Talk:English loanwords in Irish

WP:OR?
While accepting that this may not be an area with a large depth of published academic debate, and with some trepedation that I'll start a distracting ("purist" V "evolutionary") debate on the use of cross-over terminology in Irish, I have flagged this article with a WP:OR tag.

For the OR tag to be removed (at the very least) the title itself (Béarlachas) would need some kind of reference to a secondary (ideally academic or published) source confirming meaning/usage of the term "Béarlachas" to refer to "Irish with English forms". (There probably is something if someone looked hard enough - I think I remember a Bord na Gaeilge discourse some time back.... :)

Beyond the OR issues, and as already tagged, the main body has no other citations, diversions to supporting texts, or any discussion on where/why/how this type of thing occurs. (Which might bear overlooking if the text did not read like a thinly veiled commentary on the correctness (or otherwise) of English/Irish crossover forms.)

A balanced article in this area should probably discuss how or why this "merge" occurs, with a nod towards the notion of Internationalism (linguistics), Loanwords, Semantic loans and how this can occur in living languages. Particularly those that share similar spoken community bases or with cultural overlaps. (EG: Perhaps a comment on how this type of thing might be expected when most speakers speak both languages?) The Sino-Japanese article as an example suffers from lack of citation also, but at least gives some background, and a slightly more balanced view. Guliolopez (talk) 01:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the hints, Guliolopez. I think I know the Bord na nGaeilge discussion you're talking about. I'll try spend some time this weekend cleaning up the article and providing more evidence.

On a personal note, this is not original research - I grew up in "irish schools", where the main language was Irish. One of the biggest sins, apart from speaking in English itself, was the sin of Béarlachas. I'll try find evidence of that as well, as I think it is interesting. Kae_verens 13:16, 21 December 2007 (GMT)

Béarlachas: simply the Irish for Anglicism
Some notes:


 * Béarlachas is simply the Irish word for "Anglicism". There is hardly any cause to include an article on Béarlachas as distinct from "Anglicism" or "the English influence on Irish". I would suggest deletion or merger.
 * Some of the examples provided are not Béarlachas in any commonsensical sense. Mar shampla means literally "as an example", and to see it as calque from English is less than justified. Carr is actually an old word, probably from Latin (where it is a borrowing from Celtic - it might actually be an indigenous Irish word!), while gluaisteán is an official word created by terminologists. It is obvious that whoever wrote the article was not very deeply knowledgeable of the language, and might have been promoting a personal agenda. It is definitely not NPOV.


 * No distinction is made between acceptable and unacceptable Anglicisms, or between Gaeltacht native anglicisms and English influence from non-native learners, or between established loanwords and new, unstable ones. Panu Petteri Höglund (talk) 16:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Besides, the word "pidgin" is used in a non-specialist way. It could be justified to call the impoverished language of terminal speakers and bad second-language learners "pidgin" in some sense. But a kind of Irish riddled heavily with English words, but with an intelligent and intricate use of grammar, is scarcely "pidgin" in any sense. Panu Petteri Höglund (talk) 16:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Most likely the reason that this article on "Béarlachas" was created is that Béarlachas has come to mean something more than Anglicism in Ireland, and has taken on an identity of it's own so to speak. To me and many others it refers to the dangerously liberal use of loan words which are endangering Irish as a language with it's own identity and integrity as opposed to a dialect of awkwardly written English words with the odd spattering of Latin. Béarlachas particularly refers to loan words for which a native Irish word already exists. Foras na Gaeilge as a national organisation have a lot to answer for as regards the words they have warped into "Irish". It is nonsensical to invent a new word in a language when a native word already exists or can be easily formed, scannán (film) is an example of their more informed work. It doesn't take much to look up the origin of a word in a dictionary and translate it, something which Foras na Gaeilge has failed and is failing to do, but Foras na Gaeilge "Sin scéal eile".

Car comes from Latin carrus meaning two wheeled vehicle, which may or may not come from a Celtic origin so let's presume it doesn't until otherwise proven.

As regards this statement: "No distinction is made between acceptable and unacceptable Anglicisms, or between Gaeltacht native anglicisms and English influence from non-native learners, or between established loanwords and new, unstable ones". How can you speak for all Irish speakers. From my own personal experience (something which I CAN account for), and many of my Irish speaking friends (many of whom are native speakers) have been reproached for using Béarlachas and do reproach others for doing so.

On the matter of Pidgin languages, going by what you say ISN'T pidgin, let us consider Engrish and Franglais standard English for all to use without a second thought, all in the name of English (it is a living growing language after all)...VEGERTABRES FOR EVELYBODY!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.147.139.74 (talk) 23:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The anonymous poster himself seems to have little informed idea of what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable Anglicism. I am aware of the fact that people often have uninformed ideas of what is an acceptable Anglicism (a long-accepted dialectal word) and what is unacceptable (ad hoc loans and syntactic Anglicisms). The anonymous poster seems to be accusing Foras na Gaeilge of consciously importing Anglicisms (probably this means unstable new terminology) and at the same time reproaching Irish speakers for using ad hoc loanwords. And as regards the meaning of the word "pidgin", I use it in the linguistic sense - I am aware of the fact that the word is liberally used in different senses in polemic, as the anonymous poster illustrates.


 * As regards "speaking for all Irish speakers", I think I do have an informed opinion of what constitutes good Irish, bad Irish, new borrowing, established borrowing and so on, after reading and annotating some nine thousand pages of Irish written by native speakers or recorded by folklore collectors. Panu Petteri Höglund (talk) 13:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

"Some Béarlachas words use letters that are not traditionally in the Irish language..."

This is of course bonkers. Véarsa is attested in Peig, jab is an established loanword at least in Connemara. It might not be advisable to admit all colloquial loanwords into the written language, but it is entirely lunatic to allege that these words have been deliberately introduced by some sinister Foras na Gaeilge cabal. It would be more to the point to allege that modern, native writers of the language have introduced them. Panu Petteri Höglund (talk) 13:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Dubious article
I can't see why this article should exist in the English Wikipedia at all. As Panu says above, it's really just the Irish word for Anglicism and it's not even a well judged survey of the topic. There's a big difference between long accepted loan words like praghas or dabht and some of the oddities that occur in some official Irish. Mere lexical items also pale into insignificance IMHO in comparison with the use of English grammar. There are also much more useful and informed sources on the internet on good Irish and I'm hard pressed to come up with a reason why it's Wikipedia's business anyway. Original research, not encyclopaedic and worst of all not interesting!

Don't get me wrong...I cringe at expressions like "ag fáil dorcha" but if you're going to tackle such a subjective and contentious issue, at least do it rigorously and in an appropriate article. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 09:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It’s a pity this article hasn’t progressed more in 12 years, though it has at least been moved. I know I haven’t helped, but at least I haven’t replaced a (not great, but valid) citation with a citation needed tag like one editor. Some editors are puzzlingly unhelpful. ⚜ Moilleadóir ✍ 02:49, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Article Tone
The tone of this article is at times informal and slightly opinionated. I've picked out a few quotes as examples:

"'Calquing also occurs: an English phrase is literally translated into Irish, even though an equivalent Irish phrase already exists.'"

The use of the term "literally" is what creates the informal tone in this case. A good way of knowing if a sentence is informal or not is to remove the word in question and see if the sentence still says what it wants to say, i.e.

"'Calquing also occurs: an English phrase is translated into Irish, even though an equivalent Irish phrase already exists.'"

Note: without the term "literally" the sentence gives the same information but in a less opinionated tone.


 * More Examples

"'Many words are commonly thought by “purists” to be béarlachas'" -Unnecessary use of quotation marks on "purists".

"'superstrate language and a minority language with few or no monolingual speakers and a perceived “lesser” status.'" -Once again the use of quotation marks on "lesser" indicates the writer's opinion: re-phrasing needs to be done here. Also "superstate" is misspelled.

Also: The titles need to all have capital letters, i.e. these titles:

Modern concepts Old borrowings — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.44.42.242 (talk • contribs) 22:05, 15 March 2012‎


 * The word "literally" does not impart an informal or opinionated tone. It's necessary because the point is that phrases are translated word-for-word into Irish (e.g. "slow" + "down" → "moilligh" + "síos") rather than as whole concepts (e.g. "slow down" → "maolaigh ar do luas"). Removing the word "literally" would thus make the meaning less specific and less clear. "Superstrate" is spelled correctly; the word superstate means something completely different. The scare quotes around the words "purists" and "lesser" are there to indicate that these words do not necessarily reflect an editorial point of view. Removing the scare quotes would suggest that the editors of the article agree with the value judgments those words carry. Finally, Wikipedia's Manual of Style specifies sentence case for headers, thus "Modern concepts" and "Old borrowings" are correct, while "Modern Concepts" and "Old Borrowings" would violate our house style. Angr (talk) 23:25, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Confusing
This para. appears to be from something completely different: muyembo nsoh evaris'''                                                                                                           m uyembo nsoh eavris, né le 8 may 1986 à bamenda au cameroon, est un homme d'État camerounias. Il est l'actuel un handballeur internationel, professional   et etudent en france, Naissance : 8 may  1986 (27 ans), bamenda, nord ouest, cameroun Taille : 1,85 m –

If speakers of Irish think this article is rubbish (see above) who am I to argue? The distinction between Bearlachas and loan-words seems specious to me.

Chrismorey (talk) 08:39, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Alas, Wikipedia is not immune to vandalism. I've reverted it now. As for the difference between Béarlachas and loanwords, Béarlachas includes loanwords, but also includes code-switching and the word-for-word translation of English idioms and syntactic structures. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, speakers of Irish who are not linguists and have no thorough training in academic linguistics (or worse, none at all) are poorly equipped to judge articles about linguistic topics. It bears repeating that being a speaker (native or not) of a language does not make you an expert in that language. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:25, 6 June 2015 (UTC)