SPU@PSUVMA.BITNET (11/07/86)
I was wondering if anyone out there knows of any books (that can be obtained in America) that deal with the subject of the Gaelic language in Scotland. Books on Irish abound, but I've never come across one on this subject. I'm mainly interested in grammar-type books. Thanx! ------- * K. SCOTT SHAY * ***************************************** {AKGUA,ALLEGRA,IHNP4,CBOSGD}! * EACH MAN'S LIFE TOUCHES SO MANY OTHER * PSUVAX1!PSUVMA!BITNET!SPU * LIVES; AND WHEN HE'S GONE, IT LEAVES * SPU@PSUVMA (BITNET) * AN AWFUL HOLE. * * --CLARENCE(THE ANGEL) FROM * * "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" * *****************************************
rathmann@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Michael Ellis such as he is) (11/12/86)
> K. Scott Shay >I was wondering if anyone out there knows of any books (that can be >obtained in America) that deal with the subject of the Gaelic language >in Scotland. Books on Irish abound, but I've never come across one >on this subject. I'm mainly interested in grammar-type books. >Thanx! I've only encountered 3 books on Scots Gaelic in my life, and all three have serious problems. The easiest to get your hands on is probably from the "Teach Yourself.." series. If my memory serves me correctly, this book uses an English-style phonetic notation that is utterly worthless for any language (English included), not to mention a language whose sound structure is as thoroughly alien as Gaelic. For all I could tell, it might have treated Scottish grammar as well as anything in existence, or it could have been full of lies and delusions. I am not usually inspired by the generally pedestrian tone of the material presented by the "Teach yourself.." series, but that could be precisely what most people need, especially if there is a real live Scotsperson handy to tell you how the words are really pronounced. What we need is a native speaker to comment on this book. Some time ago I managed to successfully order a grammar from a funky place in Scotland by the name of "McClaren's Scottish Highlands' Printing Company" (or something like that). Their scholarship is, well, not exactly what one comes to expect from the big money languages. For one thing, I could not understand the point of many of the exercises, while others left me in the dark about important grammatical, syntactic, and phonetic questions (horrible English-style pronunciations again..). Still, it is clear that a great deal of sincere effort went into this book. I've also seen a dictionary published by the same outfit which provided mysterious single-word definitions (no history, no phonetics) and lacked the words whose meanings I wanted to know at the time. McClaren's also purports to publish things to read if you ever really learn Gaelic. The best text I've found (in a used book store) is "The Gaelic of Arran" Nils M. Holmer from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, which is a scholarly presentation of a Scots Gaelic dialect still used by 605 native speakers in 1931. The treatment is brutally minimal, quite scientific, amazingly complete given its 211 pages, but, alas, assumes one already has basic references, such as a good dictionary and grammar. This text is certain to appeal to a very small percentage of that huge Scots Gaelic instructional text market out there.. Need I say I haven't made much progress?. Learning Gaelic, especially Scots Gaelic, presents obstacles far more serious than other languages, even if satisfactory texts existed and even if one could obtain them. It has become my ignorant opinion either that the Celtic languages are genuinely peculiar, or else that, due to a historical lack interest in them, proper didactic techniques have yet to be invented. Perhaps all the Celtic languages need is somebody to do what Chomsky did for English; traditional English grammar texts didn't make any sense to me either until I studied Latin (the mold into which it was being force-fit). The "Real" English made a lot more sense when I first saw it from the viewpoint of the phrase-structure/transformational approach; I suspect that the apparent confusion of Celtic languages would dissolve if a Celtic Chomsky would tailor a formalism suitable for clarifying just what all those strange verb forms and funny particles are doing. Other problems: Who would you speak with? What would you read? Is it not true that the Scottish literary tradition has been in English for more centuries than the Irish? Even if you found a Gaelic speaker, they'd probably speak the wrong flavor: Scots Gaelic is quite a different language from Irish Gaelic -- I've been told they're not mutually comprehensible. Can anyone confirm or deny all this hearsay? As to the the differences between Scottish and Irish, on paper, among the obvious divergences I can perceive are that the Scots verb has totally lost person/number distinctions in conjugation, unlike Irish. Eclipsis, an initial consonant mutation (lenition is the other), is another feature disappearing in Scottish while remaining in Irish. Spelling differences abound whose reality, phonetic or otherwise, is of unknown significance to me. Here are a few random words in each and wild stab at the pronunciations thereof (Gaelic cognoscenti are urged to issue forth corrections with vigor): Orthography ??Pronunciation?? English Irish Scots Irish Scots ------- ----- ----- ----- ----- grass fear feur f'er f'er seven seacht seach-d/g s'akht s'akhk night aoiche oidhche ekh'0 ukh'0 after i ndeaghaidh an deidh in'ey 0nd'ey wart faithne foinne fahn'0 fon'0 barn iothlann iolain ohl0n ul0n' hill cnoc cnoc knok krongk monster uill-phiast uile-bheist ul' f'i0st ul'0 v'est' ash(tree) fuinnseog uinnsean funs'0g uns'0n Note on pronunciations: besides the usual european values for consonants and vowels, 0=a in idea, kh=ch in German ach, ng=ng in song, '=palatizes preceding consonant (cluster), {s',t',d'} sound very much like English {sh, ch, j}, st' much as st in "question", kh' as ch in German ich; palatization can also induce glides in flanking vowels.. -michael chan 'eil Gaidhlig math againn /kha nel' gal'ig' mweh ag0n'/ (we do not speak good Gaelic) -common saying in parts of Scotland
keeshu@nikhefk.uucp (Kees Huyser) (11/16/86)
In article <8282SPU@PSUVMA> SPU@PSUVMA.BITNET writes: >I was wondering if anyone out there knows of any books (that can be >obtained in America) that deal with the subject of the Gaelic language >in Scotland. Books on Irish abound, but I've never come across one >on this subject. I'm mainly interested in grammar-type books. >Thanx! >------- > * K. SCOTT SHAY * You could try to contact: David McKay Company Inc. 750 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017 They are the US representative of the _Teach Yourself Books_. I think they have one called _Teach Yourself Goidelic_. As far as I know, `Goidelic' is the Scots version of Gaelic. Hope this is some help, Kees | Kees Huyser | UUCP : keeshu@nikhefk.uucp | or: {[wherever]!seismo}!mcvax!nikhefk!keeshu | BITNET: U00212@HASARA5.BITNET | IF YOU BELIEVE DISCLAIMERS, YOU'LL BELIEVE ANYTHING!