Oh dear God…
Published July 19th, 2005 in PersonalI’m after subscribing to the RSS feed on Planet of the Blogs and I followed the feed to An t-Imeall, an Irish language blog. I happened to catch the Irish translation for blog in the top right hand corner of the page and it just rammed home all that’s wrong with the Irish language at the moment.
Somebody with the imagination of a brussel sprout has decided that the Irish for blog will be blag - whoever came up with that deserves a swift kick up the backside.
To me it is indicative of the cultural decline in a lot of languages. The title of the most unimaginative and bastardised translation goes to robail - robbing.
7 Responses to “Oh dear God…”
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Like any blogger, I’ve come to expect a certain amount of abuse, but this is remarkable for being the first time I’ve been threatened with physical violence.
The only thing “wrong with the Irish language at the moment” is the number of people who don’t bother to speak it themselves, but rather choose to lecture those who do, telling us - in English of course - how we’re “doing it wrong”.
So now saying someone needs a good kick up the arse is threatening physical violence? Oh come on.
The attitude that someone cannot criticise the bastardisation of a language unless they do it in that native tongue is pretty lame.
The attitude that the only thing wrong with the Irish language is that people aren’t bothered to speak it is also lame.
The Icelanders defend their language with fanatical zeal and do not allow foreign words to creep into their language. If a new thing comes out like a Blog or a Mobile phone they consult a big book of old unused words and take an appropriate word from there. Like a telephone in icelandic is formed from two old words meaning to speak with a piece of string while a mobile phone is speaking with a short string.
Better than taking an english word and making it sound irish by adding a fada.
Nil fhios agam cathain a bhi an uair deirnach a labhair me as Gaeilge, so is docha go bhfuil mo grammadach luafa. Is cuam liom mar cheapaim go bhfuil an focail blag amadach. Is fuath liom a beith ag leamh paipeir no ag caint le daoine agus usaideann siad focail cosuil le blag, cen fath nach usaideann siad an focail bearla? An bhfuil ean diffricocht?
Aside: Hit Sys. Pref, International, Show Pref in Bar - Select ‘Char Palette’ and insert fáda’s to your heart’s content. Or easier (as I just discovered), hit ‘Edit’ - ‘Special Characters’ in Safari and off you go.
If you’re gonna do it, might as well do it right!
A Phiarais - níl locht ar bith ar do chuid Gaeilge, agus fiú dá mbeadh, ní chaithfinn i do choinne é. Tá sé níos tabhachtaí an Ghaeilge a bheith in úsaid ná go mbeadh an gramadach cruinn. Ní bhfaighidh tú foirfeacht ghramadaí ar mo bhlag-sa.
Níor dheineas ‘aistríu’ ar an bhfocal ‘blog’. ‘Sé an focal céanna é atá in úsáid agamsa. Cad eile a dhéanfá? Níl focal in aon teanga a dhéanfadh cur síos cruinn ar ‘blog’ - sin í an chúis gur cumadh focal nua sa Bhéarla. Níor dheineas ach an litriú a athrú chun go mbeadh an fhobhraíocht chéanna ar an bhfocal sa Ghaeilge. Tá blagadóirí Gaeilge eile a úsáideann an litriú Béarla - ach nuair a chímse ‘-OG’ sa Ghaeilge, tuigtear dom go bhfuil an fhuaim “-UG” aige, mar atá in ‘BOG’, ‘CLOG’ agus ‘DROGALL’. Ní h-amhlaidh atá le ‘BLAG’. Tuigeann an léitheóir Gaeilge láithreach go bhfuil an fhuaim chéanna ag ‘BLAG’ agus ‘DOG’ an Bhéarla (Canis lupus familiaris).
I appreciate that you are concerned about what you perceive as language pollution - but I suggest that your concerns are misplaced. The only way to guarantee the ‘purity’ of a language is to stop speaking it in everyday discourse. Conversely, the most successful modern languages are those which have had no qualms about borrowing from others as they have expanded into new areas of interest as well as new areas of the globe. The purest language of all is Latin, and most ‘bastardised’ language of modern times is also the most successful: English. Modern English inherits as much French as it does Old English - and it has not been fussy about where it picked up vocaubulary along the way. Linguists believe this has given the language the power to adapt flexibly to new requirements, and that this is one of the reasons for its success. See also http://www.economist.com/diversions/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1489147, and http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/01origin/tree.html
Fair points, sorry about the delay in your comment going up. Why did you have to mention Latin though!? Now I’ve got flashbacks to my schooldays, good old Ms Johnston and reciting grammar for three years! *shudders*
While I agree that words like “blag” and other such borrowed/bastardised words are dreadful sounding the fact is that every living language borrows words … and sometimes they are not pretty … so while complaining about Irish words like “blag” you may as well complain about English words like “shamrock”, “boreen” or “leprechaun” which are equally as “unimaginative”