Well, it turned out to not be so backwards down in Gaeltacht area of Kerry. The house I was staying in even had Sky Digital (I don't have that at home!). For those of you unfamiliar with Kerry in Ireland, here's some info: It's the nicest place in the whole country in my opinion. There are great mountainous lanscapes. Climbed Ireland's 2nd highest mountain (Mt. Brandon) during the week. The view of the ocean and surrounding countryside and townland was amazing. The area I was in is a very quiet & tranquil. Great for retirement I'd say but you'd be bored living there in your prime years. Dingle, the closet town to me is small but packs in over 50 pubs but only has the one nightclub! I was speaking Irish for the 2 weeks. I'd forgotten loads of my native tongue since leaving secondary school a little over 2 years ago but it came back to me. There were only 30 people on the course with me, a paltry number considering my university has 14,000 students & it was FREE. Yes, a free 2 week holiday in the best place in Ireland and only 30 people go!! Well anyway, it was great craic and I'd do it again (though it's nice to be back). Been catching up on the posts here while I was gone. Surprised the old board finally got a Moderator...
When I visited Ireland we made a tour round gaeltacht. I felt very much at home, the landscape was very like the Swedish fells.
Sounds great, I would have gone. There's a bit to catch up on here regarding policies and whatnot, not too much though; guess you can look in the temple for that... I imagine the place you went to as being all emerald green (like the nickname emerald isle), sounds like a fantastic view from the mountain top.
Same here! Welcome back! And welcome back to Om and Rincewind too, who recently came back after having been away but received no "Welcome back" from me.
Welcome back! I'd love to go to Ireland some day. I don't speak Gaelic though. I have a question about something I seem to recall Ba mentioning before. Some people call Eire's indigenous language Irish Gaelic, and others call it just Irish. I grew up calling it Irish Gaelic. Now, I can see the reason for calling it simply Irish; there is no other Irish language, so saying Irish Gaelic is redundant. But in that case, why don't we say 'American' instead of 'American English'? There's obviously some point I'm missing here. Could someone indicate it for me?
'Irish' is the english translation of the word. When no-one spoke English hundreds of years ago, it was known as 'Gaeilge'. Foreigners speaking their own forms of Gaeilge call it Gaelic. Nobody living in Ireland calls it Irish Gaelic or Gaelic, just 'Irish'!
So what about Scottish Gaelic, the other variant? What should that be called? And why don't we call American English just 'American'?
Not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I guess calling it American English is a reminder of where the original people that speak it came from, juxtaposed with Native American languages.
