Bitesize Irish Podcast

Where is Scottish Gaelic, or Gàidhlig, spoken? What were those Gàidhlig-speaking areas like, and what is their health today? Professor Boyd Robertson, Principal of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, joins Eoin to share the culture of Scotland. Discussion podcast in English. What you’ll hear: Click the audio player above, and you’ll get to hear: About Sabhal Mòr Ostaig – …

Gàidhlig with Prof Boyd Robertson (Ep. 53) Read More »

The post Gàidhlig with Prof Boyd Robertson (Ep. 53) first appeared on Bitesize Irish.

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Go to www.bitesize.irish/links to find out more about courses and membership #GaeilgeGachLá

Where is Scottish Gaelic, or Gàidhlig, spoken? What were those Gàidhlig-speaking areas like, and what is their health today? Professor Boyd Robertson, Principal of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, joins Eoin to share the culture of Scotland. Discussion podcast in English.

What you’ll hear:

Click the audio player above, and you’ll get to hear:

* About Sabhal Mòr Ostaig – university education in Scotland that operates through the Scottish Gaelic language. Their range includes distance learning courses that you should check out if you’re interested in learning to speak Scotland’s native language.

* How Gàidhlig has changed culturally since the 1970s in Scotland. Much of its evolution is reflected in how the Irish language has evolved. Traditional bastions of the language are weakening, yet younger modern organisations are involved in its “renaissance”.

* The Highlands and Isles – the beautiful areas of Scotland where their language has been spoken.

Mentioned in the show

* Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

* Isle of Skye

* Gaeldom – the term used to describe Gàidhlig-speaking areas in Scotland.

* Scottish independence referendum, 2014

* North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, where Boyd Roberston grew up. His first language was Gàidhlig.

* Irish vs Gaelic video by Bitesize Irish Gaelic

Here’s a 10-minute video featuring Boyd Roberston, and covering Sabhal Mòr Ostaig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8SD2zavsIQ

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The Bitesize Irish Gaelic Podcast comes out each fortnight on Thursdays at 8am EST. Thanks for listening. Subscribe for free using the options in the box below.

We’d love to hear from you about this episode. Just leave a comment below.

Do you have a suggestion for a future guest? Then please do contact us.

This is a list all our past episodes.

Eoin

Do you love to hear about the “little people”, or the síoga as we call them in Ireland? Or maybe you’ve grown up too much, and you think you don’t need to hear such a story every now and again! In this episode, hear Mary Murphy read out one of her stories “Say You Will”. …

Say You Will by Mary Murphy (Ep. 52) Read More »

The post Say You Will by Mary Murphy (Ep. 52) first appeared on Bitesize Irish.

Support the show

Go to www.bitesize.irish/links to find out more about courses and membership #GaeilgeGachLá

Do you love to hear about the “little people”, or the síoga as we call them in Ireland? Or maybe you’ve grown up too much, and you think you don’t need to hear such a story every now and again! In this episode, hear Mary Murphy read out one of her stories “Say You Will”.

What you’ll hear:

Click the audio player above, and you’ll get to hear:

* The audio version of “Say You Will” by Mary Murphy.

Mentioned in the show

* The story is one of 10+ fairy stories from Mary’s new book Away with the Fairies – Book Two. You get a lovely printed book of the stories, with lovely illustrations by Mary’s daughter.

* The book comes with an audio CD of Mary’s recording of these stories, of which “Say You Will” is one of them. Be sure to check out her link above, and consider purchasing the book.

Get the next episode as soon as it’s up

The Bitesize Irish Gaelic Podcast comes out each fortnight on Thursdays at 8am EST. Thanks for listening. Subscribe for free using the options in the box below.

We’d love to hear from you about this episode. Just leave a comment below.

Do you have a suggestion for a future guest? Then please do contact us.

This is a list all our past episodes.

Eoin

Get the behind-the-scenes info about how the Bitesize Irish Gaelic Podcast gets to your earbuds every two weeks. After our recent article on Being Bitesize is Beautiful, where you got to read about our team, in this episode you’ll hear how the podcast itself gets to you. What you’ll hear: Click the audio player above, …

Behind the Podcast (Ep. 51) Read More »

The post Behind the Podcast (Ep. 51) first appeared on Bitesize Irish.

Support the show

Go to www.bitesize.irish/links to find out more about courses and membership #GaeilgeGachLá

Get the behind-the-scenes info about how the Bitesize Irish Gaelic Podcast gets to your earbuds every two weeks. After our recent article on Being Bitesize is Beautiful, where you got to read about our team, in this episode you’ll hear how the podcast itself gets to you.

What you’ll hear:

Click the audio player above, and you’ll get to hear:

* Who’s involved with getting the show out to you

* Where each episode is recorded

* What happens to an episode after it’s recorded

Mentioned in the show

* With Bitesize Irish Gaelic, you get to learn to speak the Irish language in Bitesize portions. Our online Bitesize lessons get you ready for your first conversation in Irish Gaelic. Take a free no-obligations free trial of our program.

* Our top translations in Irish Gaelic – free listen

Get the next episode as soon as it’s up

The Bitesize Irish Gaelic Podcast comes out each fortnight on Thursdays at 8am EST. Thanks for listening. Subscribe for free using the options in the box below.

We’d love to hear from you about this episode. Just leave a comment below.

Do you have a suggestion for a future guest? Then please do contact us.

This is a list all our past episodes.

Eoin

Bob Burke discovered the Irish language in his 40s. Was that too old to start to learn to speak Irish? Not at all! Listen to this discussion podcast (in English), and you’ll hear how Bob’s lovely spoken Irish Gaelic is. Bob is the former president of the North American Association for Celtic Language Teachers. What …

Not Too Old to Start with Bob Burke (Ep. 50) Read More »

The post Not Too Old to Start with Bob Burke (Ep. 50) first appeared on Bitesize Irish.

Support the show

Go to www.bitesize.irish/links to find out more about courses and membership #GaeilgeGachLá

Bob Burke discovered the Irish language in his 40s. Was that too old to start to learn to speak Irish? Not at all!

Listen to this discussion podcast (in English), and you’ll hear how Bob’s lovely spoken Irish Gaelic is.

Bob is the former president of the North American Association for Celtic Language Teachers.

What you’ll hear:

Click the audio player above, and you’ll get to hear:

* Are you too learn to start to learn to speak Irish Gaelic?

* Not at all! It doesn’t matter what decade of your life you’re in. The worst thing to do is to never start now, only to regret in five years’ time what you could have learned in the meantime.

* Set your expectations!

* As adult learners, we want to jump from “zero to really fluent” in a few months. Sure, you can concentrate on important parts of speech to save time. But it really is a life-long journey if you want to make that real deep connection with your Irish heritage.

* Reach out and find people

* Bob executed some novel approaches to reaching out to find Irish language speakers. He put himself outside of his comfort zone to make contact with others.

* You can reach out to Ireland-related organizations in your area. Bob also visited nursing homes to find native Irish people. He didn’t stop there, and called Catholic parishes to find if they had priests from Ireland.

* The message here is: don’t give up learning to speak Irish Gaelic. Reach out. Find others. Make use of the resources around you.

Mentioned in the show

Design for Irish language immersion in your life

The most successful learners we’ve come across have all made the Irish language part of their daily lives.

Whether it’s spending time on top Facebook pages for Irish Gaelic learners, listening to Raidió na Gaeltachta, or meeting up with fellow learners, they all make the effort to reach out.

Bob has visited Oideas Gael immersion courses a number of times. Listen to our interview with Liam Ó Cuinneagáin, the founder of Oideas Gael.

Daltaí.com is an excellent resource for Irish language learning in North America.

More past interviews from Oregan

OK, Bob’s in Washington State, but just outside of Portland, Oregan.

Catch our other past inspiring episodes with his freinds:

* Brian Ó hAirt

* Aislinn Adams

* Ger Killeen

Start to learn Irish Gaelic today

It’s never too late to start, and don’t regret not starting in a couple of years’ time.

It’s hard to learn a language. And it’s a lifetime journey. But at Bitesize Irish Gaelic, at least we’ve broken down the most important parts in Bitesize portions.

You’ll learn with thousands of recordings, our phonetic prompting guide, and multi-speed conversational lessons.

Click here to take a no-obligations free trial of Bitesize Irish Gaelic, and start learning today.

Get the next episode as soon as it’s up

The Bitesize Irish Gaelic Podcast comes out each fortnight on Thursdays at 8am EST. Thanks for listening. Subscribe for free using the options in the box below.

We’d love to hear from you about this episode. Just leave a comment below.

Do you have a suggestion for a future guest? Then please do

When did the Irish language cross into Ireland? What was there before it? Was “Celtic” spoken across Europe? How much did the Irish language change over the centuries? Those are only a few of the questions I had for Dr Ranke de Vries. Ranke holds the Ben Alder Chair of Celtic Studies at St Francis …

Celtic Studies with Dr. Ranke de Vries (Ep. 49) Read More »

The post Celtic Studies with Dr. Ranke de Vries (Ep. 49) first appeared on Bitesize Irish.

Support the show

Go to www.bitesize.irish/links to find out more about courses and membership #GaeilgeGachLá

When did the Irish language cross into Ireland? What was there before it? Was “Celtic” spoken across Europe? How much did the Irish language change over the centuries? Those are only a few of the questions I had for Dr Ranke de Vries.

Ranke holds the Ben Alder Chair of Celtic Studies at St Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. Ranke holds a Ph.D. in Early Irish from Trinity College, Dublin.

What you’ll hear:

Click the audio player above, and you’ll get to hear:

The classification of modern Celtic languages

* Check out our video Irish vs Gaelic for an overview.

* There’s Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (from Isle of Mann) in one grouping.

* Another grouping includes Welsh, Breton (in Brittany, France), and Cornish (in Cornwall, English).

* There were many other variants of Celtic languages that stretched across Europe down to Turkey. Those languages are now well-dead, and people have studied to track where they were in Europe.

The Irish language has changed over the ages.

* “Early Irish” covers several phases of the Irish language, starting at about 600 A.D.

* Ranke’s speaks how the language changed over time, with a general trend of its grammar simplifying over time.

Scottish Gaelic is still spoken in parts of Canada

* In schools in Nova Scotia, including Antigonish, hundreds of kids are learning the language.

Mentioned in the show

International Congress of Celtic Studies

It takes place every four years. In 2015, it took place in Glasgow, Scotland.

There are several hundred lectures there to choose from.

Right now, there’s a lot of work in e-hummanities and digitisation: original manuscripts are being digitized, which means that researchers can study them now across the world in detail.

Dating of Irish language manuscripts

One challenge is the dating of manuscripts. It’s often hard to tell when a manuscript was written.

It might have been copied and change inadvertently over the ages.

And texts in a manuscript may span hundreds of years.

Is Irish going to simplify?

Ranke doesn’t draw any hard opinion, but does point out that Irish has been simplifying grammatically over the ages.

Noticeably, there were many more cases in use in Early Irish.

What was spoken in Ireland before the Irish language appeared?

Dr. Peter Schrijver has studied this topic, and has written on it.

There in fact a term for it: Goidelic substrate hypothesis (on Wikipedia).

There are some Early Irish words that appear quite ‘un-Celtic’, which may indeed be remnants of words that were spoken in Ireland before the time of the Celts.

Lebor na hUidre

This is an old manuscript held at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, which Ranke got to study.

Try Bitesize Irish Gaelic for free

Bitesize Irish Gaelic is our online program to learn to speak Irish Gaelic in Bitesize portions. Get to try it for free with a no-obligations free trial.

Eoin had lots of questions for Ranke in this episode! And now is your chance. For the first couple of weeks after this episode is published, comments are open for you to reply below. Ask your question (as long as the comments are open).

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