Want the link to the lastest Irish business news?

Www dot insideireland dot ie slash index dot cfm slash lng slash gaeilge

That’s the link to the Irish section of Ireland’s only bilingual business magazine, InsideIreland.ie. It’s just been launched this week.

We’re always hungry for more Irish-language news. Beo.ie sometimes offers interesting articles. An Druma Mór keeps you pretty up to date with the latest news.

Along comes InsideIreland.ie. It’s been just launched at Foras na Gaeilge. There’s a lot of Irish content there.

However, the Irish content is hidden behind a funny URL.

It doesn’t seem to be as up-to-date as the English section, either. And in the age of instant communication, how can Gaeilge compete with that?

A new Irish dictionary has been published out that covers a potentially huge market for learners of the Irish language. It’s an Irish-Spanish dictionary.

According to EuropeanIrish.com the project began back in the 1970’s and continued right into the 1990’s. However, it didn’t seem to get off the ground until Pádraig Ó Domhnalláin obtained European LINGUA funding at his university in Madrid.

Finally, the Linguistics Institute of Ireland worked on the manuscript to end up with 19,000 Irish-Spanish entries.

It’s Foclóír Gaeilge-Spáinnise, by David Barnwell, Pádraig Ó Domhnalláin and Carmen Rodríguez Alonso, and is published by Coiscéim. If you have used the dictionary, why not tell us in your comments what you thought of it.

However, hostility towards the Irish language persists in Ireland. This view, probably alive for several hundred years in the majority of the population, continues to depress the language’s normalisation in everyday life.

This week “mikemac” asked on Boards.ie whether other people drop Irish words into English conversation like he does.

As we know too well on this site, forums can easily drop into name-calling and heated debates

But the 11-page conversation unfortunately shows just how easily the language can be attacked.

“My name is URL” said:

Admitting that it’s a dead language is admitting that evolution exists

I admire the Darwinism, but I don’t accept that it’s dead! Thousands of people choose to speak it every day.

The same passive-hatred was expressed “elyod”, who offered economics as to why the language “is dead”.

The Irish language is dead and serves no functional propose. Get over it.

If our primary language wasn’t English, we’d probably be 20 years behind where we are now as a country.

There’s also an unfortunate one-to-one connection drawn between the language and Irish republicanism.

from my experience the only people that are big into the irish language are provo types i.e shinners

This type of expression shows that the language still isn’t “normal” yet for many people. Let the language be. Don’t talk it into a hole, as it does indeed need every bit of help it can get.

What they have are the two languages, one after the other. The English at the top, and the Irish directly afterwards. The English bit as a link that jumps you to the Irish half of the email.

Funnily enough, the Irish interface also has a link to view the newsletter in Irish

RTÉ, Ireland’s state broadcaster, has launched a new-look Flash-based video “catch up” service.

It’s only available if you have an Irish IP address. For self-made programming, this should surely be made international.

It features a variety of shows to watch for 21 days after broadcast.

Irish language videos

So far, it seems like they only have An Nuacht for Irish language programming online. Hopefully the newly-launched site will feature more programs in Irish.

Questionable is their decision to create the channel online as “Religious and Irish language”.

eDIL.ie received an annual grant of €165,068.

Good to see investment in references for the language.

Reference: IrishIndependent.ie

Don’t forget to visit IrishDictionary.org, our collaborative free Irish dictionary.

But I always have stuff to write down about the technical aspects of running a web site rather than just the content topic.

So, I started yet another blog, eTeanga.ie. Might be of interest to some! (Or maybe not )

I’m happy to announce you can now download the dictionary as a PDF completely for free.

The PDF is updated daily. It only includes validated entries. It’s only a 200Kb download.

The PDF download might help you to study Irish, (but probably won’t help you with Irishisms).

If there’s a word that’s missing, please do join the site to add more words.

Bainigí taithneamh as.

http://www.irishdictionary.org/pdf/

Free Learning Tools

At TalkIrish.com the focus really is on free learning and they have established a great reputation for being a place where students, teachers, and speakers of the Irish language from all over the world can come together to share thoughts and ideas. Recently they have added several tools to help make the transition into the language easier. These tools are free and available now online and anyone using them is encouraged to contribute by uploading videos or other resources into the discussion forums where everyone can share in their access.

Podcasts

It’s called Focal an Lae and it’s a podcast designed to help you learn the language one word at a time. Every day they post a new Irish word and sentence to inch your learning along and with free downloads of online interactive flashcards learning has never been easier. You can upload the podcast onto your own iPod or other mp3 player for learning on the go. You can even practice what you’ve learned in the online blog where readers are very patient with those still learning.

Coming Soon

The website is planning its next phase of growth that will include new games and quizzes to test your Irish knowledge and will continue its expand its forum for new users. Recently they were awarded a spot on the 2009 Courvoisier Future 500 list of innovative business brains and creative talent.

Other Alternatives for learning Irish Gaelic

If one phrase or word per day is not fast enough for you there is a whole world of alternatives waiting to teach you. One of the more popular teachers online can be found at Rosettastone.com, and you can purchase Rosetta Stone on Amazon.com. This well known teaching series recently gave away a week of free Irish Gaelic lessons in mid March so that students could learn some Irish before St. Patrick’s Day. The website is always offering different promotions and although the course is far from free it does offer learning at a faster pace and also offers a guarantee on their product.

For someone wanting to learn Irish Gaelic for business purposes this could be a great alternative to classic classroom time. The classes are a mixed format of audio and bookwork and have already been successfully used by thousands to learn new languages.

This post was contributed by Karen Sampson, who writes about degrees in arts and humanities. She welcomes your feedback at Karen.Sampson1120 at gmail.com

Exams are already taking place in Ireland, Paris and Prague. Next month (April 2009) two new exam centres will open in New York and Cambridge universities.

For more information visit www.teg.ie.