Buntús na Gaeilge-Irish for Adult Learners

The Irish Language
Irish is used as a community language in the west of Ireland by about 61,000 speakers, and as a minority language throughout Ireland. 1 It is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland, 2 and is taught in the primary and secondary school system. In the 1996 census 1.43 million people in the Republic of Ireland (43.5% of the population) were returned as Irish speakers, though only about a quarter of that number use the language on a daily basis. In Northern Ireland, Irish has enjoyed increased demographic and political backing in recent years, and official recognition of the language is expected. In the 1991 census, 142,003 people in the North were returned as having some ability to speak the language.3 Irish is the primary community language in the so-called Gaeltacht areas in the west of Ireland, located in counties Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo, and Donegal, where an average of 76.3% of residents are Irish speakers (Ó Murchú 1999).
There are significant numbers of native speakers living in urban areas, either migrants from Gaeltacht areas or those brought up in Irish-speaking households.
Irish is a Celtic language, part of the Indo-European family of languages. It is closely related to Scottish Gaelic, spoken today mainly on the Western Isles of Scotland, and to Manx, the language of the Isle of Man that only recently ceased to be a spoken language. Its relationship to the other two surviving branches of Celtic, Welsh and Breton, and to Cornish, which is spoken as a revived language, is more distant, though all Celtic languages share certain syntactic, phonological, and grammatical features, as well as a common inherited vocabulary. Like other Celtic languages, Irish is a VSO (Verb-Subject-Object) language, possesses conjugated prepositions and boasts a complex system of initial mutations.

About this Book
This textbook, developed specifically for the year-long Modern Irish course at Harvard University, is intended for beginners with no previous exposure to the language. Its title, Buntús na Gaeilge `the basics of Irish', is programmatic. It aims to give complete beginners a grasp of the operative principles of grammar and syntax and provide them with the essentials of lexis and idiom to achieve basic fluency within the year.
This textbook was developed to fill a recognized gap in the teaching materials for complete beginners in third-level education. Most people in the Republic of Ireland, and many in the North of Ireland, are introduced to the language during primary or secondary education, and there is a wealth of textbooks, many of them modern and attractive, for school children. The market for adult learners-particularly complete beginners-has not been as well provided for.
The need to improve teaching materials for adult learners is increasingly recognized, reflecting a revival of interest in the language on both sides of the border, and the realization that many of those exposed to Irish at school have not achieved fluency in the language. Replacing the virtual monopoly of the classic Buntús Cainte (1967), experienced educators have in recent years added substantially to the materials available.
Most adult learner textbooks are designed for what we may think of as the part-time learner, typically within the setting of an evening class, and for all their laudable emphasis on colloquial, conversational Irish, they are not suitable for students in full-time third-level education.
Buntús na Gaeilge addresses the needs of intensive language instruction in an academic environment. The target audience are university students, and the choice of milieu and subject matter, as well as the pace and style of instruction, is geared towards this audience.

The Caighdeán and the Regional Dialects
Modern Irish is closely based on the three living regional dialects - Munster, Connacht, and Ulster - which, at least in principle, enjoy equal status and support. It represents the victory, in the early years of the language revival, of the proponents of the modern vernacular (caint na ndaoine `the language of the people') over those who advocated a return to the highly standardized idiom of Classical literature practiced by the educated elite until the seventeenth century. Unchecked by any literary standard, regionalism flourished in the centuries before the establishment of an independent Irish state. With the shrinking of the Gaeltacht areas, the added problem of increasing geographical isolation of the dialects from each other arose.
When Irish became a literary, high-register language once again after independence, the three main regional dialects, Munster, Connacht, and Ulster Irish, were, at least theoretically, put on an equal footing.Munster Irish held a preeminent position during the formative years of the language revival, even though today it is the dialect with by far the fewest native speakers.
Connacht Irish, too, had considerable cachet, since it was the native dialect of the father of modern Irish literature, Pádraic Ó Conaire, and the dialect adopted by such influential political and literary figures as Patrick Pearse. Ulster Irish, represented in the Republic of Ireland by speakers of a single county, Donegal, had for obvious reasons a lower profile in the Irish-language establishment. While the differences between the three regional dialects are relatively minor on the level of grammar and syntax, pronunciation differs markedly between them. The recommendations of An Caighdeán Oifigiúil (1945), which form the basis of Modern Standard Irish, aim to define operative principles of grammar, and to establish a standard orthography rather than pronunciation.

For the learner, an introduction to a consistent regional dialect was thought to be desirable. Ulster Irish has never presented a more viable didactic choice than today. Its prominence on both sides of the border is on the increase and is reflected in the media and educational apparatus. There is much literature written in the dialect, most notably by the Mac Grianna brothers from Rannafast, and a wealth of folklore publications collected in Donegal.

For the past two decade, Oideas Gael has run immersion language programs in a variety of locations in Donegal, offering learners the chance to build on their course work and increase their fluency.
A number of strategies have been adopted to make the book as compatible as possible with other varieties of Irish:
-Wherever two words (or grammatical features) compete in Donegal Irish, the one with the greater regional spread was chosen (e.g. of the two words used to denote `girl' in Donegal, cailín and girseach, we chose cailín since it is also found in Munster and Connacht; similarly the negative particle ní, which is found throughout Ireland, is adopted rather than cha which is only found in Ulster (as well as Scottish Gaelic); the use of cha is however covered in the appendix that deals with issues of dialect, Cúrsaí Canúna.)
-All forms not in general currency outside Ulster are clearly marked as Ulster forms by a superscript U.
-The dialect appendix lists the Ulster dialect features for each chapter and provides their regional (Connacht or Munster) equivalents.

Buntús na Gaeilge: Structure and Content
This book aims to balance the needs for conversational and grammatical competence. The textbook emphasizes students' active participation in the learning process: the aim is to generate speakers of Irish, and the pace and structure of the textbook are designed to encourage active rather than passive knowledge of the language; it is one thing to understand a grammar rule, quite another thing to be able to generate it in natural speech. Many of the drills, games and exercises are designed to improve oral competence. A crucial element in transforming language learners into language speakers is to provide a relaxed and enjoyable environment where it is safe to make mistakes, and where the learning process itself becomes fun. An element of playfulness in the classroom is hugely beneficial, and may be fostered not only by various interactive games and exercises, but also by the introduction of traditional songs and rhymes. Every Irish learner remembers such items of traditional lore from their introduction to the language. Such items not only serve to introduce students to Gaelic tradition; they are also fun, and are a proven aid to learners by implanting memorable words, idioms, and syntactic patterns in the student's mind. I have attempted to harness this resource and integrate it as closely as possible by selecting items that reflect the grammar and vocabulary introduced in the corresponding chapter. The fact that children's lore, including counting rhymes, songs and riddles, is well represented in the textbook is not coincidental; it reflects the learner's gradually expanding vocabulary, and aims to infuse a sense of playfulness conducive to the learning process.

Each lesson contains:
-an alphabetized vocabulary list (foclóir)
-a dialogue or situational sketch (comhr&#225

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