Re: aspirated m?

Steg Belsky wrote:

>
>
> Ah hah!
> http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?DOCID=1G1:84367386&num=5
> Claims that some intensive Irish courses have begun using the word.
Interesting! I'd never heard the word in the context of Irish learning.
Though a brief survey of google results (for "ulpan OR wlpan irish OR
gaeilge") seems to produce mostly documents which do refer to Ulpan-like
schemes for learning Irish, but which originate outside Ireland...

In a wonderfully bilingual document at [1], there's an exam paper on
Irish from a Welsh university ("Atebwch bob cwestiwn" right next to
"Scríobh aiste nó alt..." :)) which gives this task:

"Scríobh aiste nó alt Gaeilge tuairim agus 400 focal maidir le ceann
  de na hábhair seo a leanas: a) An modh ‘Wlpan’ i dteagasc na Gaeilge.
  b) ..."

"Write an Irish essay or article of 400 words on one of the following
  subjects: a) The 'Ulpan" mode in the teaching of Irish. b) ..."

One actual Irish (from Ireland) document mentioning Ulpan is at [2].
Its from a political (well, Republican Sinn Féin...) newspaper where
it suggest that it's possible to "Ulpan a bhunu" (found an Ulpan).
[Hmm, the inclusion of the English 'to' is bugging me in that sentence;
there's obviously some cross-linguistic equation of morphological forms
going on in my brain...]

Another issue of the newspaper actually describes what an Ulpan is (and
it looks like the quote Steg found): "...na hIosraelaigh agus ulpan
(córas le daoine a ghaelú, i gcás na hÉireann) a bhunú i ngach roinn stáit."
".. the Israelites, and an Ulpan (a system of Gaelicising people, in the
case of Ireland) to found in each state department". I'm not sure I like
the phrasing of this one!

There's also an Irish Times articles (in Irish) at [3], which is basically
describing the Hebrew system, but it would take me too long to read it all
just to find that he's suggesting that such a system might be good in Ireland
too ;)

[1] http://www.inf.aber.ac.uk/pastpapers/welsh/exam2001/semester2/IRM0630.html
[2] http://homepage.tinet.ie/~eirenua/2000/nov00/saoirse3.htm
[3] http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~colm/LA/1996-03-28/8.html

Apart from that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot. It would be very interesting
to see proposals for a proper Ulpan system - not just a private intensive
course calling itself "an Ulpan" (um, that's the English indef article, not the
Irish definite one ;)).


>
> Searching through Google for phrases like "ulpan Gaeilge" "Irish ulpan"
> seem to find something, but having only taken a semester of Irish i
> have no idea what the pages in Irish say... the phrase _na hIosraelaigh
> agus ulpan_ seems be saying something about Israel and ulpan, though.
"The Israelites and Ulpan"

> Although it looks like "Iosraelaigh" breaks the slender/broad vowel
> pairing rule.. i wonder what's with the |aelai|.
Yes, a bit strange... it's whay my dictionary gives though (well, the
singular "Iosraelach"). My guess is that the "ae" is just there for
effect - it isn't that common in Irish, and most places that I can
thing of that it does occur, I can identify the word as a borrowing
("contae" _county_ from ?Norman French). Not all, though: there's
the name of the lang, "Gaeilge", where it seems to be replaceable
with "e" (I think).

>> What's with the orange peel in your signature? :)  ("hey hey, ho ho,
>> this orange peel has got to go!")
>> Sally
>
>
> It was some unfortunate orange peel a friend of mine encountered at
> lunch or dinner during college one day after passing by a number of
> groups protesting something-or-other. :)
>
>
> -Stephen (Steg)
>  "siúd chugaibh mary chinidh 'sí i ndiaidh an éirne shnámh"
>      ~ 'an mhaighdean mhara'
Ní thuigim níos mo ná dhá nó trí fhocal! Sílim go Gaelige obfúscaithe í :).
(oh, my ability to form grammatical Irish sentences has withered away since
I loaded my prize reference book to my brother.. :()

s.
--
To be sure, to be sure

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