men på irsk hedder byen "Baile Átha Cliath" (town at hurdled ford – dvs. ved et bøvlet vadested), og selv de mest indædte cainnteoir bearla (engelsktalende) kan ikke undgå at se det navn igen og igen. På vejen videre mod vest med Iarnród Eireann fra Heuston station (nær Guinness-bryggerierne) ser man bl.a. de følgende stationsnavne: Tullamore (Tulach Mhór, big mound), Athlone (Baile Átha Luain, town of Luan's ford), Athenry (Baile Átha an Rí, ford of the king – søreme!) og sluttelig Galway (Gaillimh, stony river), der er den sidste større by i Irland, hvor en stor del af befolkningen stadig kan tale keltisk.

Sic transit gloria mundi, som piraterne i Asterix plejede at sige, mens skibet sank om ørerne på dem..
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Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4768
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Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Tue Jul 24, 2018 7:55 pm

EN: I have spent much of the time since the previous message painting - and no, not art, but my mother's house and her carport/shed. I did know beforehand how I could expect to spend my time during this visit, but did in spite of this bring along some language related materials. These included two issues of the correctly named Portuguese science magazine "Super Interesante", a couple of old issus of "Esperanto", the old light blue TY Irish and a few other things which I didn't have time to use. But I did manage to read the Super Interesante in the train back home.

And today, after the return to my humble abode I have copied/studied one page of Harry Potter in Irish (at my current level one page is more than enough for one study session!), but after that I have mainly been reading two things on the internet: the program for the Esperanto conference in Esperanto and material about Lisboa and a couple of other Portuguese cities in Portuguese.

POR: Em "Super Interessante" havia, é claro, muitos artigos de diferentes tipos, mas um dos mais memoráveis artigos foi aquele sobre injustiças na escolha dos ganhadores do Prêmio Nobel. Notavelmente, foram mencionados vários casos desagradáveis em que mulheres pesquisadores foram ignorados. Por exemplo, foi Jocelyn Bell quem encontrou os pulsaries, mas foi o seu orientador Hewish quem recebeu o prêmio. Foi Lise Meitner e Otto Hahn que explicaram a fissão nuclear, mas apenas Hahn recebeu o Prêmio Nobel. Marie Curie o recebeu (duas veces), mas estudos de arquivo tem mostrado que a Academia Francesa originalmente só colocaria os senhores Becquerel e Curie na sua nomeação, mas um honorável membro do comitê sueco informou o Sr. Curie. Einstein obtive o preço da física, mas por um trabalho relativamente periférico sobre o efeito fotoelétrico - não para as duas teorias da relatividade. Havia um professor de ótica no comitê sueco que não entendia nada das teorias e não gostava deles (ou talvez de Einstein como pessoa), e ele bloqueou a concessão do prêmio de física em 1921. E quando se tornou bastante ridículo que o mais grande fisico do seculo não fosse galardado, decidiu-se darle o premio para outro projeto. O artigo não menciona de jeito nenhum o prêmio literário que geralmente foi concedido a autores altamente periféricos, os quais os membros da academia por razões políticas gostariam tornar mais conhecidos. Nem o prêmio da paz, ha ha ...

EN: Another article describes the changes of mood and illnesses that are caused by extreme weather. We have now had an almost complete drought here in Denmark since May, with temperatures from 25C and up (whereas it rained almost constantly last year). We are not accostumed to that kind of climate, and we don't like it - even the weather prophets on TV have ceased to express their happiness over the everglaring sun. I do however think that we take the situation with a degree of serenity and patience which it doesn't deserve, and the newspapers have yet to report about major health issues (although they do tell elderly people to drink enough water). And we have had a few wildfires, but nothing on the scale of what is happening in our neighbour country Sweden.

IR: Tháinig mé ar Harry Potter ar an áit nuair a fhágann sé ag Stáisiún Croí an Rí (King's Cross) mar bhfuil sé áit a gcaithfidh sé an ardán a aimsiú a naoi agus trí cheathrú. Is é an rogha eile do ticéad mugail a cheannach agus teigh ar bord an traein Jacobite i Gearasdan si Malaig ('Fort William and Mallaig'), atá suite in aice leis le Ben Nevis.

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Lawyer&Mom
Blue Belt
Posts: 980
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:08 am
Languages: English (N), German (B2), French (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7786
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Tue Jul 24, 2018 9:11 pm

How does the Assimil Irish book compare to a full Assimil course? I know there are no recordings, but what is the format like? Would you recommend? Irish is on my long term list, but I’ve started to think about potential courses.
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Grammaire progressive du français -
niveau debutant
: 60 / 60

Grammaire progressive du francais -
intermédiaire
: 25 / 52

Pimsleur French 1-5
: 3 / 5


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