In short, you can easily spot learners because they tend to use ‘as Gaeilge’ to mean ‘in Irish’ for everything without knowing the dialectal variations. This is also prevalent across English language media and thus presumably influenced by that. Or perhaps ‘as Gaeilge’ is being taught in schools since ‘as’ doesn’t trigger any mutation and may be simpler to beginners. But one would then wonder what’s the point teaching something no native speaker actually uses?
I digress. So while ‘as Gaeilge’ is usually used by learners to mean both written and spoken Irish, what if you wanted to learn more traditional and natural Irish? Then choices should be made. Let’s look at the three major dialects and how they would treat such situations:
- Munster: Native Irish speakers often use ‘i nGaelainn/Gaoluinn’ to mean written Irish, and ‘As Gaelainn/Gaoluinn’ to mean spoken Irish*
- Ulster: ‘I nGaeilg’ (pronounced as if ‘i nGaeilic‘) is used to mean both written and spoken Irish
- Connacht: ‘I nGaeilge’ is used to mean both written and spoken Irish
Examples:
| she spoke to me in Irish | labhair sí liom as Gaeilge/Gaelainn (Munster) |
| say that in Irish | abair é sin i nGaeilge/Gaeilg (Connacht / Ulster) |
| he writes in the Irish language | scríobhann sé i nGaeilge/i nGaeilg (Munster / Connacht / Ulster) |
There’s also ‘trí Ghaeilge’ which means specifically through the medium of Irish. Examples:
| they believe in education through Irish | tá siad ar son an oideachais trí Ghaeilge |
| teaching through the medium of Irish | Ag múineadh trí Ghaeilge |
*Peadar Ua Laoghaire wrote in a letter to Gearóid Ó Nualláin about this point in 1914 in Beatha Dhuine a Thoil:
Féach, ‘Abair as Gaoluinn é’, ach ‘sgríbh i nGaoluinn é’. Ní deirtear ‘as Gaoluinn’ ach le caint. Deirtear ‘i nGaoluinn’ le sgríbhinn nú le clódhbhualadh, nú le haistriughadh. Deir Eoghan Ruadh le Cailbhin i n-áit éigin, ‘An masluightheach a dh’aistrigh i mBéarla an Pháis’ (.i. the Mass).
As mentioned as Gaelainn exists only in Munster (the form Gaeilge does not exist there) and in older texts from there Gaedhilge is exclusively genitive, unlike in the Standard (Caighdeán Oifigiúil) and in Conamara.
One other thing: Diarmuid Ó Sé notes in Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne that as typically causes lenition in West Kerry Irish but why not for ‘as Gaeilge’?
As Cormac, notes: The preposition as (< a) traditionally doesn’t cause lenition. If something like as Gaoidhealainn is an old enough and common enough expression, it might have just fossilised as such while as started causing lenition elsewhere.
Basically: If as Gaelainn is said in West Kerry but as otherwise causes lenition, it could just be from older fossilisation before as started causing lenition, as it traditionally didn’t. He adds, “You kind of get a similar situation in Ring today, albeit under different circumstances. In traditional Ring Irish sa can cause eclipsis or lenition depending on the first letter of the noun that follows, hence sa mbaile. However, I’ve since been informed that this traditional feature has now died out in favour of standard lenition, but speakers still say sa mbaile specifically because it’s been fossilised”.
A last point on Munster Irish
Munster Irish is a traditional dialect that survives in the Munster Gaeltacht regions and isn’t school Irish. A lot of people presume they’ve learned it because it’s definitely not the “dreaded” Ulster Irish or wasn’t Connacht Irish they thought they learned (for whatever reason). The fact is, is that most learners wouldn’t have a clue when exposed to actual Munster Irish. For example, simply look at the comment section on this post.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay. The idea for this post came from an interaction we had on BlueSky.
i learned munster irish in school, in munster, and our teacher, frum munster, said as gaeilge, lived munster my whole life and never heard gaelainn once. and i a native of munster
That is an experience of many people in Munster, however it’s worth noting that a native of Munster does not mean that they’re automatically a native Irish speaker. Many native Irish speakers use the word ‘Gaelainn’ and speak ‘Gaelainn’ but write ‘i nGaelainn’.
‘as Gaeilge’ is what we were taught in school, over 40 years ago, in Meath.
Yes, as mentioned, this is quite common for learners taught in school.