Talk:An Caighdeán Oifigiúil

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Can someone review/rewrite the characteristics section?
I've fixed a few problems (old version vs. my version), but the #Characteristics section reads like nonsense. I hope someone can check these issues:


 * What's "early modern Irish"? And its relevance?
 * Where did the pronunciations come from? The standard only defines spelling and grammar.  The pronunciation was used as a source for the spelling in a few places, but I don't see why someone then decided to note pronunciations beside every word
 * "historically-correct" - how so? Does this mean it's incorrect today in all dialects but it used to be used by all dialects, maybe a hundred years ago?
 * What's Classical Irish? And its relevance?
 * What does the "ceann" example illustrate? It seems it's spelled the same in the Caighdeán and all dialects
 * What does the "beag" example illustrate? There's no mention of any possible differences in spelling
 * What does the "ar" and "ag" example illustrate? Again, no mention of differences between Caighdeán and the dialects.  The info about Manx and Scottish Gaelic could be interesting but there's no explanation of how these affected the Caighdeán's relation to the three Irish dialects.

Great floors (talk) 14:17, 11 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I propose deleting most of the above-mentioned stuff from the article. I left a message on the Talk page of the Wikipedia who wrote most of it, but the account has been inactive for a while and I got no response.  I don't have the expertise to be able to replace it but right now it's just useless text and it might even be discouraging contributors who could add something useful. Great floors (talk) 11:13, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and removed the incoherent text. Here's the last version of the page before the removal:   And here's the removed text, in the hope that some knowledgeable person can turn it into something meaningful:

The Caighdeán is sometimes criticised for its inconsistent choice of word forms and grammar, inconsistently favouring some conservative historically correct forms but at other times favouring innovative historically incorrect forms. For example, the Caighdeán spells the Irish word for "bed" as "leaba". The early modern Irish leaba, dative case leabaidh "bed" is pronounced  as well as  in Munster Irish,  in Connacht Irish ( in Cois Fharraige Irish) and  in Ulster. Native speakers from Ulster and Munster may consider that leabaidh should be the representation in the Caighdeán rather than actual leaba. However, leaba is the historically-correct nominative form and arguably preferable to the historically-incorrect but common use of the dative form for the nominative.

In daily use, native speakers pronounce words as per their own dialect, as the spelling simply reflects the pronunciation of Classical Irish. For example, ceann "head" in early modern Irish was pronounced. The spelling has been retained, but the word is variously pronounced in Munster,  in Connacht and  in Ulster. Beag "small" was in early modern Irish, and is now  in Waterford Irish,  in Cork-Kerry Irish, varies between  and  in Connacht and is  in Ulster.

On the other hand, in other cases, the Caighdeán retained classical spellings even when none of the dialects had retained the corresponding pronunciation. For example, it has retained the Classical Irish spelling of ar "on, for, etc." and ag "at, by, of, etc.". The first is pronounced throughout the Goidelic-speaking world (and is written er in Manx, and air in Scottish Gaelic), and should be written either eir or oir in Irish. The second is pronounced in Munster, and  in Ulster and Connacht. Again, Manx and Scottish Gaelic reflect this pronunciation much more clearly than Irish does (Manx ec, Scottish aig).

In many cases, however, the Caighdeán refers only to the classical language, as every dialect is different, such as in the personal forms of ag "at, by, of, etc."


 * End of edit. Great floors (talk) 15:51, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Favouring Connacht? Seems more like Munster to me
In what way does the Caighdeán favour Connacht Irish?


 * The Caighdeán's spelling includes all the endings that are silent in Connacht and Donegal but pronounced in Munster.
 * "féin" is spelled with an "f", despite being pronounced "héin" in Connacht and Donegal (and sometimes in Munster).
 * "arís" - despite it mostly pronounced "aríst" outside of Munster.

(And Munster pronunciation is what is learned by school teachers who don't have native Irish, which is an indication that some official institution has picked Munster for preferential treatment.)

I'm removing the two claims that the Caighdeán favours Connacht Irish. None of them were sourced anyway. If anyone has more info on this, please add information about this to the article. Great floors (talk) 15:36, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Dialect used

 * In Northern Ireland and County Donegal, the Ulster dialect (Gaedhilg Uladh) is used extensively alongside the standard form as the spoken language in primary and secondary schools.

I would have thought every region that has a local dialect would use that dialect in schools - unless I'm wrong in that, which I might be, I don't speak from experience here, but unless Ulster is different, then why single out Ulster? Ben Aveling 11:15, 23 April 2024 (UTC)