Is this a "real" dielect of Irish, or is a "New York Special"?

Question

For some reason, my great grandparents thought I should learn to speak Irish as a kid. All well and good until I decided to visit a Gaeltacht on vacation, only to find I couldn't understand a damned word anybody said and while some of them could understand me, they had a h**l of a difficult job doing so.

I'm kind of wondering whether I learned a real, although possibly extinct, dialect or whether I learned a dialect that was spoken only in New York - kind of a mix of dialects infused with words of their own. If it is of any help, they were born in the early 1900s.

The word 'agus' didn't exist, it was 'is'. The 'h's used in "real" written Irish weren't spelled, the previous letter had a dot over it. Many words were spelled differently "Go raiḃ maiṫ agut" - not 'agat' would be pronounced "guh ruv mhuh ahgut". The stress on 'raiḃ' would have been on the v sound, which it seems isn't pronounced at all in Ireland. Céad is pronounced like the English "Queued" and Míle as "millyer"

Answer 1

yea thats old irish...the dot over the previous letter is a sheimhu and has been replaced with a h, is and agus are both used, go raibh maith agat is spelled differently it sounds the same...in modern irish, there are 3 dialects, Munster Irish, Connaught/Connemara Irish or Ulster Irish and all have different pronunciation, accents and even words. so if ur grandparents wer 4m Cork (in Munster) and u visited Donegal (in Ulster) they are completely diferent anyway and locals'd find it tuff 2 understand the Cork man. it mite have been the accent or u cud hav been speaking an extinct dialect. many of the words still have the same root so that mite have been why u had difficulty. and its good that your great grandparents made u learn irish coz now u actually have something in common with ireland as opposed 2 those who just say they're irish w/o having any intrest or knowledge @ all!!!

Answer 2

They were speaking different dialects. People who have learned Irish in Ireland have the same problem.

In terms of the written Irish, they are actually both the same - raib with a dot over the b is the same as raibh. The script changed following the widespread introduction of typewriters, most of which had the English language characters.

Answer 3

Well, I'm definately no expert in this having never been to the Gaeltacht before. However, I have just spent the past 14 years in school learning Irsh. We learn to say agus to mean and. Although, I would sometimes use "is". I'm sure the two are interchangeable. I would presume "is" is used more in speeking as it's shorter.

The dots instead of séimhús were used in old Irish and I don't think they're still in use.  I school anyway, i never came across them until secondary school. They were possibly changed to make the language more accessible...?

The differnt prounounciations would differ between dialects.

There would be someone else on here who would deffinately know more about this than me, and has possibly answered in the meantime, but I though I'd tell you what I know, or think I know in the meantime

Answer 4

they were speaking old irish.