As a tribute to the amount of snow that fell over the weekend ar chĂłsta thoir na StĂĄt Aontaithe, and, I suppose, as a belated tribute to the amount that fell in Ăirinn i mĂ EanĂĄir, letâs talk about some of the ways it can fall or accumulate.
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The most basic statement would be:
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TĂĄ sĂ© ag cur sneachta. Itâs snowing, lit. It is âputtingâ snow.Â
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That verb âcurâ (putting) is used for other forms of precipitation as well, as in âTĂĄ sĂ© ag cur fearthainneâ or âTĂĄ sĂ© ag cur bĂĄistĂâ (both meaning âItâs rainingâ) and âTĂĄ sĂ© ag cur seacaâ (Itâs freezing). Â
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Other forms of snow are:
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caidhleadh sneachta [KAL-yeh âŠ] , a blizzard, from the verb âcadhailâ (âpileâ or âtwistâ in general, âdriveâ regarding âsnowâ)
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flichshneachta [FLIH-HNAKH-tuh, the first âcâ and the âsâ are silent], sleet, from âfliuchâ (wet) + âsneachtaâ
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greallach sneachta, slush, from âgreallachâ (mire, puddle)
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One of my favorite phrases in Irish is âmuc shneachta.â For those of you who know your domestic animals in Irish, yes, you read that right. It means a âsnow driftâ but literally it is âpig of snow.â For the plural, muca sneachta, you lose the first âhâ in âshneachta,â following the standard pattern for feminine plural nouns (cf. fuinneog mhĂłr, a big window, but fuinneoga mĂłra, big windows)
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I just learned a new term in English, thundersnow, for which I canât find any Irish equivalent. But, mĂșineann gĂĄ seift, and we could always improvise with a beautifully long word like *toirneachshneachta [TIR-nukh-HNAKH-tuh] with no fleiscĂn (hyphen), as per the current rules of modern Irish punctuation. Or we could go for the genitive and say âsneachta toirnĂâ (lit. snow of thunder, on analogy with âstoirm thoirnĂ,â thunderstorm, using âtoirnĂ,â the genitive case of âtoirneachâ). Apparently thatâs what some areas received this weekend.Â
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Beautiful as the tĂrdhreach sneachtĂșil may be, it can always present the danger of dĂł seaca (frostbite). âDĂłâ literally means âburningâ and is a completely different word here from âdĂł,â the number âtwo.â There are two ways to say the adjective form, frostbitten, âdĂłite ag an siocâ and âsiocdhĂłite.â So, in Irish, the frost âburnsâ instead of âbites.âÂ
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How many of these snow-related phrases can you figure out: daille shneachta, plĂșirĂn sneachta, liopard sneachta, fear sneachta, and liathrĂłid shneachta? If, as you work through them, you wonder why some say âshneachtaâ and others say âsneachta,â itâs because some are grammatically feminine. âDaille,â blindness, follows many abstract nouns in being feminine (like ĂĄille, gile, etc.). As for why âliathrĂłidâ (ball) is feminine, thereâs no apparent reason. Itâs just a feature of Irish, like most Indo-European languages except English, that nouns have grammatical gender. Every noun is either masculine or feminine, except for a handful of genderless nouns referred to in Irish grammar as âsubstantives.â Most of these are limited to use in set or fixed phrases today, like âfĂ©idirâ in âIs fĂ©idir liomâ (I can). So, from the group above, the âsnowdropâ (flower), âsnow leopard,â and (logically enough) âsnowmanâ are all masculine. Now that you have all five translations, you can probably match which one goes with which Irish phrase.Â
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NĂłtaĂ: gĂĄ [gaw] need, necessity; seift [sheft] plan (here âinvention,â which should help you translate this phrase into the familiar proverb). âSeacaâ [SHAK-uh] is the possessive (genitive) form of âsiocâ ([shuk] frost). Even though phrases like âag cur seacaâ or âdĂł seacaâ donât involve possession in the sense of ownership, they are still required, in Irish, to be in the genitive case, which typically marks possession. So you can think of these, very literally, as âat frostâs puttingâ (at the putting of frost) and âfrostâs burning.âÂ
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