Saturday, January 31, 2015

The order of acquisition of Irish (Gaelic) morphology and syntax in children


Ó Broin, Brian. "Ord sealbhaithe deilbhíochta agus comhréire Gaeilge i naíonáin" [The order of acquisition of Irish (Gaelic) morphology and syntax in children], in Ailbhe Ó Corráin and Malachy Ó Néill (eds.), 2014. Teangeolaíocht na Gaeilge XIII. Uppsala University Press. pp.65-85. ISBN 978-91-506-2438-0.

"Ord sealbhaithe deilbhíochta agus comhréire Gaeilge i naíonáin"


"The order of acquisition of Irish (Gaelic) morphology and syntax in children"

Brian Ó Broin
William Paterson University, New Jersey

Breathnaíonn an páipéar seo ar chainteoir dúchais Gaeilge idir 2 bhliain agus 5 bliana d'aois agus iad ag teacht i dtír ar dheilbhíocht agus comhréir na Gaeilge. Cad iad na gnéanna is túisce a phioctar suas agus cad iad na cinn is déanaí? Cad iad na cinn nach bhfuil pioctha suas acu in aon chor faoi aois a cúig, agus cén chomparáid is féidir a dhéanamh leis na teangacha eile atá á sealbhú ag na páistí seo? Cén uair is féidir linn a rá go bhfuil gné áirithe "sealbhaithe" ag páiste?
I dteaghlaigh nach labhraítear ach tuismitheoir amháin Gaeilge leis na páistí, cén bhaint atá ag ionchur na Gaeilge leis an aschur ó na páistí iad féin, agus ós é seo gnáth-mhúnla an teaghlaigh Ghaelaigh sa lá atá inniu ann, go háirithe sna cathracha, cad iad na himpleachtaí don Ghaeilge amach anseo?

This paper analyzes native speakers of Irish between the ages of 2 and 5 as they learn the morphology and syntax of Irish. What do they pick up first, and what do they pick up last? What are the features not yet picked up by age 5, and what comparison can be made with the other languages that these children are acquiring? When can one say that a particular feature has been "acquired"?
In households in which one parent speaks Irish to the children, what connection is there between parental input and child language output? And since this is the typical make-up of the Irish-speaking household, what are the implications for the Irish language?

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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Urban Irish Language Community

The video of this lecture is available here

Professor Brian Ó Broin of William Paterson University (WPUNJ) gave a paper on the Urban Irish-language community to the Irish studies program at the University of Connecticut, Storrs on March 27th, 2012. Professor Ó Broin claims that the urban Irish-speaking community has grown noticeably in recent decades, but that several problems have arisen:
1) Second-language speakers are part-time speakers, often speaking a sophisticated pidgin. Their language activity often reflects a split cultural identity, whereby they readily take on a Gaelic identity for Irish-language events, but revert to English culture for day-to-day living.
2) A significant number of people are choosing to raise their children in Irish but, not being native speakers themselves, feel that they are facing significant parenting problems, having no experience of Irish as a home language themselves. Members of this community (and their children) are less likely to identify themselves as language enthusiasts, since the language is a normal vehicle of daily communication for them, but they are more likely to express worry about their linguistic standards, probably because they are more likely to find themselves in challenging linguistic situations (like discussing emotions, for example) than second-language speakers.

3) Urban Irish has a very different phonetic system than Gaeltacht Irish, being based on English. This has had the knock-on effect of causing a noticeable simplification of morphology. Syntactic findings remain provisional, but urban speakers *seem* to form non-standard subclauses more than Gaeltacht speakers. Urban speakers retain a sophisticated lexicon.

Thanks to Mary Burke, Brendan Kane, Fred Biggs, and Cuán Ó Flatharta.

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