#being in Conamara like

[wodeworm]

Free Jovian Bull cutter Rig

A thousand glass shards are sputtering across the Jovian moon's surface, Forcibly deployed to an unfathomable moral cause, a team of strangers shadow your movements, the agonizing equipment sealing away any humanity, jabbing into your bones and tendons. The worst is not being able to have any meaningful conversation with the people around you, just alien gargling radio crackles of a damaged suit. The damaged gloves and shoulder joints restricted complicated gestures. A sickening loneliness infiltrated everything you did.

You'd stay out in your make-shift parapets and shabby trenches for a deathly amount of time. The only thing that helps track time is seeing Jupiter's face warp every three or so days; its gaseous eyes piercing into the back of your skull, the uncanny shivers breaking up the immutable numbness of it all, no embracing the suck on this one, no familiar faces at the mess hall, no shitty steak dinner to have a good laugh over. The only so-called nutrients you'd get would be some half-melted paste, your suit would dispense from time to time, faint clot-like textures mixed with an outputting copper taste. I didn't want to think about it.

Almost no real fighting either. Sometimes you'd find some poor pro-Jupiter fanatic forcibly jammed into an icy pillbox, so many of these sickening defense positions doted the caverns and surface. It kept all real offensives entirely static; the magnetic fields of the neighboring moons mangled any communication to any friendly positions. The misfortunes eventually caught up; people with limbs sheered off from crevices, improper implementation of heating fluids melting a comrade's lungs, male nutritional delirium causing people to gnaw their lips off, skin-peeling, sheering off from continuous contact with your suit. No one felt like trying to find a way to talk to each other, or make some facsimile of music or contact with each other, nothing, total creeping oblivion.

The frostbite and gangrene eventually rot away any spirit you have left. Seeing the shambling blind and mad, voluntarily walking out into storms. Slowly, the realization sinks deeply into your thoughts. You've been denied the embrace of open air indefinitely, you've been wearing your own coffin this entire time. It was probably better to wander off, leaving the universe behind. Those jagged spires watching like stalwart sentinels, that angry gas world looming over your head, the final warmth of a tomorrow you'll never have slipping away forever.

-One of thousands of Debriefs from the Conamara chaos fields offensive War Forever Free Europa

[kevin-ar-tuathal]

"Béarlachas"

I've been meaning to write this post for some time now. As a person from the Galltacht (English-speaking Ireland) living and working in the Gaeltacht (Irish-language Ireland), and operating most of my life through the medium of Irish, I can honestly say that English-language Ireland, Second Language speakers of Irish and Learners of Irish tend to have a really skewered understanding of a) what Béarlachas is, b) the different forms it takes and c) what effects/damage/meaning each of its forms holds.

Contents of this post:

•Perceptions of Béarlachas

•Loanwords Vs Béarlachas

•Different Languages, Different Sounds

•Language Purity Vs Language Planning

•Conclusion

Perceptions of "Béarlachas"

Outside of the Gaeltacht, most people's understanding of "Béarlachas", or "Anglicisation" in Irish (which I am deliberately putting between inverted commas!), is the use of so-called "English-language words" in Irish. The usual list people like to list off include:

• Fón

• Teilifís

• Giotár

• Raideo

• Zú* (see Language Purity Vs Language Planning below)

• Carr*

*The ironic thing about the last item being that 'carr' (the word for a personal vehicle) is older than the English-language word 'Car' 🚗.

Second language learners with a bit more exposure to the language deride native speakers, particularly speakers from Conamara, for "using English words and adding '~áil' at the end to make a verb". Several examples being:

• Gúgláil (Google-áil)

• Sioftáil (Shift-áil)

• Sortáil (Sort-áil)

• Péinteáil (Paint-áil)

• Vótáil (Vote-áil)

• Focáilte (F*ck-áilte)

• Supósáilte (Suppose-áilte)

(⚠️NB: it is HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT that I spelt these words in these specific ways in Irish - to be explained below!⚠️)

Other so-called "English language words" in Irish include:

• Veain • Seit • Onóir • Ospidéal • Aláram • Cóta • Plaisteach • Leictreach, 7rl, 7rl...

And what about: "Halla" or "Hata" ??

Loanwords Vs Béarlachas

Before I explain where I'm going with this, I am going to introduce some words that have their origins in other languages, like:

"Seomra" from the Middle French "chambre".

"Séipéal" from the Middle French "chappelle".

"Eaglais" from the Greek "ekklesiastes".

"Pluid" from the Scots "plaide".

"Píopa" from Vulgar Latin "pipa".

"Corcra" from Latin "Purpura" (from before Irish had the sound /p/!)

"Cnaipe" from the Old Norse "knappr".

"Bád" from Anglo-Saxon "bāt".

ALL of these words, like the ones above, came into Irish via the most natural means a language acquires new words: language contact.

The reason WHY the word gets adopted is usually -and this is very important - the word is for something that the culture of the language Borrowed From already has, which is introduced to the language Borrowed Into.

For clarification, what I am trying to say is that languages NATURALLY oppose cultural appropriation by crediting the culture they got a word from by using their word for it...

I.E. "Constructing" a new "pure" word for an item that has come from another culture, is, in effect, a form of cultural appropriation - which is why institutions such as Alliance Française and Íslensk málstöð are at best puritanical, and at worst xenophobic*.

*There is nuance here - there is a difference between institutional efforts to keep a language "pure" (re: those such right-wing English/British and American opinionists who claim that the English language itself is endangered 🙄), and language planning (which also falls under the remit of Íslensk málstöð).

Furthermore, there is also such thing as "dynamic borrowing". This is where technically a language has adopted a word from another language, but has changed its meaning/adapted it to its own need. Let us take two Irish language words for example: "Iarnród" and "Smúdáil"

Iarnród is made up by two words taken from the English language: Iarann, from English language "iron" and Ród, from English-language "road".

Together, these two words mean the English-language term "Railway" - but English has never had the term "Iron Road" to refer to this object.

Similarly, Smúdáil comes from the English-language word "smooth". Only adapted to Irish, and adding the Irish-language verb suffix creates a word which means "to iron (clothing)". 😱

Different Languages, Different Sounds

Every single language on this planet has its own sound system, or "phonology". It is VERY rare for a new sound to be introduced into a different language, and some languages are MUCH more sensitive to what speakers of another language would consider a "subtle" difference, or not a difference at all.

Now...

IRISH HAS DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF SOUNDS AS THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!!!!!!

(^roughly ~ish) I am making this simplistic statement to DRIVE home the fact that what English-language speakers and Learners of Irish hear as "the same as the English", Irish speakers hear a SIGNIFICANT phonetic difference.

All consonants in Irish [B, bh, c, ch, d, dh, f, fh, g, gh, h, l, ll, m, mh, n, nn, p, ph, r, rr, s, sh, t, th] - and YES, séimhiú-ed consonants and double consonants count as separate consonants - EACH have at least TWO distinct sounds. Ever heard of that old rhyme "Caol le caol, leathan le leathan"? Well, the reason why it exists ISN'T to be a spelling tip - it's to show how to pronounce each consonant in a word - which of the two distinct sounds to say.

What I mean to say by this is that, when we adopt a word into Irish, we aren't just "grabbing the word from English and hopping a few fadas on it"; we are SPECIFICALLY adapting the word to the Irish language phonetic system.

I.E. when an Irish language speaker is saying the word "frid" THEY ARE NOT USING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WORD "fridge" !!!

The sounds used in the English-language word belong to the English language, and the sounds used in the Irish-language word belong to the Irish language.

As a linguist I get very passionate about this distinction - the AMOUNT of times I have come across a self-important Irish language "learner" from the East of the country come to a Gaeltacht and tell native speakers that they are not using the "official" or "correct" version of a word in Irish just GRATES me to no end. PARTICULARILY as these so-called "learners" cannot hear, or typically have made NO effort to understand phonetic differences between the two languages. (Though honestly, on that point, I cannot wholely blame them - it is a fault on Irish language education as a whole that the differences in sound are hardly, if ever, mentioned, let alone taught!)

Language Purity Vs Language Planning

Moving on, as I mentioned earlier, it is very rare for a sound to be adapted into a new language. As many Irish language speakers and learners know, there is no /z/ sound in (most of the dialects of) Irish.

And yet, somehow, the official, modern translation given for the Irish language for "Zoo" is ...

Zú

Whenever I think on this given translation, I am always reminded of a good friend of mine, a lady from Carna, who used to always talk about "Súm" meetings she used to go on to talk with friends and family during COVID.

This woman only speaks English as a second language, having only ever learnt it at school and only ever used it in professional environments. She does not have the sound /z/, and as such, pronounces words that HAVE a "z" in them as /s/ sounds, when speaking in Irish OR in English.

As such, I often wonder how An Coiste Téarmaíochta can be so diligent in creating and promoting "Gaelic" words for new things, such as "cuisneoir" instead of "frid"; "guthán" instead of "fón" (which is actually pronounced "pón" in Conamara, as that suits the sound system of that dialect better); or "treochtú" instead of "treindeáil" ... And then turn around and introduce sound and sound combinations such as /z/ in "Zú" and /tv/ and /sv/ in "Tvuít" and "Svaedhpáil" 🤢

It's such this weird combo of being at the same time puritanical with regard to certain words, dismissive in regards to vernacular communities, and ignorant with regards to basic linguistic features of the language.

(Especially when, i mbéal an phobail, there are already such perfectly acceptable terms for these kinda words, like Gairdín na nAinmhithe for "Zú; Tuitéar and Tuít for "twitter" and "tweet"; and Faidhpeáil for "Svaedhpáil".)

Conclusion

This really prescriptivist approach by Irish language institutions needs to end. Not only is it not addressing or engaging with the Irish language as it is spoken by vernacular communities, it is creating this really twisted dynamic between second-language Irish speakers who apparently "know better" than first-language and native speakers of Irish.

This is what "Béarlachas" is. Not the natural adaption of words from a language with which Irish in the present day has most contact with. Not the dynamic inventions of native speakers, and even Second-language-as-vernacular speakers, utilising all the linguistic features available to them, whether that be their own dialects of Irish, English, or whatever OTHER languages/dialects are available to them.

"Béarlachas" is the brute enforcement of English language mentalities and an obsession with "purity" onto Irish, a language that has FOREVER adopted and integrated words, features and people into itself.

Gaeilge, like Éire of old, like the Ireland I want to be part of today, is open, inclusive, non-judgemental - knowing where it is coming from, and knowing that its community is its strength and key to how it has and will survive!

[an-spideog]

-dar

I'm gonna talk about an interesting feature of Conamara Irish, for a change, but of course I'm gonna tie it back in with Munster Irish (my beloved) In munster, you often conjugate the verb to represent the person rather than adding a pronoun to it. E.g. bhíos (bhí mé), chuireamair (chuir muid), bhailíodar (bhailigh siad)

This happened in the other dialects too, the pronouns being used there is an innovation, though the pronouns are much more common now for the non-munster dialects. What's interesting though, is that in Conamara, the -dar (they) ending is still used sometimes, but has in some ways morphed into a pronoun of its own since it's not only being used in the past tense (like in munster), but is also used in other tenses:

Tádar - They are

Bíonn dar - They do be

Nuair a thiocfas dar arís - When they come again

I'll have a look for some clips of this and try and reblog with them if I can find them.

PS dar here is plural, it's not a new gender neutral singular pronoun, though if you wanna use it like that go ahead, since Irish doesn't really have a gender neutral singular pronoun

PPS source for those examples was An Teanga Bheo - Conamara by Séamas Ó Murchú

[kaizey]

Ceol comhaimseartha as Gaeilge (Contemporary irish language music recommends)

Many foriegners looking more into more music as gaeilge following from Unreal Unearth and have been asked afew times about it. So Im gon give afew recommendations

Seo Linn - Folk/Indie/Soft Rock group formed in Conamara and have a good range of sounds ranging from newer covers of our most popular folk songs (Óró sé do bheatha abhaile , Siúil a Rúin and Mo ghile mear are among the best) and are a good intro point

IMLÉ - More of a collection of artists who bring different sound styles together and topics in their lyrics. Honestly, just take the entireity of the self-titled album as a taster

Róisín Seoighe - A great soloist and someone who transfers aspects of Canadh Sean Nós into a newer format. Alot of her work and songs touch on the state of Gaeilge (Níl mé marbh and Sín do lamh).

Kneecap - One of the more well-known, atleast over here. A rap trio from Belfast/Derry, and alot of their lyrics and flow focuses much more on the specific experience of both millenial life and Gaeilgeoirí and An Ghaeilge in the North, and what its actually like trying to engage with society through our language when half of the the governmental institution has contempt for its existence. CEARTA, one of their singles, has still stayed a sort of aintiún (anthem) for language rights up here in the North. Also, heavy heavy anti-colonialism, mar sin craic Mhaith (see their JOE.ie interview). Otherwise, some of ther best works you might like are Cearta, Bouncers agus Gael-Gigolos

TG Lurgan - A sort of summer school/learning scheme that started out of the Connemara Gaeltacht, meant to help irish learners pick up the more natural flow specifically by learning through music. Nearly all of the music is sung by school kids and leading musicians with the majority being covers of pop songs. So you can find the lyrics online easily, and can be a helpful way for people trying to learn how to deal with the lack of real word-for-word translation ó Ghaeilge go Béarla.

This is just a handful of artists, and the first handful rarely scrape over 2000 streams a month. Modern irish music is still very much a niche in its own way, miserably so even on our island. Theres no shortage of music you can find being made by newer artists though, even if ceol as gaeilge only makes up some of their work

Tá súil agam go bhfaighidh tú roinnt a mbaineann tú taitneamh astu, agus má tá tú ag foghlaim, go gcabhraíonn sé leat

[sanctus-ingenium]

Oooh! Loved to see ur answer to anons question abt drawing horses!

If you don’t mind me asking, what discipline(s) did you do? And do you have any favourite breeds? I see a lot of thoroughbred adjacent horses in your work. I personally love exmoor ponies and Shires :D

jumping mostly, some hacking

it was not a prestigious or wealthy stable and aside from one conamara pony who broke breed standards by being a horse instead and a TB with a failed racing career, they were all mutts. aesthetics-wise I like draught horses with shorter coats, medium to heavy bone. i like percherons a lot (what I reference when drawing pascal) as well as cobs and dutch draft etc

[celtic-cd-releases]

https://www.ancheadghluineile.com/

(their Web page is being updated - available in roughly 2-3 days)

https://www.facebook.com/theSingingSistersss

https://acge.bandcamp.com/album/c-il-an-bhe

[kevin-ar-tuathal]

Tuilleadh Eolais 😁🙌

Further information:

- Ag cuardú or Ag cuartú is a the only way I have ever heard the word "ag cuardach" being pronounced.

And that's, like, speakers from Conamara, from Dúiche Sheoigheach, from Árainn, from Acail, from Iorras, from Na Trí Pharóiste and the rest of Tír Chonaill. The one thing we all agree upon! 😄

I.e., unless it's a really specific Kerry or Cork or even Na Déisí way of saying it (the dialects I have least familiarity with) "ag cuardach" is really one of those shibboleths that mark a person out to be a second-language speaker or learner 🤷.

(Note that there is nothing wrong with this as a linguistic feature! It is a way of saying it, and it would be understood - I am merely stating this so that speakers be aware of how their speech may be perceived 😌)

The word "cuardú" is going to be the death of me. I heard/read it in the song "Amhrán Na Farraige" and I have not known peace since. I can't find it anywhere else. It's not on teanglann.ie, it's not on focloir.ie, it's not on tearma.ie. Literally every search result for this word in Google is about this specific song. I understand that "ag cuardú" translates to "searching" but I don't understand why. Shouldn't it be "ag cuardach"? Did Kíla create this word specifically for this song?

I don’t know that song but maybe someone else can help?

[toinghaeilge]

Front Up, Rise Up

Despite being rather different from general Connacht Irish, Irish spoken in Conamara and the Aran Islands are sometimes equated to Connacht Irish. This is because most Connacht dialects have declined and withered away.

What would actually be a more general Connacht dialect is heard in a tiny region on the border of Galway and Mayo: Joyce Country. Northern Mayo Erris and Achill Irish, although technically Connacht Irish, share more similarities to Ulster Irish due to widespread immigration as a result of the Plantation of Ulster. The Meath Gaeltacht also uses Conamara Irish due to resettlement programme in the 1930s.

While the Conamara dialect is generally regarded as the closest to standard Irish, it carries with it few archaic terms and forms.

Different Words Altogether

For example, where standard Irish would use gairdín, people speaking Conamara Irish are far more likely to say garraí, a Norse loanword. More include gasúr for child and fata for potato. 

In Joyce Country (Galway and Mayo), they use cloigean to mean "head", although they still use ceann to refer to a specific one out of a group. They also favour certain words such as doiligh and foscailte over deacair and oscailte.

The islands of Achill and Erris feature typically Donegal Irish words like nimhneach (for 'painful' or 'sore'), druid (over dún), mothaigh (over cluas/cluin), doiligh (over deacair), úr (instead of nua), and tig le (instead of féidir).

Grammar Rules

The preposition sa causes an urú instead of a séimhiú

Conamara Irish also favours verbal nouns ending in -achan , e.g. lagachan (weakening) instead of lagú. 

Many dative forms also replace nominative forms (see nominative cois, láimh, cluais, bróig). 

All nouns in the plural take cuid.

The normal distinction is that tú is the subject form and thú is the object form. In Conamara, thú accompanies the copula, just like é, í and iad do, so you get forms like is dochtúir thú but is tusa an dochtúir.

Sounds

Pronunciation-wise, Conamara Irish employs lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings.

n in cn, gn, mn become ‘r’ sounds (same as Ulster Irish, except on Árainn where it is pronounced like 'r' as in standard and Munster Irish)

th in the middle of a word is often not pronounced

bh almost always makes a ‘w’ sound

ós next to m or n generally become ú: i gcúnaí, trathnúna, nú. mór would be one exception.

In South Conamara, 'b'-sounds tend to appear at the end of words ending in bh, such as sibh and libh, as well as words ending in vowels, such as acu and leo.

Generally, Mayo Irish leans far closer to Ulster Irish than it does Connacht. In Joyce Country (Galway and Mayo), like Donegal Irish, all vowels at the end of words tend to be pronounced as though ending with í: e.g. déanta as though déantaí.

The Islands of Achill and Erris also feature more Ulster characteristics: -mh and -bh endings having a softer sound, and the tendency to pronounce words ending in vowel sounds as though ending with an 'f'-sound. For example, leo and dóibh would give leofa and dófa. One also finds words like amharc being pronounced "onk".

Learning Irish and its workbook teach Connacht Irish.

[creativitywakeup-blog]

Working Women’s Wealth Podcast interviews Nina Pearse

Nina Pearse was recently interviewed by Lisa Linfield for the Working Women’s Wealth Podcast.  We would love to share some excerpts from the interview with you.  Lisa has an impressive goal to teach 1 million women about money.  She speaks to companies, women’s groups and entrepreneurs about how to lead their best life possible by reaching their financial goals.  

Lisa Linfield: Thanks for joining us, Nina.  You have a fantastic story about finding your passion and purpose and stepping into a future with so much potential.  Tell us a little bit about your journey.

Nina Pearse:  I started out in finance and accounting.  I worked in banking for a while and then quickly realized that I didn’t want any of those jobs for myself. I moved into what I loved as a child. I would often looked up at a teacher and thought that was what I’d like to do.  I decided not to go into school teaching but into adult learning and development. I’ve now worked in that field for about twenty years. I started out in SAP training.  I then moved to Delloite and worked in People and Change.  I worked in Dimension Data for many years in Human Resources, looking after the Leadership Forum and Employee Engagement.  For the last six years I’ve have been designing and facilitating learning for leaders and managers as an associate with Conamara and with Ceed, a Digital Learning Company.  I’ve learned a lot there and loved what I have been doing.  I’ve worked with awesome people, but I’ve had a feeling growing within me that I want more.  I have more to give and I have more of a specific purpose. That’s what lead me to start thinking about my own venture.

Lisa:  You have now molded and shaped a company called Creativity Wake-Up.  You provide courses where you lead leaders, executives, business owners, really anybody through a process of waking-up their creativity. What has been the biggest thing that you have needed to learn to get from a stage of “I think I need to do something” to actually having implemented the course?  

Nina: I think it has been a big shift in mind-set and that has come through probably a few influences, one of them being a book called The Slight Edge, brought for me by my husband.  It completely shifted how I think about things.  The Slight Edge is about how we are all on a journey and the most powerful force behind that journey is time. According to the author, Jeff Olson, time is always working for or against you.  He says that this applies to every area of your life whether it be fitness, health, wealth or personal development.  Unless you are focusing on your habits and aware that what you do every day matters, the negative habits can compound over time.  He says that no one goes broke or becomes unfit overnight. It is those tiny little decisions that you make every single day that lead you to that point.  

An example of this is everyday lunch time choices.  Do you buy an Energade spending R20 or $5, or do you have the free water that is offered at the office?  What is the impact of that choice?  Will it matter today if I have the Energade?  No, it’s not going to really matter today, but over time it will have a big impact. Every time you make that decision you are first of all spending that money that you could have been spending elsewhere.  You are also filling your body with sugar which is going to make you a bit hungry in the afternoon which is going to make you eat a bit more each day.  It’s going to get your brain more addicted to that sugar and so on.  It’s the tiny things that are so mundane and small, but they make a big difference in the long term.  This concept started shifting my mind because I looked at people around me who had successfully started businesses and it always seemed so far out of reach. I couldn’t see how the small things that I do each day would make a difference. What I’ve learned is how not to scorn the small things and small beginnings.  I’ve learned to have more perseverance.  It’s okay to start out small and take a longer view.

Another influence was book called Think, Learn, Succeed by Dr Caroline Leaf.  It focuses on the brain and how our brains are neuro-plastic.   We have neuro-genesis or new cells growth in our brain every single day.  It is up to us how think, decide and choose.  This kind of victim mentality of “Ah, I can’t do this” or “I have a bad memory” is all rubbish.  You decide how you will think.  That really started changing how I think and approach things.  I could see that I started to think differently as I started implementing the things that Dr Leaf discussed in her book.

Another big influence was your Side Hustle course, Lisa.  I listened to your podcast and was intrigued about the course that you offered.  I signed up and was amazed that this quite technical, financial, business, strategic course started with such a strong psychological beginning.  You started off by saying “Why do you want to do this?  What do you want to get out of this?  Why are you going to spend time and effort on a side hustle?” That was inspiring for me because I realise that I often give up too easily.  It gave me the strength and the mental perseverance to actually start something new and to step into something brave.

Lisa:  I agree. It is little small steps that you’ve got to take every single day.  Those little things that accumulate over time, that you wake up and think “goodness, look where I am!”  

 We would love you to join us for next week’s blog for more excerpts from Nina’s interview with Working Women’s Wealth.

[fredericeger]

Europa Report Trailer (2013) (2min14) from QuantumEarth.TV on Vimeo.

Europa, Jupiter's moon is known to have potential to support life. Hence a manned mission is sent to Europa to search for data proving existence of life there. "Europa report" shows the difficult choices and sacrifices the crew has to make to fulfill their objective of sending valuable data to Earth for research.

An international crew of astronauts undertakes a privately funded mission to search for life on Jupiter's fourth largest moon.

The whole movie is made to look like it was made from a collection of recovered video footage. The movie begins with an introductory screen saying, "The Europa One mission was the first attempt to send men and women into deep space." Various camera feeds are shown of the ship's interior and exterior. In one video, Engineer James Corrigan (Sharlto Copley) is shown recording a video diary; in others team captain William Xu (Daniel Wu) is seen adjusting various panels, Dr. Katya Petrovna (Karolina Wydra) is seen fixing gear, Andrei Blok (Michael Nyqvist) and Dr. Daniel Luxembourg (Christian Camargo) are seen enjoying a floating game of chess and pilot Rosa Dasque (Anamaria Marinca) is seen adjusting panels and monitors in the cockpit. The camera feeds slowly start to get distorted and eventually stop, with the feed from the cockpit of pilot Rosa Dasque being the last image before a static.

Back on what appears to be earth at that present time, Dr. Samantha Unger (Embeth Davidtz) is apparently giving an interview on the Europa One mission, saying, "These were the last few images from the Europa One craft. At that time it had already traveled further than any human being had ever traveled before. For 16 long months I have been asked the simple but loaded question: What happened?..all...I am sorry.." She is visually upset while recalling the mission details.

It appears that somehow the rest of the mission video footage was later recovered and then compiled to tell the story of the crew aboard Europa One.

The footage of Europa One resumes with the team assembled in the central living area, all except James Corrigan. Everyone is upset; it is obvious something bad must have happened. Katya asks about informing 'his' family and whether they should go on. Back on earth Dr. Umber explains she was on board a transatlantic flight when she was informed that feed transmission from Europa One had stopped, and what they expected to be just delayed was already over 15 hours of dead feed.

The recorded video diary of pilot Rosa is shown and she confirms the death of James Corrigan, and how badly it affected the whole team, saying how the "exhilaration of it all left." The rest of the team appear in various camera feeds visibly stressed and broken down, Andrei seemingly most distraught. Daniel and Katya pack James' bag. A year after James' death the team is still depressed and trying to cope.

The mission video feed now goes back 19 months, 10 days and 14 hours to explain the events that lead to the current situation. The viewers are now taken back to the launch day. The administration including Dr. Umber are all excited to introduce the mission and reveal its purpose. The team pull off a successful launch and are up in space on their way to Europa. The 6 man crew, the first to journey beyond the moon, is applauded loudly at mission control. On board James starts his video diary by introducing the ship's interior, their daily life and the rest of the excited crew. Dr. Umber (back on Earth) cuts in saying how far they have come and how far they yet have to go. Several pre-launch interviews are shown explaining that the purpose of the mission is to seek out life in Europa, as it has been confirmed that free water does exist beneath its very thick layer of ice, and even heat signatures have been found in the area called the "Conamara Chaos." On board, the team continues with their regular life. Various interviews of the team members back on earth are shown, including more information about the trip prior to the launch. Going forward again to the 19th month of the mission, team captain William Xu and Daniel confront Andrei about his slow recovery and after he leaves rather rudely the two decide that they will be taking him with them in the lander to Europa.

21 months, 16 days and 23 hours into the trip Jupiter is very close and pilot Rosa records in her video diary that the closeness of the planet brought back the excitement, and the team is ready to work for the mission again. The crew soon reach Europa and prepare the lander. They reach close to the surface smoothly but face radiation interference close to the landing site and choose an alternate landing zone about 100 meters away from the Conamara Chaos- their preferred site. Back on Earth at that time Dr. Umber still had no idea about what happened to the crew, and stared at Jupiter in the night sky hoping that they made it...

[quantumearth-blog]

Europa Report (2013) TV Spot from QuantumEarth.TV on Vimeo.

The whole movie is made to look like it was made from a collection of recovered video footage. The movie begins with an introductory screen saying, "The Europa One mission was the first attempt to send men and women into deep space." Various camera feeds are shown of the ship's interior and exterior. In one video, Engineer James Corrigan (Sharlto Copley) is shown recording a video diary; in others team captain William Xu (Daniel Wu) is seen adjusting various panels, Dr. Katya Petrovna (Karolina Wydra) is seen fixing gear, Andrei Blok (Michael Nyqvist) and Dr. Daniel Luxembourg (Christian Camargo) are seen enjoying a floating game of chess and pilot Rosa Dasque (Anamaria Marinca) is seen adjusting panels and monitors in the cockpit. The camera feeds slowly start to get distorted and eventually stop, with the feed from the cockpit of pilot Rosa Dasque being the last image before a static.

Back on what appears to be earth at that present time, Dr. Samantha Unger (Embeth Davidtz) is apparently giving an interview on the Europa One mission, saying, "These were the last few images from the Europa One craft. At that time it had already traveled further than any human being had ever traveled before. For 16 long months I have been asked the simple but loaded question: What happened?..all...I am sorry.." She is visually upset while recalling the mission details.

It appears that somehow the rest of the mission video footage was later recovered and then compiled to tell the story of the crew aboard Europa One.

The footage of Europa One resumes with the team assembled in the central living area, all except James Corrigan. Everyone is upset; it is obvious something bad must have happened. Katya asks about informing 'his' family and whether they should go on. Back on earth Dr. Umber explains she was on board a transatlantic flight when she was informed that feed transmission from Europa One had stopped, and what they expected to be just delayed was already over 15 hours of dead feed.

The recorded video diary of pilot Rosa is shown and she confirms the death of James Corrigan, and how badly it affected the whole team, saying how the "exhilaration of it all left." The rest of the team appear in various camera feeds visibly stressed and broken down, Andrei seemingly most distraught. Daniel and Katya pack James' bag. A year after James' death the team is still depressed and trying to cope.

The mission video feed now goes back 19 months, 10 days and 14 hours to explain the events that lead to the current situation. The viewers are now taken back to the launch day. The administration including Dr. Umber are all excited to introduce the mission and reveal its purpose. The team pull off a successful launch and are up in space on their way to Europa. The 6 man crew, the first to journey beyond the moon, is applauded loudly at mission control. On board James starts his video diary by introducing the ship's interior, their daily life and the rest of the excited crew. Dr. Umber (back on Earth) cuts in saying how far they have come and how far they yet have to go. Several pre-launch interviews are shown explaining that the purpose of the mission is to seek out life in Europa, as it has been confirmed that free water does exist beneath its very thick layer of ice, and even heat signatures have been found in the area called the "Conamara Chaos." On board, the team continues with their regular life. Various interviews of the team members back on earth are shown, including more information about the trip prior to the launch. Going forward again to the 19th month of the mission, team captain William Xu and Daniel confront Andrei about his slow recovery and after he leaves rather rudely the two decide that they will be taking him with them in the lander to Europa.

[toingaeilge]

Front Up, Rise Up

Despite being rather different from general Connacht Irish, Irish spoken in Conamara and the Aran Islands are sometimes equated to Connacht Irish. This is because most Connacht dialects have declined and withered away.

What would actually be a more general Connacht dialect is heard in a tiny region on the border of Galway and Mayo: Joyce Country. Northern Mayo Erris and Achill Irish, although technically Connacht Irish, share more similarities to Ulster Irish due to widespread immigration as a result of the Plantation of Ulster. The Meath Gaeltacht also uses Conamara Irish due to resettlement programme in the 1930s.

While the Conamara dialect is generally regarded as the closest to standard Irish, it carries with it few archaic terms and forms.

Different Words Altogether

For example, where standard Irish would use gairdín, people speaking Conamara Irish are far more likely to say garraí, a Norse loanword. More include gasúr for child and fata for potato. 

In Joyce Country (Galway and Mayo), they use cloigean to mean "head", although they still use ceann to refer to a specific one out of a group. They also favour certain words such as doiligh and foscailte over deacair and oscailte.

The islands of Achill and Erris feature typically Donegal Irish words like nimhneach (for 'painful' or 'sore'), druid (over dún), mothaigh (over cluas/cluin), doiligh (over deacair), úr (instead of nua), and tig le (instead of féidir).

Grammar Rules

The preposition sa causes an urú instead of a séimhiú

Conamara Irish also favours verbal nouns ending in -achan , e.g. lagachan (weakening) instead of lagú. 

Many dative forms also replace nominative forms (see nominative cois, láimh, cluais, bróig). 

All nouns in the plural take cuid.

The normal distinction is that tú is the subject form and thú is the object form. In Conamara, thú accompanies the copula, just like é, í and iad do, so you get forms like is dochtúir thú but is tusa an dochtúir.

Sounds

Pronunciation-wise, Conamara Irish employs lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings.

n in cn, gn, mn become ‘r’ sounds (same as Ulster Irish, except on Árainn where it is pronounced like 'r' as in standard and Munster Irish)

th in the middle of a word is often not pronounced

bh almost always makes a ‘w’ sound

ós next to m or n generally become ú: i gcúnaí, trathnúna, nú. mór would be one exception.

In South Conamara, 'b'-sounds tend to appear at the end of words ending in bh, such as sibh and libh, as well as words ending in vowels, such as acu and leo.

Generally, Mayo Irish leans far closer to Ulster Irish than it does Connacht. In Joyce Country (Galway and Mayo), like Donegal Irish, all vowels at the end of words tend to be pronounced as though ending with í: e.g. déanta as though déantaí.

The Islands of Achill and Erris also feature more Ulster characteristics: -mh and -bh endings having a softer sound, and the tendency to pronounce words ending in vowel sounds as though ending with an 'f'-sound. For example, leo and dóibh would give leofa and dófa. One also finds words like amharc being pronounced "onk".

Learning Irish and its workbook teach Connacht Irish.

[duine-aiteach]

This might be an odd question, but is there a "standard" dialect for Irish that's generally used in schools? I ask because, as I poke around looking into basic Irish, I'm realizing that even something as simple as "dia dhuit" is pronounced noticeably differently depending on who is teaching it. Or is that kind of standardization just not a thing when teaching Irish like it is for other languages?

I think there is definitely some form of standardised Irish being taught but I think it also depends on who is teaching it. My teacher in 3rd class was from Limerick and then she got replaced with a more local teacher who corrected our pronunciations from the Munster dialect. In Leaving Cert I then had a teacher who kept saying “well in Conamara they say it this way-“ so she was clearly pushing Conamara Irish on us.

[fredericeger]

Europa Report (2013) (TV Spot) from QuantumEarth.TV on Vimeo.

Europa, Jupiter's moon is known to have potential to support life. Hence a manned mission is sent to Europa to search for data proving existence of life there. "Europa report" shows the difficult choices and sacrifices the crew has to make to fulfill their objective of sending valuable data to Earth for research.

An international crew of astronauts undertakes a privately funded mission to search for life on Jupiter's fourth largest moon.

The whole movie is made to look like it was made from a collection of recovered video footage. The movie begins with an introductory screen saying, "The Europa One mission was the first attempt to send men and women into deep space." Various camera feeds are shown of the ship's interior and exterior. In one video, Engineer James Corrigan (Sharlto Copley) is shown recording a video diary; in others team captain William Xu (Daniel Wu) is seen adjusting various panels, Dr. Katya Petrovna (Karolina Wydra) is seen fixing gear, Andrei Blok (Michael Nyqvist) and Dr. Daniel Luxembourg (Christian Camargo) are seen enjoying a floating game of chess and pilot Rosa Dasque (Anamaria Marinca) is seen adjusting panels and monitors in the cockpit. The camera feeds slowly start to get distorted and eventually stop, with the feed from the cockpit of pilot Rosa Dasque being the last image before a static.

Back on what appears to be earth at that present time, Dr. Samantha Unger (Embeth Davidtz) is apparently giving an interview on the Europa One mission, saying, "These were the last few images from the Europa One craft. At that time it had already traveled further than any human being had ever traveled before. For 16 long months I have been asked the simple but loaded question: What happened?..all...I am sorry.." She is visually upset while recalling the mission details.

It appears that somehow the rest of the mission video footage was later recovered and then compiled to tell the story of the crew aboard Europa One.

The footage of Europa One resumes with the team assembled in the central living area, all except James Corrigan. Everyone is upset; it is obvious something bad must have happened. Katya asks about informing 'his' family and whether they should go on. Back on earth Dr. Umber explains she was on board a transatlantic flight when she was informed that feed transmission from Europa One had stopped, and what they expected to be just delayed was already over 15 hours of dead feed.

The recorded video diary of pilot Rosa is shown and she confirms the death of James Corrigan, and how badly it affected the whole team, saying how the "exhilaration of it all left." The rest of the team appear in various camera feeds visibly stressed and broken down, Andrei seemingly most distraught. Daniel and Katya pack James' bag. A year after James' death the team is still depressed and trying to cope.

The mission video feed now goes back 19 months, 10 days and 14 hours to explain the events that lead to the current situation. The viewers are now taken back to the launch day. The administration including Dr. Umber are all excited to introduce the mission and reveal its purpose. The team pull off a successful launch and are up in space on their way to Europa. The 6 man crew, the first to journey beyond the moon, is applauded loudly at mission control. On board James starts his video diary by introducing the ship's interior, their daily life and the rest of the excited crew. Dr. Umber (back on Earth) cuts in saying how far they have come and how far they yet have to go. Several pre-launch interviews are shown explaining that the purpose of the mission is to seek out life in Europa, as it has been confirmed that free water does exist beneath its very thick layer of ice, and even heat signatures have been found in the area called the "Conamara Chaos." On board, the team continues with their regular life. Various interviews of the team members back on earth are shown, including more information about the trip prior to the launch. Going forward again to the 19th month of the mission, team captain William Xu and Daniel confront Andrei about his slow recovery and after he leaves rather rudely the two decide that they will be taking him with them in the lander to Europa.

21 months, 16 days and 23 hours into the trip Jupiter is very close and pilot Rosa records in her video diary that the closeness of the planet brought back the excitement, and the team is ready to work for the mission again. The crew soon reach Europa and prepare the lander. They reach close to the surface smoothly but face radiation interference close to the landing site and choose an alternate landing zone about 100 meters away from the Conamara Chaos- their preferred site. Back on Earth at that time Dr. Umber still had no idea about what happened to the crew, and stared at Jupiter in the night sky hoping that they made it...