User talk:MacTire02

Hello, MacTire02! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Gimme danger (talk) 20:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply] Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General - Spam - Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Hi, the Irish name for Ballinasloe is Béal Átha na Slua. Béal Átha na Sluaighe and Béal Átha na Sluaigheadh are forms based on outdated orthographical rules.--Damac 15:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, as the pronunciation and spelling of Bangladesh in manx language is similar to a offensive word in Bengali language I've considered that as a vandalism. Please undo my edit. Thank you. Tanvir che (talk) 13:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have found your reasoning to be correct in the naming of this article and have moved the article to conform with international best practice. Sarah777 (talk) 00:23, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Thank you for the information about Livonian Wikipedia, nice work. It is a bit funny to edit a Wikipedia almost no one will ever be able to understand. And unfortunately I am also not an expert although I suppose I have some more sources than you. Back to the topic though, I found it unable to edit template kēļ+lv. The correct form would be "Leţkīelõs" (inessive case) instead of "Leţi kēļ" (incorrect nominative). -- Avellano (talk) 19:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I wrote message to you on the gvwiki :) --Eino81 (talk) 22:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi my friend!

I would like to request something from you. Yes, translation, again. I hope, it's not a bad thing for you. Some years ago I wrote a (really) short story about a lonely man (actually symbolized the Saami nation). I translated into some languages and I thought, it would be great to have it more, like also in Manx :) I made this page, the English translation is somewhere there. You can put the Manx translation there. We have already an Irish, a Scottish and a Welsh tarnslation, so there are still place for the Manx :) Thank you again! Sorry for my disturb... :( - --Eino81 (talk) 11:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to vote for you, I hope, it helped, if you need me, just write and I will vote again on you. Could you make me a Manx traslation, but only if you want. There is a great Hungarian painter, I made the English article right now: István Sándorfi, he is my role-model. Could you make a Manx version? Thank you! --Eino81 (talk) 13:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your support. The voting is still open for two more weeks so I don't know if the election will have been successful or not until then. I will write the translation for your article as soon as I can. It may take a week but hopefully sooner than that. I'll let you know when it is written. --MacTire02 (talk) 23:57, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I got it, I thank you. Do you still need any vote from me? :) Anyway, did my vote count? :) --Eino81 (talk) 21:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the vote. The election is still open for another few weeks. Until then we won't know if we've been successful. I will let you know as soon as we know. :) --MacTire02 (talk) 22:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I hope you're doing fine and I sincerely apologize for this intrusion. I've just read your profile and saw that you seem to be a learned person interested in (small) languages, so I guess that being Irish helps you understand what it is to use a minorized language and maybe I am not bothering you and you will help us... I'm part of an association "Amical de la Viquipèdia" which is trying to get some recognition as a Catalan Chapter but this hasn't been approved up to that moment. We would appreciate your support, visible if you stick this on your first page: Wikimedia CAT. Supporting us will be like giving equal opportunity to minorized languages in the future! Thanks again, wishing you a great summer, take care! slán agat Capsot (talk) 20:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I completely agree with your aim. The idea that chapters are based on states and not nations is against my beliefs too. Best of luck with your request. --MacTire02 (talk) 20:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dia dhuit, a "Mhic Thíre", mise "Roidhrigh" (ba chórtaisí dhom Ruaidhrí nó Raidhrí a scríobh!). Is dóigh liom go dtuigeann tú an Ghaeilge go maith, agus dá bhrí sin scríbhim insan chainnt beagáinín. Is teangeolaí mé go bhfuil staidéar déanta sa teangeólaíocht, agus is ait liom uaireanta na rudaí a deirid na daoine ná tuigid na cainteanna agus a stádas sa stair, san litríocht, agus araile.

Is léir gur duine tú go bhfuil mothúchán láidir ionat faoin Ghaelg, agus go bhfuil tú ag déanamh sár-oibre ar son na teangan. Mo ghraidhn thú!

From the linguists point of view Manx spelling is inconsistent and phonetically inaccurate, just like English, Irish, Scots (Gaelic and Lallans), French, Swedish, Norwegian and quite a few other languages, due to their histories and developments - and lack of developments [a desire to retain a traditional spelling that is outdated]. There is also often a "naive" use of the word "phonetic" for what is actually more correctly "orthographic convention". The fact the "ee" in English and Manx is phonetically [i:] and in Dutch is phonetically [e:] is orthographic convention based on the history of the languages. Don't forget, in Middle English, "ee" was actually phonetically [e:].

If we today were to develop an orthography for Manx based on our modern day knowledge of languages, linguistics and Gaelic as opposed to English writing practices, it is a fair bet that the script developed would be based on the Gaelic orthographies, as these, after all, are orthographies that have evolved to represent Gaelic language phonology. We are now much more linguistically sophisticated than those who developed Manx writing conventions.

Looking at Manx from the analytical point of view of using a Gaelic orthography would mean not only a rethink of how Gaeilg should be spelt, but also how it was "misrepresented" by using English spelling convention without actually analysing the language. The implementation of the system was poorly done. The present of the verb "ta" is an example; it would be as follows in an adaptation of Gaelic orthography:

ta mi, ta u, ta e (t'e), ta i, ta sinn, ta siu, ta ad (t'ad)

The established way of writing t'ou, for exampe, and then saying that "oo" is pronounced "ou" after t', as I saw somewhere, is a misunderstanding of the verb-pronoun combination in the specific case - and possibly influenced by "thou" in spelling(?). The pronunciation is "ta oo", which should be the spelling.

This is a much too simple example of the mistakes caused by the application of a spelling system based on the phonology of one language to another language with a very different phonology, partly based on the assumption of linguistically and orthographically naive adults that the spelling system that they have been brought up on is "natural". In other words, such people impose writing on speaking, rather than looking at the language and then developing a writing system based on the language. If the Isle of Man had been overrun by Napoleon and become a French possession, then the revival of Manx would have been through French orthography, and people would have thought that that spelling system perfectly natural and "phonetic" (therefore ta mi/my, ta ou, ta e/t'e, ta i/y, ta chinn, ta chou, t'ad).

From this "academic" point of view, the sentence "The result is an inconsistent and only partially phonetic spelling system in the same way that English orthographic practices are inconsistent and only partially phonetic." is an accurate statement that needs to be understood from the linguistic point of view; after all, the statement refers as much to English as Manx.

However, have said this, this does not in any way mean that Manx orthographic practices do not have a logic of their own, as you rightly point out. English does too, in its way, even though the rules and exceptions are so complex that it takes years to learn to spell English - and many people never get there. Manx has been saddled with the same problem. The fact that you and I can spell English very well is the result of years of practice - however, if you look at it from the point of view of someone having to learn to write the language, then you realise how inconsistent it (and Manx) spelling conventions are.

"Personally I don't agree with it (Manx orthography is phonetic and it never had a Gaelic orthography to preserve - it'd be like suggesting French should have preserved the Cyrillic orthography to show its similarities with Moldovan Romanian), but it is a criticism by an eminent scholar and so does deserve a place in the article. Just not in the background section. A simple line or two to describe the orthography should suffice in the Background section. --MacTire02 (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)" - in this statement of yours you make one mistake. French was never written in Cyrillic. Cyrillic was essentially an adaptation of the Greek alphabet for Church Slavonic.

There is also the assumption that because there is no evidence of the Gaelic script ever having been used on the Island of Man, then it can't have been used, and that therefore the Manx were illiterate. This could be based on a misunderstanding of medieval and later Gaelic society. Also, 1000 years ago (just to take a ballpark figure), what was spoken on the Isle of Man was the same language as was spoken in Ireland and Gaelic Scotland. Politically, socially and linguistically the three areas (which were more than just three countries at the time) were all part of the same society. Therefore, even illiterate members of the society spoke a language that had an established orthography. By at least this criteria what was later to become Manx had a literature and used the Gaelic orthography.

Is this satement of mine naive? In some ways yes - after all, the Middle Gaelic of a 1000 years ago evolved into three varieties (strictly speaking more than three - the differences between Munster and Ulster Irish are as big as the differences between Irish and Scottish in many ways). The writing of Gaelic "evolved", and on the Isle of Man and locally elsewhere, the potential development to a modern orthography was halted.

Middle Irish literature and and its orthography is as much the heritage of Manx as it is of Irish and Scottish, just as Roman-Empire Latin literature and language is part of the heritage of all the descendants of Latin, and Beowulf/Old English is as much part of the literary and linguistic heritage of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as it is of England, and of the now (sadly) defunct Yola of Ireland.

"But then again, the vikings invaded Man round about the same time as the Irish monks started writing, and unlike the Western Isles of Scotland, Man was never reincorporated into a Gaelic administration -- it was part of Scotland for a brief while, but the language of court by then was early Scots."

- This comment also contains a couple of inaccuracies - the Irish Monks were writing at least two centuries before the Vikings came, and probably more. The Isle of Man was incorporated into a Gaelic administration for quite some time, that of the Lord of the Isles - Gaelic speaking.

"The language we know as Manx never had a Gaelic orthography. The Gaelic orthography only exists in Scotland and Ireland. Never in the Isle of Man. Manx is only spoken in the Isle of Man and did not have any written tradition until the 17th century. From the moment a Gaelic language arrived on the island it was not written down until the 17th century. Therefore it did not have a Gaelic orthography. You cannot say that the separate but related language (through descent) of Irish used one orthography, therefore Manx lost that orthography. --MacTire02 (talk) 17:28, 12 March 2010 (UTC)"

- again, the mere fact that there is no evidence does not mean that the Gaelic orthography was not used on the Isle of Man. After all, what would the Gaelic-speaking catholic priests who were trained in Ireland or Scotland use? To make an accurate statement, we can only that there is no evidence that the Gaelic orthography was used there. Though, having said that, I have a vague memory of one theory that at least one of the medieval Irish manuscripts (Book of Kells?) might actually have been produced on the Isle of Man.

The language now called Manx, and which has a clearly separate status since at least 1500, was not written using the Gaelic orthography at that time (the 1500s) [partly or mainly because all Irish/Gaelic visitors of certain classes (baird, seannachaithe, agus araile) were banned on pain of death in the 1500s]. For the vast bulk of the population of the British Isles and elsewhere in the same period before 1500, we can say exactly the same thing - most people were illiterate. However certain people, such as priests and monks, were literate, and the Gaelic-speaking priests were always literate in Gaelic and perhaps less so in Latin and Greek - the logical assumption is that the Gaelic-speaking priests on the Isle of Man were using the Gaelic orthography while living on the Isle of Man - and that there were probably at least some who were Manx themselves.

"The Irish orthography would have presented insurmountable difficulties; it would have been to the multitude an unknown tongue." Kelly's Manx Grammar" Kelly's learned friend who made this statement, and therefore Kelly himself, made a wrong assumption - but an assumption that was amazingly common for the 1700s through to well into the 1900s (and still in existance today). And that is that an "illiterate" people who speak what is considered a "dialect" of an established literary language must learn the full form of the established literary language to become considered to be a "fully literate people". Switzerland is a good example, where High German was introduced instead of developing a standard Swiss German; French-speaking Switzerland has almost lost its Gallo-Romance language because of this imposition. I wouldn't mind betting that what they (Kelly and learned friend) assumed was the full implmentation of Irish language as well as orthographic practices in an unadapted form - not just like writing Gaedhilge for Gaelg, and Chuaidh for "hie", but also the full Classical Gaelic language. Of course that would have been madness.

This does not mean that a perfectly sound Gaelic-based orthography can not be developed for Manx. After all, it is an orthography which has evolved to represent not just the standardised Irish and Scottish versions, but also has the flexibility to have been used to represent dialect versions (as in the cnósach focal of Briain Ó Cuív). "Is muar an troidh e", "ba mhaith leam gol nis", "Maith leat an taigh seo?" are somehow more logical in appearance and easier to understand to my "Gaelic orthography" trained eyes than the Manx orthography versions.Roidhri (talk) 07:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

""The result is an inconsistent and only partially phonetic spelling system in the same way that English orthographic practices are inconsistent and only partially phonetic." is an accurate statement that needs to be understood from the linguistic point of view; after all, the statement refers as much to English as Manx." My problem with this sentence is the reasoning behind its inclusion in the article on the Manx language. You said yourself that "Manx spelling is inconsistent and phonetically inaccurate, just like English, Irish, Scots (Gaelic and Lallans), French, Swedish, Norwegian and quite a few other languages", so why then do we not see similar statements on the corresponding articles regarding those languages? You also wrote that Manx spelling is inconsistent. Upon what criteria is that statement based? Logic? Phonetics? Phonology? History? Tradition?

"If we today were to develop an orthography for Manx based on our modern day knowledge of languages, linguistics and Gaelic as opposed to English writing practices, it is a fair bet that the script developed would be based on the Gaelic orthographies, as these, after all, are orthographies that have evolved to represent Gaelic language phonology. We are now much more linguistically sophisticated than those who developed Manx writing conventions." We are certainly more linguistically sophisticated than those who developed Manx writing conventions, but you say that if we were to start afresh, that "the script developed would be based on the Gaelic orthographies", yet you have also written that "Manx spelling is inconsistent and phonetically inaccurate, just like...Irish, Scots (Gaelic and Lallans)", therefore why, if we were to start afresh would we base it on another inconsistent and phonetically inaccurate orthography?

"The present of the verb "ta" is an example; it would be as follows in an adaptation of Gaelic orthography:

ta mi, ta u, ta e (t'e), ta i, ta sinn, ta siu, ta ad (t'ad)

The established way of writing t'ou, for exampe, and then saying that "oo" is pronounced "ou" after t', as I saw somewhere, is a misunderstanding of the verb-pronoun combination in the specific case - and possibly influenced by "thou" in spelling(?). The pronunciation is "ta oo", which should be the spelling." If there were a Gaelic based script developed for the Manx language then I would question the spelling you have devised above. If developed, a Gaelic spelling would represent the present tense of the verb "ta" thus:

ta mí, ta ú, t'é (ta é should never be used as it is pronounced as a monophthong /tɛː/ or /teː/ depending on context), t'í (/tiː/)
ta sinn, ta sibh (<bh>, <mh>, etc from Irish became <u>, <oo> in Manx, c.f. Manx "jalloo" = Irish "dealbh", Manx "shassoo" = Irish "seasamh"), t'ad 

Also t'ou is spelled thus as that is the way it is pronounced. It is only ever pronounced as separate "ta oo" when there is emphasis placed on the subject of the sentence, in which case "uss" is the preferred word. The words "t'ou" are pronounced /tɛʊ/ or /taʊ/ and never /ta u:/ as would be indicated by "ta oo".

You wrote: "Also, 1000 years ago (just to take a ballpark figure), what was spoken on the Isle of Man was the same language as was spoken in Ireland and Gaelic Scotland. Politically, socially and linguistically the three areas (which were more than just three countries at the time) were all part of the same society." I have never disputed that what was spoken 1,000 years ago on the Isle of Man was the same language as spoken in Ireland or Scotland - to argue otherwise would be folly. What I disagree with is the insistence from people who generally have a negative attitude towards Manx that it is simply a "bastardised version of Irish" - those four words you can find in the daltai.ie website, together with the rather insulting phrase "cactheanga" used to describe Manx. But then, 1,000 years ago Dutch and German were the one language, yet their orthographies and spelling conventions are rather different today - should the Dutch change their spelling system for no other reason than to reassure their powerful neighbours that Dutch is very similar to German and to make it "easier for them to learn"? The Manx of today has evolved quite radically from the Gaelic spoken 1,000 years ago, including loss of verb tenses, loss of the dative and genitive cases (for the most part) and the almost eradication of the gender system, while incorporating words and structures from French, Norse, English, and Scots (Lallans) as well as Welsh. The current spelling system, while it may irk some Irish and Scottish spectators and possess certain linguistic anomalies, is just as much representative of the language's separate development as its grammatical changes.

You wrote: "Middle Irish literature and and its orthography is as much the heritage of Manx as it is of Irish and Scottish, just as Roman-Empire Latin literature and language is part of the heritage of all the descendants of Latin, and Beowulf/Old English is as much part of the literary and linguistic heritage of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as it is of England, and of the now (sadly) defunct Yola of Ireland." So too is the current Manx writing system part of its language's heritage. To rid the language of one of the most instantly recognisable features is to rid it of a substantial part of its heritage. And remember that Beowulf is written in an entirely different spelling system than today's spelling system, exactly like Manx.

You wrote the following sentences as evidence that manx can be written in a Gaelic alphabet: "Is muar an troidh e", "ba mhaith leam gol nis", "Maith leat an taigh seo?". Certainly they look more Gaelic, but two points: I assume the phrase "Is muar an troidh e" is supposed to be analogous with "Is mór an trua é" - in Manx we would say "She mooar y chymmey eh" or "she mooar y doogh eh" which I suppose could be written "'sé muar a' tiomadh é" or "'sé muar a' dúch é". The only word I know if that has a similar sound to "troidh" is the Manx word "trie" which means 12", a foot, a sole, etc.

You also wrote that the "The Isle of Man was incorporated into a Gaelic administration for quite some time, that of the Lord of the Isles - Gaelic speaking." That I'm afraid is inaccurate. The Lord of the Isles was subservient to the King of Norway, and was at all times a Norse speaker - even the stone crosses at Maghal/Maughold confirm this. The language of administration was Norse, not Gaelic. Yes it is true that the inhabitants of the Isles of Scotland were gaelic speaking, but they were rarely ever afforded the opportunity to travel to the Isle of Man. It is from this Norse-speaking administration, including the Lord of the Isles, that Manx has so many Norse elements in its tongue. As for the Isles of Scotland, we can see placename evidence of this Norse overlordship in the placenames of the area including Steornabhagh/Stornoway. The first kings of the Isles were Norwegian princes and jarls, followed by a brief (20 year) Gaelic period from 1052-1072, then Norse control again until 1095, followed by three years of Gaelic rule, then 150 years of Norse rule again until 1237, when the Lord of the Isles only referred to the Hebrides and Scottish Isles under his control. From 1237 to 1275 there was a period of Norse control, then brief spells of interchanging French-speaking Scottish and English control, until independence under the English Montacutes (1333-1399), followed by 700 years of English rule. In other words, in the last 1,000 years there were only 13 years of Gaelic-speaking control over the Isle of Man.

I have never doubted that Manx could be written in a Gaelic script. I have however consistently queried the motives behind why individuals with little or no knowledge of the Manx language dictate that Manx should be written in a Gaelic script. The only reason to be given is that it makes more linguistic sense (despite the fact that it is admitted that the English, Manx and Gaelic scripts are inaccurate), it displays the close "kinship" between the Gaelic languages (if these proponents simply learned the language that would already be obvious) and it opens the language up to be learned by speakers from Ireland and Scotland (yes it may do so, but it closes the door on those from the Isle of Man from learning their language - in a survey conducted on the Isle of Man, the vast majority of people questioned (99% +) preferred the current system to a Gaelic one, and when individuals were asked which language they would prefer to learn, a gaelic script based Manx or the current Manx, they answered the current one). Language is much more than a means of communication. A language reflects the views of the speaker, and with Manx this is no exception. For thousands of years the island has been dominated by larger, more powerful groups, be they Irish or Scots overlords, Norse kings, English Lords and landlords etc. The island has always expressed its individuality and rebeliousness - from a distinct, individual language that persisted as a common tongue among the islanders until right into the 19th century, to an individual unique writing system still in favour to this day, to even religion, where, although dominated by Anglicanism, the Methodist church almost rivals the Anglican church on the island in size and scope. --MacTire02 (talk) 10:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mhuise, a bhuachaill, go raibh míle maith agat as mo chur ar an slí i bpointí na "Gaelgey". I wonder where I got the "troidh" from? Ba chòir dhom mo bhéal a dhúnadh sna rudaí sin ná hoireann dom.Roidhri (talk) 23:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First off, thank you for giving serious answers and asking serious questions to what I hope comes across as a serious discussion. I do not want to cause offence, however I feel that in some ways I have.

I should make it clear that my point of view is that of a linguist (to Masters level, though yet to finish PhD level) and a language teacher, both first-language literacy and language as a Foreign/Second language. Also – I am not advocating the dropping of present Manx spelling and going “Gaelic”, even though one can dream!

<<: ""The result is an inconsistent and only partially phonetic spelling system in the same way that English orthographic practices are inconsistent and only partially phonetic." is an accurate statement that needs to be understood from the linguistic point of view; after all, the statement refers as much to English as Manx." My problem with this sentence is the reasoning behind its inclusion in the article on the Manx language. You said yourself that "Manx spelling is inconsistent and phonetically inaccurate, just like English, Irish, Scots (Gaelic and Lallans), French, Swedish, Norwegian and quite a few other languages", so why then do we not see similar statements on the corresponding articles regarding those languages? You also wrote that Manx spelling is inconsistent. Upon what criteria is that statement based? Logic? Phonetics? Phonology? History? Tradition?>>

My criteria is (a) the descriptive linguistics point of view, which subsumes lingusitic logic, phonology, historical linguistics and tradition, (b) orthographic development, and (c) the psychology of orthographies. The ideal of “linguistic” and “ease-of-learning” logic is one phoneme – one graphic representation, and neither English nor Manx are close to that.

I suppose there are a couple of reasons why the statement should be in the article. The main one is because if the O'Rahilly statement is to be there, his very negative statement needs to be balanced by an acknowledgement of inconsistencies that do exist, why they exist, and then a valid statement of the actual state of the orthography. A minor point is that if I was writing a linguistic description of the language, it would be mandatory for me to write such a statement, as the form in which the language is written is its visual representation, and therefore needs to be defended in a critical way.

I must point out, though, that such statements about the inconsistencies of English and French are clearly made in the English and French Language entries (writing systems section) in Wikipedia. Further, from my teaching background I know all too well how the irregularity of spelling systems is the bane of remedial teachers, sufferers of dyslexia, and so on (basically, the more inconsistent a writing system, the more prominent such problems become).

<<: "If we today were to develop an orthography for Manx based on our modern day knowledge of languages, linguistics and Gaelic as opposed to English writing practices, it is a fair bet that the script developed would be based on the Gaelic orthographies, as these, after all, are orthographies that have evolved to represent Gaelic language phonology. We are now much more linguistically sophisticated than those who developed Manx writing conventions." We are certainly more linguistically sophisticated than those who developed Manx writing conventions, but you say that if we were to start afresh, that "the script developed would be based on the Gaelic orthographies", yet you have also written that "Manx spelling is inconsistent and phonetically inaccurate, just like...Irish, Scots (Gaelic and Lallans)", therefore why, if we were to start afresh would we base it on another inconsistent and phonetically inaccurate orthography?>>

You misunderstand me – I said “based on”. I have a feeling [and if I am wrong, please correct me] you might have no experience of orthography development (descriptive and applied linguistics), but have just learnt orthographies as packages without looking into the various issues behind the orthographies – the whys and wherefores.

A sophisticated orthographic development is not to take the writing system of language X and apply it to language Y “willy-nilly”. This is exactly what led to English having such a shocking spelling system, and simply taking either the Scottish or Irish Gaelic systems without going through the important first steps of understanding the phonology of the language that is to be given an alphabet (here, Manx), and (b) beng aware of the phonological system of the language “donating” the spelling system (Irish and Scottish and their various dialects).

Orthographic development is : first step - the phonological analysis of the language (Manx), second step, the identification of an appropriate spelling system that represents the phonology of the language in a systematic and easy-to-learn way (Latin-based? Gaelic-based? English-Based? Welsh-based? … or?) third step - keeping an eye on other issues, such as what other languages and so on the speakers of the language either know, are literate in, or need to know (in the case of the Manx, English is the main one), fourth step - trials to see of the system really is easy to learn and logical form the point of view of the speakers of the language fifth – implementation

With a language with an already-established orthography like Manx, it is too late to go through all the above steps – and unnecessary. Manx spelling can be improved without going “Gaelic” (or anything else).

<<: "The present of the verb "ta" is an example; it would be as follows in an adaptation of Gaelic orthography:

ta mi, ta u, ta e (t'e), ta i, ta sinn, ta siu, ta ad (t'ad)

The established way of writing t'ou, for exampe, and then saying that "oo" is pronounced "ou" after t', as I saw somewhere, is a misunderstanding of the verb-pronoun combination in the specific case - and possibly influenced by "thou" in spelling(?). The pronunciation is "ta oo", which should be the spelling." If there were a Gaelic based script developed for the Manx language then I would question the spelling you have devised above. If developed, a Gaelic spelling would represent the present tense of the verb "ta" thus:

ta mí, ta ú, t'é (ta é should never be used as it is pronounced as a monophthong /tɛː/ or /teː/ depending on context), t'í (/tiː/)
ta sinn, ta sibh (<bh>, <mh>, etc from Irish became <u>, <oo> in Manx, c.f. Manx "jalloo" = Irish "dealbh", Manx "shassoo" = Irish "seasamh"), t'ad 

Also t'ou is spelled thus as that is the way it is pronounced. It is only ever pronounced as separate "ta oo" when there is emphasis placed on the subject of the sentence, in which case "uss" is the preferred word. The words "t'ou" are pronounced /tɛʊ/ or /taʊ/ and never /ta u:/ as would be indicated by "ta oo".>>

I have to respectfully disagree with you on two counts here. One is that if Manx spelling did go Gaelic in a linguistically logical way for the “genius” of Manx (as they used to put it a couple of centuries ago), then “sibh” would not be correct. Reference to Irish “dealbh” and “seasamh” is a red herring here. These words retain the old spelling in Irish because of the dialect variation; in Cork-Kerry-Clare Irish they are pronounced “dealabh” and “seasamh”, in other dialects “deala” or “dealaw” and “seasa” or “seasaw”, and the further north one goes, the more one hears “dealú” and “seasú”. Referring back to my statement about examining the phonology of the language first before “willy-nilly” imposing an external spelling system. A Gaelic Manx spelling of these two words would have to be “dealu” and “seasu” (without the “fada”), and similarly “siú” (with the “fada”) and not “sibh”. Arguably, “mie” by the same token would have to be “mai”, and not “maith”, and so on. In other words, Manx taking the best and leaving the worst of the system.

As for “ta oo” versus t'ou - /tau/ to give the phonemic form. If you break this up into its constituent forms it is /ta-u/, and not /t-au/. It may be said as one word, but then that is exactly how in English “you're” is said, as one word, and the same for the Sottish cognate “tha thu” in ordinary speaking, “thau”, not “tha u”. In ordinary speaking, even if the written form was “ta oo”, the pronunciaation would still be /tau/, just as “ta mee” has shortened forms in ordinary speaking (to use “Gaelic writing” “ta mi” rather than “tá mí”, which would be the slower, more formal form, and then there is the emphatic “ta mis”, just as in Irish “tá mé” in quick speaking is “ta me”, somewhat emphatic or slow “tá mé”, and really emphatic “tá mise” (and of course the other possibilities, “taim” (quick) “táim” (slow) and “táimse” (emphatic).

<<: You wrote: "Also, 1000 years ago (just to take a ballpark figure), what was spoken on the Isle of Man was the same language as was spoken in Ireland and Gaelic Scotland. Politically, socially and linguistically the three areas (which were more than just three countries at the time) were all part of the same society." I have never disputed that what was spoken 1,000 years ago on the Isle of Man was the same language as spoken in Ireland or Scotland - to argue otherwise would be folly. What I disagree with is the insistence from people who generally have a negative attitude towards Manx that it is simply a "bastardised version of Irish" - those four words you can find in the daltai.ie website, together with the rather insulting phrase "cactheanga" used to describe Manx. But then, 1,000 years ago Dutch and German were the one language, yet their orthographies and spelling conventions are rather different today - should the Dutch change their spelling system for no other reason than to reassure their powerful neighbours that Dutch is very similar to German and to make it "easier for them to learn"? The Manx of today has evolved quite radically from the Gaelic spoken 1,000 years ago, including loss of verb tenses, loss of the dative and genitive cases (for the most part) and the almost eradication of the gender system, while incorporating words and structures from French, Norse, English, and Scots (Lallans) as well as Welsh. The current spelling system, while it may irk some Irish and Scottish spectators and possess certain linguistic anomalies, is just as much representative of the language's separate development as its grammatical changes.>>

I know you didn't dispute the 1000 year ballpark figure – so please forgive if I gave that impression. And you are right to get pxxxed off with people considering Manx to be a “bastardised version of Irish” - anyone who thinks so obviously has no understanding of Gaelic linguistic history (and probably of not much else either!) - They might also belong to the class of people who might ask you if you speak “Celtic” (have you ever had that experience? I have, and it is weird!).

I mentioned before the importance of the visual effect of a spelling system – and psychology. To people brought up on the Gaelic orthography being “confronted” by the Manx orthography, after decades/centuries of trying to get rid of English domination in all shapes and forms (and failing miserably), it makes them feel superior to see a language that they feel has “succombed”. They are to be more pitied than censured.

Also, the Dutch-German split is much older than 1000 years ago – at least 1500. Dutch is actually much more different from German than people assume – and Dutch people can be offended by comments to the contrary. It is also more like English than people assume (I feel I can make a coment here, I have studied both Dutch and German).

I am also well aware of how much Manx has changed – but – remember – it actually has not changed that much, as can be seen from the records of what the Manx fishermen told early researchers, as well as what the various Irish and Scots Gaelic speakers who met and spoke to Manx people said. If you compare the modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic dialects with Classical, Middle and Old Gaelic, there has been as much change, and from basically the same sources. In fact, in some cases it has been Irish and Scottish that have changed more, and not Manx (as you know in the case of words like “iu”, Classical Gaelic “ibh”, modern Irish “ól”).

When did Manx actually become a different language – divergence does not mean become a different language. Mutual intelligibility is the best measure. It was when the Irish, Scots and Manx Gaelic speakers could no longer readily undersand each other that the “different” language status kicks in. And going by what the old Manx fishermen said, that never really happened for them.

<<: You wrote: "Middle Irish literature and and its orthography is as much the heritage of Manx as it is of Irish and Scottish, just as Roman-Empire Latin literature and language is part of the heritage of all the descendants of Latin, and Beowulf/Old English is as much part of the literary and linguistic heritage of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as it is of England, and of the now (sadly) defunct Yola of Ireland." So too is the current Manx writing system part of its language's heritage. To rid the language of one of the most instantly recognisable features is to rid it of a substantial part of its heritage. And remember that Beowulf is written in an entirely different spelling system than today's spelling system, exactly like Manx.>>

I have a feeling again you have missed the point. Manx has a rich literary heritage, just as English, French, Irish and other languages do – even if it is in a different spelling system and a different era (I don't know whether to be offended or laugh at this statement : <<And remember that Beowulf is written in an entirely different spelling system than today's spelling system, exactly like Manx.>> I almost feel like saying “duhh, tell me something new” – but that would be rude, unless we were having this discussion over a beer in a pub somewhere – and I am quite sure some things I have said in “good faith” actually come across that way – if so, please point it out to me if ever that happens.).

<<: You wrote the following sentences as evidence that manx can be written in a Gaelic alphabet: "Is muar an troidh e", "ba mhaith leam gol nis", "Maith leat an taigh seo?". Certainly they look more Gaelic, but two points: I assume the phrase "Is muar an troidh e" is supposed to be analogous with "Is mór an trua é" - in Manx we would say "She mooar y chymmey eh" or "she mooar y doogh eh" which I suppose could be written "'sé muar a' tiomadh é" or "'sé muar a' dúch é". The only word I know if that has a similar sound to "troidh" is the Manx word "trie" which means 12", a foot, a sole, etc. >>

Again, I wonder where I got the “troidh” from? “Is é muar an tioma é”, “is é muar an dúch é” I suppose would be a bit better (a good writing system should avoid silent letters like the plague – it saves time writing, money printing, and makes things easier to learn).

<<: You also wrote that the "The Isle of Man was incorporated into a Gaelic administration for quite some time, that of the Lord of the Isles - Gaelic speaking." That I'm afraid is inaccurate. The Lord of the Isles was subservient to the King of Norway, and was at all times a Norse speaker - even the stone crosses at Maghal/Maughold confirm this. The language of administration was Norse, not Gaelic. Yes it is true that the inhabitants of the Isles of Scotland were gaelic speaking, but they were rarely ever afforded the opportunity to travel to the Isle of Man. It is from this Norse-speaking administration, including the Lord of the Isles, that Manx has so many Norse elements in its tongue. As for the Isles of Scotland, we can see placename evidence of this Norse overlordship in the placenames of the area including Steornabhagh/Stornoway. The first kings of the Isles were Norwegian princes and jarls, followed by a brief (20 year) Gaelic period from 1052-1072, then Norse control again until 1095, followed by three years of Gaelic rule, then 150 years of Norse rule again until 1237, when the Lord of the Isles only referred to the Hebrides and Scottish Isles under his control. From 1237 to 1275 there was a period of Norse control, then brief spells of interchanging French-speaking Scottish and English control, until independence under the English Montacutes (1333-1399), followed by 700 years of English rule. In other words, in the last 1,000 years there were only 13 years of Gaelic-speaking control over the Isle of Man.>>

Thanks for pointing this out to me.

<<: I have never doubted that Manx could be written in a Gaelic script. I have however consistently queried the motives behind why individuals with little or no knowledge of the Manx language dictate that Manx should be written in a Gaelic script. The only reason to be given is that it makes more linguistic sense (despite the fact that it is admitted that the English, Manx and Gaelic scripts are inaccurate), it displays the close "kinship" between the Gaelic languages (if these proponents simply learned the language that would already be obvious) and it opens the language up to be learned by speakers from Ireland and Scotland (yes it may do so, but it closes the door on those from the Isle of Man from learning their language - in a survey conducted on the Isle of Man, the vast majority of people questioned (99% +) preferred the current system to a Gaelic one, and when individuals were asked which language they would prefer to learn, a gaelic script based Manx or the current Manx, they answered the current one). Language is much more than a means of communication. A language reflects the views of the speaker, and with Manx this is no exception. For thousands of years the island has been dominated by larger, more powerful groups, be they Irish or Scots overlords, Norse kings, English Lords and landlords etc. The island has always expressed its individuality and rebeliousness - from a distinct, individual language that persisted as a common tongue among the islanders until right into the 19th century, to an individual unique writing system still in favour to this day, to even religion, where, although dominated by Anglicanism, the Methodist church almost rivals the Anglican church on the island in size and scope. --MacTire02 (talk) 10:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)>>[reply]

If having a Gaelic spelling system for Manx is simply to make it easier for Irish or Scottish Gaelic people to learn the language, then changing the spelling system is a waste of time. If they are interested, they'll do it anyway. More importantly, having a Gaelic spelling system makes inter-lingistic written communication quicker and easier to learn. Passive knowledge is what is important here. There would be the psychological benefit of the Gaelic peoples having a visually obvious unity that is at present obscured by the Manx system – and of course we could go for the other way round, that the Irish and Scottish systems be “adapted” to the Manx one!

Also, a systematic Gaelic spelling system would not actually cut off the Manx people from learning their own language - and, more importantly - would make it easier for children growing up with the langauge to learn. If Manx people are really interested, they will learn their language regardless of the actual writing system. I am a language teacher, I know that any given language writing system is new for any given student - it doesn't not stop people learning.

The survey about which script to use is interesting – and I am glad to see that someone thought of doing it – however the results are exactly what I would have expected, for various reasons. (1) the people being asked are English speakers to whom the English spelling system is familiar (like a well-worn glove) after years and years of using it and knowing no other, and (2) the Gaelic systems are foreign, unfamiliar, and not understood. Asking the question was naïve. To get a valid answer, you first have to give people all the keys to make a considered opinion, otherwise you might as well not ask the question. You have to give people training in the Gaelic script, so that they can understand the lingusitic, phonetic, tradition and logic of the system. Then, if you ask the question, you get a more balanced “yes” or “no”.

<<Language is much more than a means of communication. A language reflects the views of the speaker, and with Manx this is no exception. For thousands of years the island has been dominated by larger, more powerful groups, be they Irish or Scots overlords, Norse kings, English Lords and landlords etc. The island has always expressed its individuality and rebeliousness - from a distinct, individual language that persisted as a common tongue among the islanders until right into the 19th century, to an individual unique writing system still in favour to this day, to even religion, where, although dominated by Anglicanism, the Methodist church almost rivals the Anglican church on the island in size and scope.>>

Here you make a strong point – perhaps of a people who took the things the dominant peoples gave them and made them their own ? After all, the original language was British (as far as is known), not Gaelic, which was an imposed language originally. The French, Norse and English content is also imposed, Methodism and Anglicism are English inventions – and the spelling system is also “bestowed” by the colonisers. And if the Manx had shown a bit more individuality or rebeliousness, would Manx still be the language of the country ? The fact that the language remained the major language of the island until the 19th century is not surprising; it was actually not that great a possession for its foreign overlords – more strategic than anything else – and so they just didn't bother. After all, the places where Irish and Scottish Gaelic “hung” on were in areas with very similar backgrounds; the overlords didn't really care that much what the people did, as long as they paid their rent.

The fact that it took 100 years for it to almost disappear (four generations more or less) is also not surprising – you could almost say that the people were not that attached to their language, not like the Welsh. Linguistic suicide rather than linguistic death. This was happening in the three Gaelic countries at the same time, and had happened just before in Cornwall, and just before that in Shetland and the Orkneys. Not especially surprising, though sad. Just people looking for a better future for their children, and seeing English as the way towards this. Roidhri (talk) 23:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a couple of points on what you have written above. First off I would like to say that it is a pleasure speaking to someone about this issue without argumentativeness (other than academic). I have not regarded anything you have written here as insulting or as an attack, rather that you are simply stating your viewpoint from your own academic position (and obviously with authority on the matter due to your qualifications). You stated that I must not have linguistic training: this is true to a degree. I have studied Irish in school and on my own (having learnt it as a child before attending school, during school, etc. but subsequently having lost a lot due to lack of practice), and I have also studied Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Finnish, Cornish and Scots Gaelic, all to varying levels, as well as Manx. However, as you rightly point out, my study of these languages involved taking them as a whole "package" to use your words, and I never did undertake any study in these languages on a purely linguistic or orthographic level (although I have read a substantial amount on the historic development of the Gaelic languages, Irish and Manx in particular).

The second point is a bit more direct, and related to what you wrote above regarding sibh/shiu, seasamh/shassoo, and dealbh/jalloo. My understanding of these words were that they were all related to Middle Irish word-final /-əβʲ/ which when written was represented by the combination -(a)ibh, -(a)imh, including Irish sibh. Together with Middle Irish /əβ/, these phonemes merged to form Manx /uː/. The three words mentioned above in Manx would variously be pronounced as /ʃʲuː/, /ʃaːzuː/ or /ʃaːðuː/, and /dʒæluː/, i.e. the endings are all pronounced the same. Why in that case would you give them separate endings (i.e. with some taking a word-final <ú> and others taking a word-final <u>)? I would rather suggest sibh, seasamh, and dealbh, to agree with plurals and other mutation causing factors (i.e. sibh, but emphatic sibhs; seasamh, but seasamhacht "doggedness"; dealbh, but plural dealbhan, dealbhag "icon"). Also, regarding maith/mie/mai, I don't think that mai would be acceptable either, as again you need to think about derivatives of the word, and I don't think maias works for mieys - I would rather contend that maidh would be a far more logical representation of Manx mie. If we take its derivatives, words such as mieys, mienys, and mieyssagh could then be written as maidheas, maidhneas, and maidheasach, rather than maias?, maineas?, and maiasach which I imagine would not correspond accurately with their pronounciation.

The third point is one of definition. What is a language? What is a dialect? We know the differences between British English and American English is one more of a slight variation in pronounciation and vocabulary/spelling, but mutual intelligibility is assured. Do the existing differences constitute the classification of BE and AE as separate dialects of the same language? If so then we would assume that a dialect is simply the existence of slight variations in the language. However, the differences between Irish and Manx, for example, are far greater, and it does require the speakers to be in each other's company for a period of time to "adjust" to each other's speach before ready intellible communication can commence. Yes these two languages share a common history, a common VSO structure, and a large shared vocabulary, but there are also radically different grammatical structures, genders (where they exist, often times words in Manx may be of one gender but of a separate gender in Irish, e.g. Irish ceol (masculine, 1st dec) = music, but Manx kiaull also meaning music is feminine), differing verb structures, orthography, etc. If we talk of mutual intelligibility, then we could say Spanish and Italian are simply dialects of the one language (indeed there is the phrase "what is a language but a dialect with an army and a navy"). Anecdotally, when I was living in Russia two of my friends, one from Mexico, the other from Italy, would regularly converse with each other in their respective languages, one speaking Italian, the other Spanish, with no problem of communication between them at all. Likewise, Dutch and German (although Germanic languages are not my speciality, so correct me if I'm wrong) are very similar if you look beyond simple standardised languages. Dutch is very similar to German based on the following criteria: Dutch is a language of two primary varieties: Low Franconian and Westphalian. Westphalian includes Low Saxon, which politically speaking is classified as a dialect of Low German. Low German includes the dialects as spoken around Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Bonn, etc. However standard German is based on High German, which includes Central and Upper German. Obviously Standard German is not similar to Standard Dutch, but on the ground someone living just inside the border on the Dutch side has very little problem conversing with someone living on the corresponding side of the German border. Again, I am hypothesizing as I do not have experience with Germanic languages, but I know this phenomenon exists in Slavic, where a Polish speaker living in Lublin has no problem speaking with someone from Warsaw, who has no problem speaking with someone from Bialystok, who again has no problem speaking with someone from Brest, who has no problem speaking with someone from Minsk, and finally with Moscow, despite the fact that linguistically, or politically speaking, we are dealing with three different languages (Polish, Belarusian and Russian) across two different language groupings (Eastern and Western Slavic). My point being thus: although fishermen from the IOM may have been able to communicate with those from Cape Clear or elsewhere in Gaeldom, that does not mean what they spoke were separate languages or the same language. As indicated, speakers of various languages can often communicate with each other with relative ease. To establish whether or not there was a language break, we must first establish what the difference is between language and dialect.

Due to time constraints I can not add anything further to the conversation today, but I am still willing to participate in the conversation :) --MacTire02 (talk) 11:20, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

R:: Tá áthas orm nár chuir mé aon bhuairt ort, a chara. I would give “seasu” and “dealu” an unmarked “u” simply because it is unstressed, whereas in a word like “siú” there is stress (at least when the word itself is stressed). The same with Manx “dúch” (Irish dubhach – pronounced in Munster Irish, which is the Irish I speak as “dúch”), “púsa”, and other words. Unstressed “u” was a characteristic of Classical Gaelic, and still is to a certain extent sporadically in Irish. It was the “u” in “acu”, “orthu” and so on. The main problem from my “tidy” mind point of view is retaining of “useless” letters that do not add to the learnability of the language, which would be the case if the words were spelt dealbh and seasamh (not too mention bh as opposed to mh, which has no phonemic reality in Manx – or many dialects of Irish or Scottish for that matter).

Where the use of the “fada” is concerned, there is a characteristic of Manx (which also very sporadically occurs in other Gaelic regional dialects) which gives the effect of Manx being ”geographically” a border “dialect” [I use this term in a very broad sense here] between Southern and Northern Irish, where Scottish Gaeic and Northern Irish fit together as one over-riding “pan-dialect”. This is the habit of Manx in some words such as “beggan” having the Northern stress, and in others, like “mooarane”, having the Southern stress, even though both words have what is the same suffix (in Irish -án, and in Scottish -an [-an]).

The “fada” in Irish usage differs whether the speaker is from the south as opposed to the north (the west is of course another “border dialect”, but in a different way from Manx). In the south, the “fada” always marks long vowels, and more often and not these vowels are in the stressed syllable. In the North, however (but not Scotland), the “fada” marks long vowels in stressed syllables, but short clear vowels in unstressed syllables. If the “fada” is not there in an unstressed syllable, then the pronunciation is normally “schwa”. In Scottish Gaelic, the “fada” is not used in unstressed syllables, and so there is ambiguity as to whether an unstressed vowel is the clear version or schwa.

Therefore, “mórán” and “beagán” are pronounced “muaraan” and “beogaan” in the south (“begaan” in Waterford), and “móran” and “beøgan” in the North.

Where Manx is concerned, because of the “mixed” character of its stress patterns, sometimes Southern in nature, sometimes Northern, the use of the “fada” then could create confusion if not handled wisely. “Mooarane” would be written “muarán”, while “beggan” would be written “began” (not “beagan”, because the sound is not “biagan”). However, what then in the case of words like “maitheas” (or maidheas) – would the last “a” be pronounced “a” or schwa? One possibility could be to use the backwards “fada” to show “a”, thus “begàn”, leaving “a” in unstressed syllables for the schwa.

Alternatively, “y” could be retained for “schwa”, thus “maitheys” or “maidheys”. The difference between “aan” and “ane” in Manx could then be handled by the two “fadas”, “aan” being “àn”, and “ane” being “án”.

Another point against writing “mai” for “mie” would be that the diagraph “ai” would be confusing - would it be the diphthing “ai” or the “a” followed by a slender consonant?.

R:: What you say about the mutual intelligibility of Italian and Spanish is correct – parlo molto bene italiano y puedo comunicar en español – et je parle français, perou não falo portugués – in my job I have to have a working understanding and knowledge, and where possible a spoken knowledge of quite a few languages. And I see the “mutual” intelligibility in action daily. By linguistic criteria, Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible to quite an extent, and Portuguese and Spanish even more so.

There are three or four different definitions of “language” and “dialect”:

1) politico-geographical – the language is the dominant language of the country, and all other forms of speech are “dialects”; each country has its “language”, and what is a "language" n one country can be a "dialect" in another.

2) writing – if the language has a written form, it is a “language”, if not, it is a “dialect”

3) linguistic – if it can be understood readily without having to learn it, then it is a dialect (the general “cross-over” point is considered to be 80% cognacy).

4) “racist” - if it is of a “civilised” society, it is a language, if it is of a “lesser” people, then it is a dialect.

Going by 1), British and American could be considered “different” languages – after all, at one time Flemish (which is actually also spoken in Southern Holland in Noord Vlaanders) and Dutch were considered different languages.

The existing differences between Standard British English and Standard American English do constitute different, but extremely closely related dialects. The differences are accent, vocabulary, intonation and some minor points of grammar. The differences between Geordy and “Zomerzet” are much more clearly distinct dialect differences in accent, vocabulary, intonation, grammar, and so on. The differences between Shettish and “Zomerzet” constitute a language difference, in that the speakers of the two “dialects” cannot readily understand each other.

Dialects exist in continua – one is the Gaelic dialect continuum which you have probably read many times about. If, 400 years ago, you started from Inis Cléir insan Mhumhain, agus lean tú ar aghaidh go dtuaisceart na hAlban, thugfá faoi ndeara na difríochtaí beaga idir na canúintí ó cheantar go ceantar, and you wouldn't be able to say where one dialect stopped and the next started – even crossing over from Ireland to Scotland via Rathlin. Apparently it was difficult for outsiders to tell the difference between the Gaelic of Antrim, Rathlin and Kintire. If you compare points that are far apart on the continuum, they are clearly different, but neighboring points are very small in difference.

What is special about Standard UK and Standard US English is that they are local variants of the same Upper Class Educated English, and therefore “social” dialects rather than “regional” dialects.

You are correct in saying that Irish and Manx are pretty different, and that both the Manx and the Irish have to learn each other's speech – however, this is a relatively “painless” process, and nothing like the amount of study English and German speakers have to go through to learn each other's language, and nothing at all like the amount of effort needed to learn Russian if you are an English speaker (and vice versa).

The differences between Irish dialects can be as big as the differences between these and Manx – different genders for the same word (for example “ainm” in Munster is feminine, and masculine in the Caighdeán, West and North). Northern Irish in grammatical terms is closer to Manx than it is to Southern Irish – the negative in “cha/chan”, the lack of most personal verb endings, a general loss of the dative, the pronunication of the verb ending -im as -am (e.g. “tuigeam” for “tuigim”), the pronunciation of “ua” in certain types of words as [y:ǝ] (like [fy:ǝr] fuar and [by:ǝhilʲ] buachaill), and words like “bróg” (braeg) as [brɑ:g] (almost “brág”) in places like Inis Toraí.

Where North-West Europe below Denmark is concerned, there are four language groups, Plattdüütsch (Niedersachsisch, Saxon, Pennsylvania Dutch, Low German and other names), Frisian (in three languages, North, East and West Fries), Dutch and Hochdeutsch (High German). Plattdüütsch, Frisian, English and Lallans are all part of the same sub-family, while Dutch and Hochdeutsch belong to two separate branches, though Dutch has had a lot of influence from Frisian, and quite a few regional dialects of Dutch have a strong Frisian undercurrent (In Holland and Belgium there are local language-dialects, such as Brabants, Vloams, Stadfries, and so on, which are in some cases a mix of Frisian and Dutch (the original language from the Rhine north to southern Denmark was Frisian), and in others Low Franconian dialects).

The geographical territories do not coincide with the political boundaries. Plattdüütsch is spoken from north-west Holland (from around Groningen) all the way across to (originally) Prussia, as well as in some parts of southern Denmark. Hochdeutsch is inland, in Saxony (which has nothing to do with the Saxons strictly speaking, apparently) and beyond, where it meets the other German languages, Bavarian, Schwabisch, Allemanic, Luxemburgisch, Schwitzertüütsch, Austrian, etc. Standard German is Hochdeutsch, itself the state language of where Martin Luther came from, which was why he wrote in it.

Therefore, someone living just inside the border on the Dutch side has very little problem conversing with someone living on the corresponding side of the German border – because they both speak Plattdüütsch, which is not Dutch or German, but a “minority” language, the speakers of whom face as much “prejudice” and so on as the Cornish, Manx, Irish and similar “minorites” have.

And you are right to say the same thing about the mutual intelligibility of Slavic languages – it also exists in India between Urdu, Hindi, Nepali, and so on, and in the Pacific between Hawaian, Tahitian, Maori, etc., all groups of closely related languages which have close historical and origin ties - they come from the same source.

I understand your point about the difficulty of deciding what is language and what is dialect. There is no hard and fast answer from linguistics. However, all the examples you cite (and me as well) are examples of very closely related languages with a common history/origin or in some cases what are really the same language which politics calls different languages (like Serbian, Croat, Bosnian and so on). They are languages that have a large amount in common, and that therefore the differences are relatively small.

If you compare this with the situation between Chinese, Arabic and English, then you have a completely different kettle of fish – three languages from completely different families with little or nothing in common, apart from loan words.

The difference between English, Dutch, German and Indonesian (I did it at university) is a case in point:

English: That book there is for you. Dutch: Dat boek daar is voor jou. (“boek” is pronounced virtually exactly the same as in English, “jou” is pronounced “yow”) German: Jenes Buch dort ist für dich. Indonesian: Buku itu untukmu. (buku is from Dutch)

As you can see, going by a simple example like this (always dangerous!), you could say Dutch and English are “dialects” of each other [which is actually not true], and German is another language. The German form is much more different from both Dutch and English. This is what I meant when I said people assume wrongly that German and Dutch are very similar – they're not. Indonesian, apart from the Dutch loan word, is maximally different.

Also, the differences between Italian and Spanish are in actual fact too great for real immediate mutual intelligibility for those who meet the other language for the first time. They have to go through a period of “adjustment”, exactly the same as Irish, Manx and Scots do/did. And this is how the fisherman could talk to each other and visit the Scottish and Irish Gaeltachtaí, because they had the time to meet people, to talk to them, to talk about common interests, and even to work together, and thereby develop that understanding (which was mutual).

However, the most interesting thing for me was the story I mentioned where a man living on Clear Island before the war met the Manx fishermen in the pub. He had never come across Manx speakers before – but within a very short time he was talking with them in Irish, and them in Manx, and they were understanding each other. This either means that the difference between native speaker Manx and native speaker (Southern) Irish was much less than is assumed, or that the Manx fishermen, through their travels around Ireland and Scotland were speaking “Irishised” Manx, or a mix of Manx and Irish. One or two of Ned Maddrell speech habits suggest this – like him saying a'so instead of a'sho (anso for anseo) – anso is the Southern Irish pronunciation. Roidhri (talk) 23:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<<"I would give “seasu” and “dealu” an unmarked “u” simply because it is unstressed, whereas in a word like “siú” there is stress (at least when the word itself is stressed). The same with Manx “dúch” (Irish dubhach – pronounced in Munster Irish, which is the Irish I speak as “dúch”), “púsa”, and other words. Unstressed “u” was a characteristic of Classical Gaelic, and still is to a certain extent sporadically in Irish. It was the “u” in “acu”, “orthu” and so on. The main problem from my “tidy” mind point of view is retaining of “useless” letters that do not add to the learnability of the language, which would be the case if the words were spelt dealbh and seasamh (not too mention bh as opposed to mh, which has no phonemic reality in Manx – or many dialects of Irish or Scottish for that matter).">> The problem I would envisage with spelling "shassoo" and "jalloo" as "seasu" and "dealu" respectively is as follows: Gaelic orthographical (GO) <ua> is generally pronounced as /uː/ (c.f. uafás, uamhan, uasal, etc.). If we use the spelling "dealu", then when we go to spell derivative words we run into a problem when we want to write "jallooaght", "jallooag", "jallooder" etc. which I think would be better spelt "dealbhacht", "dealbhag", "dealbhdair". Spelling these words with <u> would give the following (with pronounciation according to GO rules) "dealuacht" (/dʒæluːxt/ or /dʒælwɘxt/, instead of /dʒæluːɘxt/), "dealuag" (/dʒæluːg/ or /dʒælwɘg/ instead of /dʒæluːɘg/) and "dealudair" (/dʒælɘdɘrʲ/ instead of /dʒæluːdɘrʲ/). You also mentioned previously that the word "dealbh" is pronounced as "dealabh" in the South of Ireland, more like "deala" in Connacht and then more like "dealú" further North. Manx actually takes the more northern pronounciation "dealú". Perhaps "jalloo" would be better written as "dealbh" or "dealú" (with fada, as fada marks vowel length rather than stress).

<<"The difference between “aan” and “ane” in Manx could then be handled by the two “fadas”, “aan” being “àn”, and “ane” being “án”.">> This is an interesting one, and one that many critics of the Manx language point to when suggesting the writing system is not accurate. However there is a very definite reason for this. Most studies of the Manx language have concentrated on the final geographic area of the Manx language - the southern dialect of Manx. In this dialect both -aan and -ane were pronounced /eːn/ and /eːnʲ/ respectively (with a few exceptions), while in the northern dialect -aan was pronounced as /aːn/ and -ane was pronounced variously as /æːn/, /æːnʲ/ and /ɛʲn/. An example can be seen in the word "laa" (lá in Irish) which is pronounced as /leː/ in the south and /laː/ in the north. Both àn and án would encourage the pronounciation of one variant over the other while permanently hiding the subtle differences in pronounciation in the variant not represented, if you understand what I mean.

Another point we have to consider is the Manx "softening" of internal consonants as well as final -s when a word is in its plural form. Words such as "beggan" are pronounced as /bɛɤɘn/, where the internal <g> is softened, even though the word it derives from, "beg" is pronounced /bɛg/. Likewise words such as "uss", "luss" etc. are pronounced as /ʌz/ and /lʌz/ respectively, while a word such as "enmys" ("teideal") is pronounced /ɛnmɘs/ when singular but pronounced as /ɛnmɘzɘn/ ("enmyssyn") when plural. How would this phenomenon be represented by a Gaelic orthography, considering the letters w,x,y,z are not present in the alphabet?

<<However, the most interesting thing for me was the story I mentioned where a man living on Clear Island before the war met the Manx fishermen in the pub. He had never come across Manx speakers before – but within a very short time he was talking with them in Irish, and them in Manx, and they were understanding each other. This either means that the difference between native speaker Manx and native speaker (Southern) Irish was much less than is assumed, or that the Manx fishermen, through their travels around Ireland and Scotland were speaking “Irishised” Manx, or a mix of Manx and Irish. One or two of Ned Maddrell speech habits suggest this – like him saying a'so instead of a'sho (anso for anseo) – anso is the Southern Irish pronunciation>> Something I noticed about my own experiences in languages and speaking to people of various, but similar, languages. Given two people in a particular circumstance where p1 speaks X and p2 speaks Y, where X and Y are close descendants of a common XY language, there is a tendency, after initial learning for p1 to emulate certain aspects of p2's speach, and vice versa. In other words, while we can not be certain as we were not present at the conversation, it is likely that the Irishman in your situation above was speaking slightly Manx-ified Irish, while the Manxman was speaking slightly Irish-ised Manx. A similar phenomenon can be observed, albeit on a smaller scale, when you listen to two speakers of English, one Irish and one American, where the dialects have a tendency for slight convergence. Regarding "anso", in Manx there exists both "ayn shoh" and "ayns shoh" with the latter version pronounced quite similar to the Munster pronounciation.

Again I don't have much time for further discussion today, but gladly await your response. --MacTire02 (talk) 13:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1) It is important not to confuse vowel length with vowel quality. To use English examples, the difference between “cook” and “kook” is one of vowel quality, not vowel length (despite what people commonly believe), while the difference beween the “oo”s in “shoot” and “food” is length. In English, there is a phonological rule whereby phonemic vowels like /u/ are long when followed by a voiced consonant or when no consonant follows (as in “shoe”), and are shortened when followed by a voiceless consonant. The “oo” in “foot”, “look” and so on is a different sound, which is always short in English phonology.

Also, in English, the sound /u/ cannot appear in an unstressed syllable, and so if English speakers hear this sound, they subconsciously associate with either a stressed syllable or a long one. This is English phonology, not Irish/Gaelic phonology, where the sound /u/ can be in unstressed syllables and can be short. Dealbh and seasamh in Northern Irish do not end in long ú; they are short sounds.

2) The “oo” of “jalloo” and “shassoo” are short /u/, while the “oo” of “dooch” is long. Or, to put it another way, the “oo” of “jalloo” and “shassoo” cannot be long because in Manx (and Northern Irish and Scottish) phonology long vowels can not appear in that environment. Exactly the same “u” (to turn to Classical Gaelic spelling”), as I said last time, was used in words like “acu” (Old Irish “ocu”) and “orthu”.

3) In derivations of “jalloo”, there is no real issue with writing the sound as “u”, seeing that in Manx phonology (but not in Irish phonology), it is perfectly possibly to have the “short” u followed by the clear “a”. And this is the important thing, not to take Irish phonology – or Scottish – as a “package”, but to look at (a) Classical Gaelic orthography, Irish orthography and Scottish orthography, and to really understand how they work, and (b) to look at Manx phonology independent of any spelling system and see how that works as a phonological system [this is the science of “pure” phonology – studying the sound system of a language independently of its writing system]

4) ua : In Standard/Classical Gaelic pronunciation in Ireland and Scotland, ua is /uǝ/, and not /u:/ - /u:/ is considered “dialect”. Thus, uafás, uamhan and uasal are pronounced as writtten in more formal language (in Munster uafás is actually pronounced uahás, uamhan is pronounced uan (and for some people is nasalised), and uasal is pronounced uasal).

5) Therefore, dealuach (the “t” strictly speaking I suppose is not necessary, being silent), dealuag and dealudair, would be valid from the point of view of a Manx “Gaelic” orthography. In Manx phonology, dealuacht would not be read as dealúcht, because this would not be part of Manx orthography. Also, the spelling “dealbhacht” has potential confusion – is it “dealvach” or “dealuach”? The main problem rests in using “bh”, which would be one sound in words like “bha” and “a' bhen”, and another very different sound in other words. The ideal orthography is one sound=one symbol. “Dealudair” would not be read as /dʒælɘdɘrʲ/, because in the hypothetical spelling system “u” in unstressed syllables cannot have that “reading”.

6) The problem with using the fada in Manx is that Manx has a “mixed” system where word stress and vowel length is concerned, some words being “northern” in character, and some being “southern” in character.

As I said, in real-life use and “linguistic” perception, the fada has a different role in Southern as opposed to Northern Irish.

South: vowel length AND stress in most cases

North: long vowels in stressed syllables, but short clear vowels in unstressed syllables. In Northern Irish a case can be made for writing “dealú”, however this is because in unstressed syllables the fada shows that the vowel is clearly pronounced, and not is not [ǝ].

A word like beagán in the South is stressed on the second syllable, which is long : [bʲǝ'ga:n] . In the North the word stressed on the first syllable and the second syllable is short – but with a “clear” vowel : ['bʲøgan]. In unstressed syllables in the North where there is a fada, the vowel is short, not long.

Manx has its mixed system, some words where the use of a fada would resemble the Southern “character”, and others the Northern “character”, and so special thought would have to be paid to the use of the fada in Manx, and not just to blindly apply Irish or Scottish rules. In words like “barroose” (barús), the fada shows a long stressed vowel. Using the same fada in dealú creates confusion as to how dealú would actually be stressed.

Probably, the two types of fada would have to be used, the á and the à, the first to show long vowels that are really “long”, and the second to show clear unstressed vowels where there is a possibility of confusion of the exact pronunciation.

E.g.:

(Northern)

Bh'ad smúineàchtan da biach cábal dían scí as doimhneàch unsa mhócharaí da biach e er bhi ec na ferisean fod na hoidh as biach ad cur leis an ságart da cur a bheanàch er.

(Southern)

Bha ben ansó in teán chaidh as bha i lál mis da dh'ionsàch i da grá in páidear in Teárn. Dut i da rabh i grá e trá bha i innín bheág, ach t'e uille dearúduit eic, as bha i lál gionsach e rís san da grá e ec bhrástal na riodanach. As dut mis da dionach mi dionu ma seárr san da cuna lei as reinn i tiot ansó san da cláistean e, as bheil u lál da cláistean mi da grá e?

(What is interesting in this excerpt from Ned Maddrell is that the pronunciation of “yn” the is close to the Middle Irish/Early Classical Gaelic version, which was “in”).

6) Now that I see the phonetics of the “aan” and “ane” (ignoring as you have the exceptions), it is actually clear how these should be written in a Manx Gaelic script: “aan” (Southern [e:n], Northern [a:n]) as “án”, and “ane” (Southern [e:nʲ], Northern /æːn/, /æːnʲ/ and /ɛʲn/) as “áin”, as the overriding difference in the phonetic script is the “broad” vs “slender” characteristic of the “n”s in the two.

7) The internal softening of consonants in Manx is not a problem for a Gaelic orthography sensibly applied to Manx [“s” pronunced as “z” is known in a few words in Southern Irish, for example, as in Músgraí (the main Cork Gaeltacht) and “rós”, which are pronounced “Múzgraí” and “róz” (the genitive of “rós” in Cork is “róiz”, while on Inis Cléir in cases where intitial consonants are voiced or nasalised (ar an mbord, ag an bhfear, and so on), “s” also voices, like “ar an zsolas”].

The main problem for a Manx orthography would be how far to represent such internal voicing. As “gh” [ɣ] is a phoneme in Manx, then probably it would be better to write “beggan” as “beghan”.

If it is a part of standard Manx phonology that -ss at the end of words of one syllable like “uss” and “luss” is always pronounced as “z”, then a single “s” can be used to represent this, thus “us” and “lus”. If the suffix -ys is always pronounced with the “s” sound, then that is also predictable. If a single -s- between vowels is always pronounced -z-, then that is also predictable, and so in all cases the spelling of “s” can be used (just as in Italian, French and often in English). I get the feeling that in general in Manx the pronunciation of “s” vs “z” is pretty predictable.

However, if the “s” and “z” pronunciations are not predictable, this would mean that they are really are two separate sounds; then it would be better to make a difference, either by using “z” for “z” and “s” for “s”, or single “s” for “z” and double “ss” for “s”.

8) I reiterate, using a Gaelic orthography does not mean not being able to adapt it to the needs of Manx – in fact, it must be adapted, either you just fall into the trap of using a spelling system developed for the phonology of one language being used for another langauge with a different phonology.

<<Something I noticed about my own experiences in languages and speaking to people of various, but similar, languages. Given two people in a particular circumstance where p1 speaks X and p2 speaks Y, where X and Y are close descendants of a common XY language, there is a tendency, after initial learning for p1 to emulate certain aspects of p2's speach, and vice versa. In other words, while we can not be certain as we were not present at the conversation, it is likely that the Irishman in your situation above was speaking slightly Manx-ified Irish, while the Manxman was speaking slightly Irish-ised Manx. A similar phenomenon can be observed, albeit on a smaller scale, when you listen to two speakers of English, one Irish and one American, where the dialects have a tendency for slight convergence.>>

What you say here is correct – and what I said in a different, and perhaps clearer, way. But it is something that happens over time – and often over a long time. The Clear Ireland example is special because the Irish man had NEVER left Clear Ireland, andn this was the FIRST time he had met Manx. Also, the type of adjustment you mention can only be done when the speakers can already understand each other – in other words, they speak different dialects/version of the same language.

The Manxmen knew that this was a Gaelic speaking pub – they had the choice of going to an English speaking pub just across on the mainland (things I didn't actually say – sorry!). They chose the Gaelic one because they knew that it was Gaelic speaking. The Irishmen did not have time to Manxify his Irish, while the Manx fisherman had already been in contact with Irish speaking people not only elsewhere, but also around Clear Ireland. All that the Irishman could remember that was special in the Manx speech was the pronunciation of “capall” as “cabhal”, though he noticed other differences at the time that he quickly learnt to recognise. In other words, the Manx he heard and the Irish they heard was clearly understandable. If Manx was a very different language, then this could not have happened. There was adjustment (convergence, as you say – not the correct linguistic term - convergence is when too different languages or dialects "come together" and produce a new dialect or language).

<< Regarding "anso", in Manx there exists both "ayn shoh" and "ayns shoh" with the latter version pronounced quite similar to the Munster pronounciation. >> In the excerpt form Ned Maddrell, he used the word to mean “here”, and therefore ayn shoh. 90.193.208.66 (talk) 23:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this conversation is starting to sound a lot like we're initiating the creation of a Manx Gaelic orthography ;)

1) To look firstly at your point "dealuach (the “t” strictly speaking I suppose is not necessary, being silent)". I believe the "t" would indeed be necessary to differentiate between "jallooagh" and "jallooaght" - both pronounced the same, but the former being the adjectival version of the noun "jalloo" with the latter being a "state" or "form", similar to Irish "-acht" in words such as "Gaeltaght", "politickaght", "nabooaght", etc.

2) "If it is a part of standard Manx phonology that -ss at the end of words of one syllable like “uss” and “luss” is always pronounced as “z”, then a single “s” can be used to represent this, thus “us” and “lus”. If the suffix -ys is always pronounced with the “s” sound, then that is also predictable. If a single -s- between vowels is always pronounced -z-, then that is also predictable, and so in all cases the spelling of “s” can be used (just as in Italian, French and often in English). I get the feeling that in general in Manx the pronunciation of “s” vs “z” is pretty predictable."

The "s"/"z" sound in Manx is pretty predictable, so I guess the use of "s" in this position could be used in transliteration.

3) Regarding the following:

(Northern)

Bh'ad smúineàchtan da biach cábal dían scí as doimhneàch unsa mhócharaí da biach e er bhi ec na ferisean fod na hoidh as biach ad cur leis an ságart da cur a bheanàch er.

(Southern)

Bha ben ansó in teán chaidh as bha i lál mis da dh'ionsàch i da grá in páidear in Teárn. Dut i da rabh i grá e trá bha i innín bheág, ach t'e uille dearúduit eic, as bha i lál gionsach e rís san da grá e ec bhrástal na riodanach. As dut mis da dionach mi dionu ma seárr san da cuna lei as reinn i tiot ansó san da cláistean e, as bheil u lál da cláistean mi da grá e?

I believe these two sentences are not quite accurate. First of all, the phonetic transcription is not entirely accurate for modern Manx. The first piece displays elements not pronounced by modern Manx, and also lacks features that are pronounced by modern Manx. I would have rendered it as so:

Bh'ad smúineachtan do biach cábhal díachan scí as déineach ins a' mhoraigh do biach é air bhi aig na feirisean fud na hoidh as biach ad cur leis an tsághart do chur a bheanacht air.

"saggyrt" is actually pronounced as /saːɣərt/. Also, in standard Manx lenition is caused by prep+art, with the exception of "s" to which a "t" is added. E.g. seihll ("world"), but er y theihll (in/on the world). Also, "cabbyl" is pronounced as more like "cábhal". "jeeaghyn" is pronounced variously as "dían", "díaghan" and "díachan", the latter being the most common. "voghree" is prep+art causing lenition of initial "m", the word in its radical form "moghrey", pronounced as "mʌrə", as in "moghrey mie" pronounced as "muh-rah my". "Ec" in Manx, is pronounced the same as "ag" in Irish or "aig" in Scots. I would prefer the Scots spelling due to the slender quality of the final /g/ sound. I would also prefer the spelling "beanacht" insead of "beanach" or "beanàch" - the -acht indicating a form or state (Gaeltaght, jarroodaght, jallooaght, immeeaght, etc.) even though the final t is not pronounced to differentiate between noun and adjective. Again I would also use "air" for "er" for reasons similar to those for "ec".

I would render the second sentence as follows (bearing in mind correct grammar):

Bha ben anseó an tseáchan chaidh as bh'í lághal mis do ionsach í do ghráidh an "Páidear an Tiarn". Dúirt í do rabh í gráidh é trá bh'í iníon bheg, ach t'é uile dearúdait eic, as bh'í lághal 'g ionsach é rís son do ghráidh é aig bhrástal na riod ionach. As dúirt mis do dionach mi dionu mo s'fheár son do chúna léi as reinn í tiot anseó son do chláistean é, as bheil ú lághal do chláistean mí do ghráidh é?

aynshoh, ayn shoh, ayns shoh is one example of incorrect spelling in manx. All mean the same thing - here - and can be pronounced "anseo", "anseó", "ansó", "anseóch", "ansóch". "chiaghtin" is actually the lenited version of shiaghtin and is properly pronounced as "seáchan" or perhaps "seághan". "laccal" is pronounced variously as "lágal", "lághal", or "lál", more often "lághal" (like saggyrt). I would also use tiarn in place of chiarn, as this word can be pronounced either as you wrote it, or similar to Irish "tiarn". Dooyrt can be pronounced with or without the "r", but without is an English influence, although certainly acceptable (in fact more common than actual pronounciation of the "r"). I would also separate "gynsagh" into two parts - "g" and "ynsagh". The "g" here is a remnant of Irish "ag" similar to "ag ithe" which in Manx is gee or more appropriately in a modified Gaelic alphabet " 'g idh". I would also use ionach in place of "ennagh" as I feel this better reflects actual pronounciation. There might be confusion over "anach" i.e. should it be pronounced as on-uch or un-uch. Also, "share" is actually a remnant of the copula in Irish represented by "is", e.g. Irish "is fearr", Manx "share" or "s'fheár" (actually used by Brian Stowell previously when asked to write Manx in GO.

--MacTire02 (talk) 16:23, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<<Correct me if I'm wrong, but this conversation is starting to sound a lot like we're initiating the creation of a Manx Gaelic orthography ;) >> I won't correct you – we are creating a Manx Gaelic orthography the way it is supposed to be created, by discussion, trial, error, thinking about it, pondering, making mistakes, having flashes of genious – easy when what is being created might never actually be put into practice!

1) For "dealuach” vs “dealuacht” - I agree with your point about keeping the “t” to keep a visual distinction between “dealuacht” and “dealuach” - it also in at least some cases becomes pronounced when endings are added (like “smúineachtan, which from the historical perspective has the same suffix with what is called in linguistic terminology a 'suppletive' “-an” ending – 'suppletive' basically means a vowel, consonant or syllable is added that actually does not change the meaning in any way, like in English dialect some people say “oncet” instead of “once”). The only issue is that if ever Manx became a dominant language of the community, sooner or later people will start pronouning words as they are spelt (for example, in English “less educated” people sometimes say things like Wedensday instead of Wensday)

Ceist amháin anso – “nabooaght” - stress on the second syllable or the first?

3) Northern: Bh'ad smúineàchtan da biach cábal dían scí as doimhneàch unsa mhócharaí da biach e er bhi ec na ferisean fod na hoidh as biach ad cur leis an ságart da cur a bheanàch er. // <<Bh'ad smúineachtan do biach cábhal díachan scí as déineach ins a' mhoraigh do biach é air bhi aig na feirisean fud na hoidh as biach ad cur leis an tsághart do chur a bheanacht air.>>

I made the script decision on the actual pronunciation as recorded from the speakers themselves (Nedd Maddrell and the other unnamed person) – going by the Northern person's actual pronunciation, the /x/ in “moghrey” should be written in Standard Manx, as the “ch” was/is pronounced in Northern Manx – to write “moraigh” is to give precedence to the South over the North (which could be seen as being “disrespect” to the North). Also, the Northerner did not say either “cábhal” or “sághart”, he said “cábal” and “ságart”, a sign that the “softening” of consonants within words was either relatively unknown or rare in the North.

There are also other characteristics of the Northern sentence, such as the pronunciation that I wrote “doimhneach” - mistakenly so – should have written “daoineach”. He pronounced the “d” as broad, not slender, and therefore it can't be directly “déineach” - though it can be a Northern Manx development of the Classical Gaelic “déadhnach”).

<<do biach cábhal>> “do” here maybe should be “da” (= Irish “dá” if - “dá mbeadh”), the second “do” however is equivalent to Irish “go”. The pronunciation “fod” that I wrote is how he said what in Ireland actually has variants according to dialect and so on. “fud” is pronounced “fod” in Northern Irish, but not in the West or South (“fud”); it is more commonly pronounced “fad” at east in the South, and also sometimes “fuaid” - so all over the place in Southern Irish can be “ar fad na háite”, “ar fud na háite” and “ar fuaid na háite”.

With “ins a'” you have allowed yourself to be influenced by Irish spelling (insan), whereas it would be better to look at Scots spelling (ansan). It is common in all Gelic dialects for “ann” and its related forms to be pronounced “unn” in unstressed form, including in the combination ansan/annsan for those dialects that have this in speaking (not necessarily in writing - which is most dialects in Ireland and Scotland). Therefore the Northern Manx pronunciation is most likely from annsan.

Southern: Bha ben ansó in teán [my mistake! tseán] chaidh as bha i lál mis da dh'ionsàch i da grá in páidear in Teárn. Dut i da rabh i grá e trá bha i innín bheág, ach t'e uille dearúduit eic, as bha i lál gionsach e rís san da grá e ec bhrástal na riodanach. As dut mis da dionach mi dionu ma seárr san da cuna lei as reinn i tiot ansó san da cláistean e, as bheil u lál da cláistean mi da grá e?

The way Nedd Maddrell pronounced “dy ynsagh” as “da dh'ionsàch” is interesting, because it is what Irish and Scottish people say in many places – double the “do” when the next word starts with a vowel. It is particularly common in Scotland and Munster. “Ghabh mé úll chun é do dh'ithe”, “Ghabh mé úll chun é dh'ithe”, “Ghabh mé úll chun é d'ithe”.

<<Bha ben anseó an tseáchan chaidh as bh'í lághal mis do ionsach í do ghráidh an "Páidear an Tiarn". Dúirt í do rabh í gráidh é trá bh'í iníon bheg, ach t'é uile dearúdait eic, as bh'í lághal 'g ionsach é rís son do ghráidh é aig bhrástal na riod ionach. As dúirt mis do dionach mi dionu mo s'fheár son do chúna léi as reinn í tiot anseó son do chláistean é, as bheil ú lághal do chláistean mí do ghráidh é?>>

The problems with this are:

a) is it is too Irish/Scottish in using silent letters that add to the complexity of the language, as well as being too influenced by Irish spelling? Therefore the difficulty of both learning it and mentally processing it is increased – grá for example doesn't need the “idh”.

b) Nedd Maddrell's pronunication of “v'ee” was not “bh'í”, it was “bha í”, with the two coming together in fast speech, but the “a” of “bha” not being elided.

I have a feeling that the Manx orthography was developed in a dialect area that was different from the South and the North – because it doesn't really fit in with either – it probably represents the Manx of the center-east (Douglas), and probably in that dialect “v'ee” was written as pronounced, while in the South (at least), the dialect pronunciation was va ee (with the two running together as vai in fast speech).

c) “Dúirt” - again influenced by Irish spelling. The Manx pronunciation is “dúrt”, with broad “t” (otherwise the spelling would doorch or something like that).

<<"saggyrt" is actually pronounced as /saːɣərt/. Also, in standard Manx lenition is caused by prep+art, with the exception of "s" to which a "t" is added. E.g. seihll ("world"), but er y theihll (in/on the world). Also, "cabbyl" is pronounced as more like "cábhal">> See my notes above about how the Northerner actually pronounced the words.

Seihll ("world") and er y theihll is an interesting one to put into Gaelic orthography – do we go the Southern way (saol), or the Caighdeán way (sael)? My instinct is the Caighdeán way.

<<"Ec" in Manx, is pronounced the same as "ag" in Irish or "aig" in Scots. I would prefer the Scots spelling due to the slender quality of the final /g/ sound>>. Depends on dialect – in Munster Irish “ag” is pronounced “ig”, “ige” and “ge”, never “eig”. Writing “ec” as “aig” and “er” as “air” creates exceptions to spelling rules (“ai” = “a” followed by a slender consonant, not “e”). In a Manx Gaelic orthography there would be nothing wrong with writing “eig” or “eic” or “eir”.

Having said that, it should be like that in all the Gaelic languages – the Caighdeán in particular in Ireland is crazy. If it was designed to produce a modern spelling system that represented all the dialects of today – and all the dialects of today say “eir”, why write “ar”? All the dialects say either “eig” or “ig” (or variations), and so “eig” would be so much more clearer. The problem with the Caighdeán is that it was badly thought out, badly implemented, and aimed at the wrong people (a means to make it easy for English speaking Irish to learn Irish easily, not as a means to create a standard pan-dialect means of communication).

I agree with writing “gynsagh”, “gee”, etc. with the 'g separated. “Gee” can be Gaelicised as 'g í – this represents the pronunciation and does not have silent letters.

"I would also use ionach in place of "ennagh" as I feel this better reflects actual pronounciation. There might be confusion over "anach" i.e. should it be pronounced as on-uch or un-uch." As for riod anach – I should have written riodanach – because like “anything” and words like that, it has the phonological form of a special compound that habitually comes together. In an established Manx Gaelic orthography, the only possible pronunciation of “anach” would be /anax/; in a compound form like riodanach, the only possible pronunciation would be /riðǝnax/. Writing "ionach" also could be "ambiguous" - which part of the word would be stressed, the first or the last?

I know where "share" comes from – and it is pronounced pretty well exactly the same in some parts of Scotland and in Connacht ('s fhearr), and sometimes in Munster Irish, particularly in “níosa fhearr” (the dialect form of “níos fearr”, and pronounced “níseárr”). In a Gaelic orthography for Manx, because the “f” does not exist in any form, then the correct form would be 's eárr – an fer 's eárr bha ansein. This variation of “f” in different dialects is pretty common - “aill” vs “faill” in Irish, for example. “Fuar” in Old Irish was “uar”.

However, the sentence that Ned Maddrell used is special. Here the word is not “s eárr” - it is used as a noun “seárr” meaning “best” - in Irish the word is “dícheall”. (He should have said “mo sheárr" – mo dhícheall).

As dúrt mis do dionach mi dionu mo seárr son do chúna léi as reinn í tiot anseó son do chláistean é...

Agus (is) dúirt mise go ndéanfadh mé mo dhícheall cúnamh a thabhairt di agus/is thagadh sí anso gach lá lena chloisint. (Munster Irish, of course). Roidhri (talk) 22:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This edit summary wasn't acceptable - please don't refer to other editors as "racists" or, as is the case here, accuse them of "racism". Apart from anything else, the edit summary detracted from the intelligent and articulate points raised in your post. TFOWR 16:17, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it not acceptable? The comment he made was one laughing (or "lol" as he put it) at MY native language. That, to me, is unacceptable, and is something only racists do. Denigrading anyone (based on their language), or any culture, is consistent with racist behaviour. I have done my best on numerous occasions to hold my tongue, especially in the face of people who are plainly rude, do not listen to the opinions of others, ignore comments by editors, attempt at every juncture to initiate edit/comment wars, etc. However this was a step too far in my books. I have no problem with someone criticising my points of view. I have no problem with someone argueing with me on any topic. I have no problem with anyone introducing challenging or even contradictory information or analysis. I do, however, have a problem with someone who sneers at MY language, especially when that person obviously has not got a clue about it. --MacTire02 (talk) 16:31, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tha an duilleag air Shelta [gv] falamh... am bu chòir do cheangal a bhith ann? Akerbeltz (talk) 15:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ta'n duillag ayn nish, Akerbeltz. Va crampyssyn aym, as cha row mee jargal y duillag ec gv dy hauail. Agh t'ee ayn nish. --MacTire02 (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tha gu dearbh, 's math a rinn thu! Akerbeltz (talk) 15:56, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Abkhazia

I understand your concerns, and hope that the appropriate changes will be made in due time. We are tired of having an extremely skewed and biased angle portrayed about our country on Wikipedia and we hope to work with this site to ensure that the most proper and accurate information will be displayed for Abkhazia, NOT what the Georgian government wants. Thanks. Circassiankama (talk) 19:37, 7 November 2010 (UTC)CircassianKama[reply]

The thing is CircassianKama, Wikipedia is NOT about the truth. It is about VERIFIABILITY. If you can't find a source for something, then no matter how true it is, it should NOT be included here. --MacTire02 (talk) 19:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help. I've done another revert and advised Mr. 24.47.116.133 to follow the WP:Manual of Style before resubmitting. I also pointed him to the three revert rule he is in danger of violating. — Glenn L (talk) 00:34, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help. --MacTire02 (talk) 09:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly disagree, it does not refer to NI, only the people who are of Celtic identity in Ireland who consequently consider themselves Irish, the Ireland flag is the Tricolour,Unionists do not consider themselves to be of Celtic origin but Anglo-Saxon and also British,and it is highlighted in the article that they are referring to the Celtic population in the North, thus the flag is valid.Sheodred (talk) 08:56, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect. There are many Unionists who consider themselves British first, Irish second (and by default Celtic). Those Unionists that consider themselves Irish do not identify with the Irish tricolour. There are even Unionists in NI that consider themselves British first, Irish second, and who value the Irish language and heritage, but consider those aspects part of a greater British heritage. If we use the Irish tricolour in the infobox it leads the reader to assume one of three incorrect positions:

* Using the tricolour as a geopolitical statement - i.e. Only 26 counties of the island can be considered Celtic * Using the tricolour as an ethnic symbol - i.e. only Irish Nationalists can be considered Celtic (which is grossly misleading
as it excludes Unionists who consider themselves Celtic and Irish too) * Using the tricolour as a symbol for all of Ireland - again this assumes that all in Ireland identifies with the tricolour. Again this is misleading. 

The current status quo should remain. No flags for anyone. The addition of flags, in the case of Ireland, adds nothing to the article, and indeed will only lead to confusion for those unfamiliar with the topic at hand - after all, we are trying to inform people without information on the topic.

Regards, --MacTire02 (talk) 16:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As an addendum. The vast majority of Northern Irish Unionists are native Irish or descendants of Scottish settlers. They do NOT consider themselves Anglo-Saxon, but as Celts. They just have different political affiliations. I can not remember the politician's name (from the UUP) who said it wuite clearly, that he considers himself just as Irish as someone from Killarney - he just prefers that NI remain part of the UK. In other words, to use the flag here is misleading as it excludes people who are just as entitled to claim Celtic heritage as anyone else on the island. Secondly, the flag is that of a sovereign state - separate to what is being discussed in the article. Remember - nation does not always equal state as is the case in Ireland. --MacTire02 (talk) 16:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I respect your opinion, but those labelling the issue about the flag as being a sectarian and political one is unacceptable and immature, because it is not, do you recall what the three colours stand for, most Loyalists are hardline and reject "Celticity" as they believe that it equates to being a "Fenian", not one notable Unionist has come out and identified as being Celtic, but if you have sources for that, I will accept that.Sheodred (talk) 16:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment I can't provide one. But I will dig around as I know I have heard one self-identify as such. On the other hand, the Ulster Nationalist talks about its Celtic heritage as part of its overall British/Ulster heritage. Even take a look at Loyalist/Unionist symbols - the Celtic Red Hand of Ulster, St. Patrick's Saltire, St. Andrew's Saltire, the shamrock, Celtic knots, Celtic crosses, bagpipes, kilts, etc. etc. Regarding the symbolic nature of the tricolour - I don't think this matters. What is was conceived as and what it currently represents are two separate things according to Unionists. Look at the Swastika - a symbol of peace which is now seen as a symbol of evil. Symbols and their meanings are not static. --MacTire02 (talk) 16:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I remove Russian (or Turkish, or English, etc.) is because the comparison between Chechens and Irish does not hold. With the Irish, the primary language spoken by Irish- in fact by virtually all Irish both in their homeland and in diaspora- is English, and their own "national" language, is actually marginally spoken by comparison. The same holds true for the Scots, but even more so, because Scots have historically spoken English as well as Gaelic (give or take "Scots Inglis" as a language), so the English language could be called part of Scottish heritage (which as true of Irish with English and even less so Chechens with Russian) . With Chechens however, it is different. There are many Chechens, especially in Southern Chechnya, who actually CAN'T speak a coherent sentence in Russian. Before the wars, only 70-something percent of Chechens spoke Russian (this is counting only the Chechens in their homeland, and not hte large diaspora, much of which existed even before the wars especially in Turkey and Georgia), and this number has probably only decreased. And then don't even get me started on the pre-war Chechen diaspora, which speaks primarily Turkish, and Chechen (some of which speak only Turkish). Since not even close to all Chechens speak Russian, and very few speak it as a FIRST language (and I would be surprised if there were any full-blood Chechens who can't speak Chechen that aren't in diaspora), I don't think Russian has any more reason to be in the infobox than say, Turkish.

As for examples of similar ethnic groups, there are many minority groups in wikipedia whose infoboxes don't list the national language of the countries they are minorities in (often because many of them don't speak it)... we have Tibetans, Ingush, Azeris, Kurds, Uyghurs, most of the regional ethnicities of India and Pakistan (most of which don't have English, Urdu or Hindi in their boxes), Kabyles, Balochs, Assyrians, and so on...--Yalens (talk) 18:58, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We could, however, list "Chechen and others" with others linking to the lang section; or Chechen on one line, then, below it, Russian, Turkish, and others... but it must be emphasized htat unlike the case with the Irish, no language but Chechen is the national language of the Chechen people, and no language but Chechen is the most spoken by Chechens... --Yalens (talk) 19:01, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, MacTire02. You have new messages at Ghmyrtle's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Following on from our discussion earlier I just did this - Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ MJC59 --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 23:36, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know about that. I'll keep my eye on it. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 05:48, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are no administrative counties in Ireland. They were abolished by the Local Government Act. There are only former administrative counties. Please see the Counties of Ireland article. Almost all of the material was re-located, not deleted. Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:02, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the N3 border, a sign says "Welcome to Fingal". The first part of your analysis is correct. Nowadays, the "traditional" counties are best thought of as geographic areas. These areas change over time. For example Westmeath was once part of Meath and parts of Meath were ceded to Drogheda in County Louth to maintain the integrity of the town. Their sole purpose was for control (by Norman invaders) who used them for tax gathering and judicial purposes. Over time, these purposes changed. Other entities were created for tax gathering purposes. Other entities were created for judicial purposes. All that remained was local government. Now, even that has been stripped away - the CoCo takes on that function within the geographic area roughly encompassed by the traditional county. All that remains is the GAA, folk memory and title deeds. Sad but true. Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I probably should have done (and now have), sorry. But in my defence, there is a note right under where you edited Mr Hughton's stats that says "Just above the table there's a bit that says Stats complete up to and including *date*. If you update the manager figures, please can you update this date as well. Thanks"... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I may be a novice to amendments on Wikipedia and I apologise for that. Hoewever, your undoing of my Isle of Man amendments and additions are removing context that i have added the use of the Manx language in society and business; and also sourced information regarding the film industry, transport and other industry on the Isle of Man. My additions may require some additional references, however your amendments revert the text to less referenced work that does makes it appear in places (though i am sure its not your intention) to be no more than an advert for the Isle of Man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.254.76.115 (talk) 16:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MacTire. Do you know if there is a standard Manx way of writing 'the three legs of Man' in Manx (tre cassyn / trie cassyn)? Just looking at GoogleBooks, I think that the latter tends to be used in more modern books. Is the latter the one we should be using in articles? Or are they both correct?--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 06:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Brianann. Unfortunately both are wrong. There is no Manx word for "triskelion" - the technical term for the symbol used in the Manx flag. Instead, Manx simply uses the descriptive tree cassyn from tree, "three" and cass, "leg". The Manx for Mann is Mannin while the Manx for the Isle of Man is Ellan Vannin, with Vannin being the genitive form of Mannin. Like the other Gaelic languages, when describing something definitive Manx must use the definite article. Therefore, "The triskelion" would be translated as Ny Tree Cassyn - never Tree Cassyn as that can refer to any group of three legs, even if they are not connected. However, Mannin as a word is already inherently definite and so does not need an article (y, yn, ny). Like the other Gaelic languages, and unlike English and other Germanic and Romance languages, Manx can't have a double definite. So the correct translation for "the three legs of Man" would be tree cassyn Vannin and never ny tree cassyn Vannin. If this is a title - i.e. if it is "The Three Legs of Man" rather than "the three legs of Man" - then it must also be rendered with capital letters at the beginning of each word, giving Tree Cassyn Vannin. Hope that helps. Kind regards, ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 08:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm racking my brains about where I saw it but I came across Triskellig in one Celtic language or other. Wasn't Irish or Scots Gaelic... could it be Manx? Akerbeltz (talk) 08:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It looks Welsh to be honest. In Irish the correct translation would be either triscéil (f2) or tríchosóg (f2). Manx does sometimes have a tendency to base new words and terminology on Irish, and so if it were to borrow from the Irish it would more than likely use the second option and transliterate it as tree-chassag (f).

(f2) indicates the word is a feminine word of the second declension. Manx has no variations in declension for feminine words and therefore uses simply f or m to indicate the gender.^Mac Tíre _Cowag 08:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A very quick Google search gave me this entry which mentions the "triskellig" under which there is a stylised Celtic triple spiral symbol. The organisation in that entry is based in Kiberen/Quiberon in Brittany so I can only deduce that it is Breton, not Welsh, and would probably be pronounced [tɾɪ.ˈskɛlː.lɪk] or fairly similarly.^Mac Tíre _Cowag 09:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes. Checking my Breton dictionary, the more common form seems to be triskell though. Interesting. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that helps me out. Thanks MacTire.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 03:03, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem at all.^Mac Tíre _Cowag 07:16, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your input, but are you sure? The article for the 2015 edition states that only the top 2 form each Pool in the current competition (and England if they are eliminated next week) and I can find no other reference online to 3 teams from each Pool qualifying directly for the 2015 edition. Tolosenc (talk) 15:17, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I'm sure. Take a look at this article and this piece of analaysis from the official Rugby World Cup 2011 site (specifically "Kirwan's goal was to beat both Tonga and Canada at this tournament so Japan could finish third in Pool A and qualify automatically for RWC 2015 in England."). Regards, ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 15:21, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I note you're a supporter of this most rabidly British imperialist of terms. I also note, from your claims that the term was used by the ancient Romans. that you patently haven't read the article, which states clearly that the earliest recorded use of "British Isles" is by the English imperialist John Dee in 1577 during an attempt to claim Ireland for the Tudor monarchy. Now, why really do you want to pretend that "British Isles" is some apolitical usage from thousands of years ago with the same meaning today, and ignore how centuries of British (in its new late 16th/early 17th-century definition - amazingly, the meaning of words change) colonialism in Ireland has fundamentally changed the name 'British'? 109.76.214.233 (talk) 17:24, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, no, John Dee was not the first. He was the first to use the term in the English language as far as can be determined, but the term "British Isles" in its variant forms has been used since at least the 6th century BC by Massalian colonists. The islands were known to them as Πρεττανία (Prettania) or simply Britain. Marcia of Heraclea used the term αἱ Πρεττανικαί νῆσοι (ai Prettanikai nisoi or, in English, "British Isles"). Even if your claim of John Dee was correct, which it patently isn't, that still would hardly amount to British nationalist claims, seeing as how there were no such people as the British in the modern sense of the word at that time and there was no British state. There were three kingdoms (Scotland, Ireland and England) and a multitude of peoples (English, Cornish, Welsh, Manx, Scots, Highlanders, Irish, etc., but no British). Your understanding of the word British is simply one in which you bow down to British imperialism and allow that context to warp the word's meaning, rather than mine, where I don't tend to allow external factors twist the meaning of words. I also go by sources which is what an encyclopaedia does. You seem to think that a neutral encyclopaedia is one where all aspects of Britishness should be stamped out due to its colonial connotations, and where the views of the minority should supersede the views of the majority. That, my friend, is the view of someone with a serious inferiority complex. Grow up and stop allowing words rule your life. Use them, instead of letting them use you.

There is a straw poll taking place here, and your input would be appreciated. — GabeMc (talk) 00:34, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MacTire02, I found your point "Arguably, calling the isles something other than the British Isles could be construed as being "designed to score an Irish nationalist point against the British"" succinct, accurate and well made. If there was a "Like" or "+1" button on Wikipedia, I'd hit it. --HighKing (talk) 08:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I notice that you have modified the Manx transcription at Clachan to reflect phonetic nuances that our guide at WP:IPA for Manx does not encode for. If you feel like this information should be present in such transcriptions, you should make a case for it at WT:IPA for Manx so that our transcriptions are consistent. Until then, variation between article transcriptions and the explanatory guide will only serve to confuse readers, especially with diacritics. Thank you. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 00:43, 10 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think if you had looked at the history of the Manx IPA page you would have seen that I had already started to modify that page. Personally I don't see the point in changing all Manx transcriptions to reflect the IPA page when the problem mostly lies with that page itself. The transcriptions on that page are not accurate and I will be modifying them as soon as I can. Gura mie mooar ayd. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 01:15, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying that the guide page is definitely right and you have the burden of proof to show otherwise. I'm trying to make sure that there is consistency between the guide and transcriptions. Personally, I think a lot of these diacritics are unnecessary, but then I'm not familiar with Manx, which is why I suggested bringing it up in the talk page there so others can weigh in. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 17:19, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Having looked back at my own reply to you it appears as if I was a little abrupt with you. Certainly when I was writing it I didn't have any problem with what you had originally wrote or with your assistance in improving the IPA for Manx on the various articles throughout Wikipedia. I agree that a discussion is the best way to go about this. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 17:45, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:All-Ireland Minor Football Championships, which you created, has been nominated for merging to Category:All-Ireland Minor Football Championship. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 03:38, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mac Tire, how are you doing?

My name is Eduardo, and I'm a Brazilian student of English Language and Literature. We are currently preparing a historical account on Beer for a final paper, and we can't talk about beer without acknowledging the great contribution of Ireland in this issue.

But I'm now on a cul-de-sac because I don't speak a single word in Irish Language, and so I started to search for a person with some knowledge in it. I then found your name in the Irish Language article, and you seem to know it fairly enough (along with many other languages), right?

So, my question is: do you know how I can say "A beer, please!", or some similar sentence in Irish?

If you do, could you please send me the translation by e-mail? Or, if you prefer, could you edit this post and put the translation in it, so I can return here later and check it?

Thank you very very much, and I'm sorry for bothering.

My e-mail is: [email protected] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.107.8.10 (talk) 12:50, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template:2012 League of Ireland Premier Division table has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Kingjeff (talk) 17:40, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi! As you tagged yourself as being in Ireland, I hope you don't mind me reaching out. We know have a recognised Wikimedia Community Ireland User Group and we have been running workshops and other events in Dublin and beyond. In case you are interested our next event will be this Saturday in Collins Barracks, you can find the details here. Smirkybec (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:34, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]