How much influence had the english idiom over irish idom (gaeilge)?

Question

Derek. Thank you very much to spend time to answer that. I love the lenguages very much, the german lenguages and celtic influences. I am not an english native speaker and that stuffs i couldn't know cause i am not living the lenguage in his homeland. A hug

Answer 1

In some places, a huge influence, but in others, none at all. There are parts of Ireland where the gaeilge is still spoken and the local idioms are still used. There are other parts that sound more and more like 'Little Britain" - islands of English in the midst of Ireland. Something like the situation in Quebec where some parts of the province are 100% French while a few are almost pure English.  

Answer 2

Do you mean how much influence did/does the English language have on Irish figures of speech? A little. For example, I'm pretty sure that "ag titim i ngrá", which both literally and idiomatically means "falling in love", isn't a native expression in Irish. But having said that, I'm not a native Irish speaker, although I am Irish and have striven to attain a good level of comprehension of written Irish.

As for the other way around, Irish has influenced English in some ways. Answering a question by repeating the subject and appropriate verb (am/are/is/was/were, has/have/had, do/does/did, will, etc) (e.g."I am", "He did", "We do") instead of "Yes" or "No" has a source in Irish, whose grammar dictates that yes/no questions be answered with the verb (e.g. "An deir sé? Deir sé." "Does he speak? Yes.") The non-standard "I do be" is based in Irish as well, whose non-copular verb "to be" has two present tenses, one for how things are - "I am at work" - and one for how things are frequently - "I am at work every day", which in some parts of Ireland might be spoken as "I do be at work every day", or even "I do be at work", which differs from "I am at work" in that the former means "I'm regularly at work" and the latter means "I'm at work now". Dropping "do/does" is also possible but rarer: "I be at work in the mornings".