Talk:Manx language
From Academic Kids
[The english influenced orthography] had the unfortunate result of making the spelling much harder than that of the other Gaelic languages, as many Goidelic grammatical features were lost in the process.
This paragraph seems to lack clarity. Can we provide examples of 'much harder', and for whom? Also what does the word 'lost' mean in this case? Were they destroyed? ignored? or altered? Or were the spellings reflecting a historical state of Manx/Gaelic?
It only seems odd to blame an orthography for changing the 'grammatical features' of a language. Perhaps this is a mix up between two separate english influences. - stet 19:39, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- Agreed. To me, it actually seems to reflect teh author's POV...--Node ue 19:14, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- AFAICS, the way Manx represents mutated consonants is pretty similar to the way Welsh does (Mannin -> Vannin, Manaw -> Fanaw, etc), and I don't see many people complaining that Welsh orthography has messed up the language at all. Marnanel 19:44, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
- Manx had a preexisting way to show mutated consonants in the form of the original Old Gaelic orthography...--172.175.240.162 22:00, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Manx was indeed made much harder by the English influenced ortography. In both Irish and Scottish Gaelic you know the pronunciation of a word just be seeing it. In Manx you don't the same sound can be spelled in many ways and the same spelling can stand for different sounds. The new ortography also estranged the language from the common Gaelic litterature tradition. What the author has written is fairly NPOV - you'll find the same statement in most books dealing with the Celtic languages. 26.09.04
I thought the extinction of the language was a disputed claim? Nobody but the clinically insane denies that the last true native speaker, Ned Madrell, died decades ago, but there are still those living with Manx as their native language who are "half-fluent", as well as those who speak Manx fluently but learned it from a native speaker (in the case of one man, from Ned Madrell himself). So supposedly although the chain of native speakers was broken for perhaps a decade or so, in between there were very fluent speakers, many of whom are still around and assisting with making Manx a natively-spoken language again. Is this extinction?--Node ue 19:13, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Well, I am personally unclear as to the extent that language revival has taken place -- for example, are there any children who have actually learned Manx as a first language during this period? And furthermore, how fluent are the people who claim to speak it -- are any of them fluent to the extent that they could express any thought they might happen to have in Manx, barring special technical vocabulary? Everyking 20:26, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- No, the people who speak Manx, having learnt it, are quite fluent. As to the definition of extinction - I'm making this up, but I'd say that it has to be used as an everyday language for at least two generations before it can be deemed to have been ressurected. Either that, or become the everyday language of the majority in a given population. The best, and perhaps, only example of a ressurected language is Hebrew.
<<Although the orthography accurately represents the pronunciation of Manx, many Goidelic grammatical and phonological features of the other Gaelic languages are obscured.>>
I removed this because Manx orthography obscures the features of *Manx* it's self.
I removed this:
- A more comprehensive Vocabulary can be found here (http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/am1924/index.htm#contents)
because although that site contains examples of Manx-language influence on the English dialect of the island, it is essentially an article about Manx English, not Manx Gaelic. -- Picapica 15:48, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Did you notice how the contributors to gv:, especially in the articles which sounded like they were about the Egyptian pyramids, are mainly children about 8 or 9? (that's what I think it said below each article.) Scott Gall 10:46, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC) PS: It's a good idea they're messing about on gv: before testing our limits here.
