Posts tagged with "adjective"

Laethanta na Seachtaine (Days of the Week, in Irish, with pronunciation)

Posted by róislín 3 Comments
Sep 24 2011

(le Róislín)

And one more féilire-related topic: laethanta na seachtaine.  Which could also be called “laethe na seachtaine.”  Both plural forms of “lá” are widely used, “laethanta” and “laethe.”

You’ve already noticed the use of “an tuiseal ginideach” in this phrase, right?  That accounts for the “-e” ending to the word “seachtain.”  Since we’re saying “of the week,” not just “the week,” the common form “seachtain” undergoes a change for the genitive case (to “seachtaine”).  The definite article also changes from “an” to “na.”  That last change is quite systematic in Irish, and is also quite separate from the use of “na” for plural forms, which you’ve probably also seen.  Just to hammer that point home, what form of the definite article (“an” or “na”) would you use for the following phrases?  Freagraí thíos (A).

1) Raidió ____ Gaeltachta

2) doras ____ hoifige

3) Mí ____ Nollag

4) ____ Nollaig

5) ____  horduimhreacha

And now to na laethanta iad féin.  There are two main forms for each day, so this theme will take at least two blogs.  The forms in today’s blog are used for sentences like “Today is Monday” or “Monday is the first day of the work week.”  A separate blog will deal with the phrases that start with the word “Dé” as in “Dé Luain,” (on Monday) where an tuiseal ginideach is once again required, even though the phrase appears adverbial. 

As you can see from this list, some of the weekday names are masculine (like An Luan) and some are feminine (marked by lenition, or in the case of Aoine, marked by the lack of a prefixed “t-“).  Starting with Sunday:

An Domhnach [un DOH-nukh, with the “m” silent]

An Luan [un LOO-un]

An Mháirt [un wartch, with the “m” silent]

An Chéadaoin [un HyAY-deen, with the “c” silent and an initial “h” sound as in English “human” or the name Hugh / Huw, in other words, not like the “h” of “hat,” “hall,” or “hello.”]

An Déardaoin [un DjAYR-deen]

An Aoine [un EEN-yuh]

An Satharn [un SAH-hurn, with the “t” silent].

So, could you tell which of these are the feminine nouns, and which are masculine?  Freagraí thíos (B).

Sin é for the “an” forms.  Next time, the “Dé” forms.  But in case you thought this blog was quite short and sweet, you’ll see that the nótaí thíos are about as long as an blag é féin.  Vive la “footnote”!  Or should that be “le footnote”?  Oh, I guess it really should be “Vive la note en bas de page!”  But that doesn’t have quite the bilingual panache I was hoping for.  So maybe I should just stick to unadorned Irish.  “Fonótaí abú!”  Sásúil?  SGF, Róislín

Gluais do na freagraí: baininscneach (feminine), firinscneach (masculine)

Freagraí (A): 1) Raidió na Gaeltachta, 2) doras na hoifige, the door of the office, 3) Mí na Nollag, December, lit. the month of (the) Christmas, 4) An Nollaig, (the) Christmas, with the basic form of the definite article, “an,” since for this example, the word “Christmas” stands alone, not embedded in a possessive context like “Daidí na Nollag” or “Mí na Nollag,” 5) na horduimhreacha, the ordinal numbers, with “na” used here because the noun is plural, not because it’s in a possessive relationship to another noun.   

Freagraí (B):

Baininscneach: An Mháirt and An Chéadaoin, marked by lenition, and An Aoine, marked by the absence of a prefixed “t-“ before vowels.  How can something be marked grammatically by the absence of a letter?  Well, I guess it doesn’t happen in English, but remember the following basic nouns in Irish: an t-úll (masculine), an uimhir (feminine),      an t-oráiste (masculine), and an oifig (feminine).  The “t-“ in front of “úll” and “oráiste” marks these words as masculine, and the lack of a prefixed “t-“ in front of “uimhir” and “oifig” marks those words as feminine.  Why does this matter?  As with the Romance languages, adjectives in Irish agree with the noun in gender, so we need to know a noun’s gender in order to pair it up with an adjective.  Of course, in Irish this is mostly indicated by initial consonant change, not by alternate endings like the Spanish “-o” and “-a,” but the concept still applies – masculine noun, masculine adjective form; feminine noun, feminine adjective form. We also need to know a noun’s gender to create the correct possessive form.  And to deal with all of that would take way more than one blog, so for here, it’s just a heads-up for future topics. 

Firinscneach: An Domhnach, An Luan, An Déardaoin, An Satharn

Fonóta faoi na Freagraí: To be a little more beacht and to harken back to the word’s origin, we should remember that “Déardaoin” is actually variable.  Some speakers consider it feminine, which is logical enough, given that it is based on the word “Aoine,” which, as we saw above, is feminine.  “Aoine” is an old word for “fasting,” and “Déardaoin” means “the day between two fasts.”  Normally when various prefixed elements (here, the whole “déard-“ part) are added to a root noun, the noun retains the original gender, but not in this case, at least not by most modern standards.  But the variability of gender here does reflect the fact that the original root of this phrase (aoine) is feminine. 

The good news?  Since this day’s name happens to start with the consonant “d,” which resists lenition after “n,” in most cases it really won’t matter if the word is considered masculine or feminine – you still say “an Déardaoin.”  Gender would normally come into play if you wanted to say something like “Black Thursday,” (referring to October 24, 1929, a seminal day in the fall of Wall Street, which led to the Great Depression of the 1930s).  But even there, the same rule kicks in, “d” resisting lenition after “n” in the preceding word (which is why we say “An Danmhairg,” Denmark, a feminine noun, and “an deacracht,” the difficulty, also feminine, without changing the “d” to “dh”).  So we say “Déardaoin Dubh,” whether we consider the word “Déardaoin” to be masculine or feminine; in other words, we don’t use the usual feminine form, “dhubh”.

There aren’t too many other “Thursday” phrases that would be followed by adjectives, at least not that come readily to mind.  Hmm, how about “Sweet Thursday,” as in the John Steinbeck novel?  Well, Déardaoin Milis, if we stick with the masculine interpretation.  Déardaoin Mhilis, if we consider it feminine, but given that the novel is in English, and there’s no Irish translation, fad m’eolais, it’s a bit of a moot point. 

“Thursday Next,” as in the Jasper Fforde novels, is a character name, so even if we translated Fforde’s works into Irish, the character name would likely stay the same as in English.  Especially since in Irish the idea of “next” (in time) takes three words (an __ seo chugainn), so it would be a bit awkward as a character name (An Déardaoin Seo Chugainn).  A bit like being named “Moon Unit,” perhaps, although she seems to have adjusted just fine. 

Other “next” possibilities?  Equally problematic: An Chéad Déardaoin Eile (next Thursday, in sequence, not in time).  Not likely for a character name, and not really a characteristic usage in Irish.  For normal Irish adverbial use, “an Déardaoin dar gcionn” would be more typical (next, i.e. the following Thursday).  

The next (nearest in distance) Thursday: An Déardaoin Is Neasa, but that is a fairly improbable form, unless the character “Thursday” got cloned and a group of identical Thursdays was standing in line, one being nearest to you.  Bottom line, though, is even if someone wanted to use any of these possible forms, they still wouldn’t clarify the gender issue for “Déardaoin.”  “Seo” doesn’t change for gender and nor would “eile” since it starts with a vowel (not-lenitable).  Nor would “Is Neasa” since it starts with a vowel and the first word of that phrase  is actually a verb (“is”).  And verbs in Irish don’t have gender!  Unless they are ainmfhocail bhriathartha, but that is definitely “scéal eile.”  So, returning to the crux of the issue, “Déardaoin” is considered masculine according to the modern standard, and most other uses in which it would possibly occur are unlikely to shed any further light on the topic because of the chance spellings of the words that would follow.  So we’ll leave it as firinscneach. 

Anyway, now I’ll have to go hunt up whether Fforde or the Steinbeck novel have been translated into Irish and if a translator has already pondered these issues, but my hunch is “neamhdhóchúil” (unlikely).   Deireadh na nótaí, faoi dheireadh!

Cúpla Caife Gaelach, Dhá Chaife Ghaelacha (A Couple of Irish Coffees vs. Two Irish Coffees)

Posted by róislín 1 Comment
Aug 20 2011

(le Róislín)

Lenition, another lenition, and a plural ending. 

That’s the difference that happens when we say “two Irish coffees” as opposed to “a couple of Irish coffees.”

So how does that work?

As we discussed in the last blog, the Irish word “cúpla” is followed by the singular form of the noun (unlike English, where we’d say, a couple of coffees, plural).  Any adjective that might follow the Irish noun is also singular, with possible lenition if the noun is feminine.  We looked at these examples: cúpla bosca mór, cúpla cearc bhán 

So now what happens if we want to say “two big boxes” or “two white hens”?

Well, it’s a fairly different set of rules!

After the number “two” in Irish (dhá), almost all nouns in Irish are lenited.  That is, of course, if they begin with a lenitable consonant (b, c, d, f, g, m, p, s, t).  Lenition is marked by adding the letter “h” after the original first letter and adjusting the pronunciation; it has been discussed extensively elsewhere in this blog.  For “bosca,” the lenited version is “bhosca” [WOSS-kuh, or depending on dialect, VOSS-kuh, but no longer an actual “b” sound].  For “cearc,” the lenited version is “chearc” [hyark, with the “hy” indicating a sound like the initial “h” in “humid” or “Huw” or “hew” (as opposed to “who” or “hooley” or the “hoo” that Horton heard; no “guttural”/throaty “ch” sound here as we have in “buachaill” or German “Buch” or Yiddish, and now English “chutzpah”)]. 

Are there exceptions to this?  Well, there are exceptions to almost every rule, but only one springs to mind for this situation: “dhá dtrian,” which means “two-thirds.”  We can just consider it the “eisceacht” that makes the “riail.” 

So first lenition “sorted,” as we might say.

Next, remember, no plural ending for the noun after a number, so “bhosca,” which still just means “box,” stays as “bhosca” (not “bhoscaí” which is plural as well as being lenited).

The second lenition occurs at the beginning of the adjective, so “mór” changes to “mhór,” and we still have to add the plural ending (-a).  So we end up with “mhóra.”  Here it doesn’t matter what inscne (gender) the noun is, unlike non-counting situations (for example, plain old “bosca mór,” no lenition, but “cearc mhór,” with lenition, because “cearc” is feminine).   

And now you’ve seen the plural ending, so we’re all set!

dhá bhosca mhóra, two big boxes

And as for those “cearca,” remember, the noun still keeps its singular form, even after the number:

dhá chearc bhána, two white hens

And for the “caifí Gaelacha” (Irish coffees), when we’re specifying two of them:

dhá chaife Ghaelacha, as we saw i dteideal an bhlag seo.

In these examples, counting objects, things, and animals, gender, for once, doesn’t matter.  So we could also say:

dhá chearc mhóra, two big hens (exact same adjective form as with the masculine noun “bosca”) and

dhá bhosca bhána, two white boxes (exact same adjective form as with the feminine noun “cearc”)

I’m sure it seems strange for the noun to be singular, grammatically, when we actually have two of them, but sin mar atá.  And even stranger, perhaps, that the adjective modifying that singular noun has a plural ending.  Ach arís, sin mar atá.  Or maybe for emphasis, I could echo the Irish penchant for saying “at all, at all,” and say “Ach arís, sin mar atá atá.” <ba-dum ching, which is the onomatopeia, if not the Gaeilge, for “What a bad joke!>  ‘Sea, I know that’s not even really de réir na gramadaí, but I’ve always loved those “at all at all” sayings.  Maith dom é, mura mhiste leat.  Couldn’t resist!  Never heard that “at all at all” Irishism at all?  Sampla thíos. 

btw, these rules change if you’re counting people as opposed to things, ach sin ábhar blag eile.   Sin é don bhlag seo.  SGF ó Róislín

Nóta faoi “at all, at all”:  If I recall the scéilín grinn correctly, the tourist asked what the single white line painted down the road meant.  The Irishman replied, “You can’t park there at all.”  Then the tourist asked what the double white line painted in the road meant.  The Irishman replied, “You can’t park there at all, at all.”

Gluais: maith dom, forgive me

 

Ag Caint faoi Bhia (hunger, hungry, etc.)

Posted by róislín No Comments
Aug 28 2010

Agus mé ag éisteacht leis an raidió le déanaí, chuala mé clár faoi neamhshlándáil bia.  Bhí an clár i mBéarla ach shocraigh mé ag an am go scríobhfainn blag faoi théarmaí Gaeilge a bhaineanns le bia.  Níl mé ag caint anseo faoi chineálacha áirithe bia mar thrátaí grianthromaithe nó vaiféil, ach go ginearálta, faoi bhia agus ocras agus a leithéid.

While I was listening to the radio recently, I heard a program about food insecurity.  The program was in English but I decided at the time that I would write a blog about Irish terms pertaining to food.  I’m not talking here about specific types of food, like sun-dried tomatoes or waffles, but generally, about food, hunger, and the like. 

So here are the basics:

Tá ocras orm [taw OK-russ OR-um], I’m hungry, lit. hunger is on me.

Hunger, like many other feelings (tart, thirst; brón, sadness, srl.), is “on you” in Irish. 

There is an adjective “ocrach” (hungry), but it is reserved more for saying someone has a “hungry appearance” (cuma ocrach) or for being abstract (na blianta ocracha, the hungry years; talamh ocrach, hungry soil, srl.).  “Ocrasach” is a variation. 

You might be asked, “An bhfuil ocras ort?” (Are you hungry, lit. Is there hunger on you?)

Possible answers could be:

Tá, tá ocras orm: Yes, I’m hungry.

Níl, d’ith mé tamaillín ó shin: No, I ate a little while ago.  But don’t try turning down a cup of tea in Ireland – somehow it’s just not done.  Actually, let me revise that.  Often what’s done is that you politely decline the tea the first time it’s offered.  Then it will probably be offered again, so turn it down again but sounding a little more hesitant.  But you’re still saying you don’t want to put your host to any trouble and your host is insisting it’s no trouble at all at all.  But the tea will probably be offered a third time, at which time most people will acquiesce and accept the tea.  Which everyone knew all along would be the likely outcome.  I know that’s a bit of a scéal thairis (digression), so let’s get back to hunger.    

If you’re really hungry, you could say:

Tá mé stiúgtha leis an ocras [… SHTYOOG-huh lesh un OK-russ], I’m perished with hunger (famished). 

So, “ocras” is the word most commonly used to describe hunger that an individual feels.  Turning to the more somber side of the issue though, and to the reason why “slándáil bia” is such an important topic these days, we have the word “gorta.”  In fact, this word has pretty much entered the vocabulary everyone should know to discuss even the basics of Irish history, when speaking English, since the phrase “An Gorta Mór” (The Great Hunger) appears to have largely replaced the term “potato famine” referring to the 1845 to 1851 time period.  

If one is very new to learning the Irish language, but has read in general on Irish history, one might well have encountered the word “gorta” before learning the word “ocras.”  In that case, it might seem surprising that there’s this shift in vocabulary, that one can’t just take the word “hunger” from the phrase “An Gorta Mór” and drop it into the everyday question, “Are you hungry?”  But this kind of thing happens regularly with languages, one word for one context and another word, meaning almost the same thing, for another context. 

So how else is the word “gorta” used, aside from the phrase “An Gorta Mór”?  Here are some samples:

bliain ghorta, a year of famine

bás den ghorta, death from starvation or famine

There’s also the phrase, “Bhí gorta air” meaning “He was weak with hunger.”  In my experience, however, that’s not used in everyday situations, even when one feels starving simply because it’s been some hours since one’s last meal.  In that case, the phrase with “stiúgtha” would be more likely.  In fact, for any of us in a country or region where “slándáil bia” is not an active concern, I think we tend to use the phrase “starving” even when we’re nowhere near the medical definition.

And having said all of this, yes, there is some overlap.  For example, there are at least two ways to say someone starved to death: “Fuair sé bás den ocras” or “Fuair sé bás den ghorta.”  In both cases, the more literal translation is “he got death from (the) hunger.”

To end on a more upbeat note, there’s also the well-known seanfhocal, “Is maith an t-anlann an t-ocras” (Hunger is the best sauce).  Nice for the thought and nice also as a reminder about inserting the letter “t-“ after the definite article (“an”) when dealing with an “ainmfhocal” which is both “fireannach” (masculine) and “uatha” (singular) and which starts “le guta” (with a vowel).  Had to end on a grammar note, didn’t I?  Bhuel, tá mé ag dul amach le haghaidh bróinse.  Tá ocras orm anois agus is dócha go gcuirfidh sin anlann ar an mbia!

Nóta ginearálta:  It’s at least another blog’s worth, but there are dozens of other terms like “An Gorta Mór” that are used when discussing Irish history (in English) that either have no English equivalent or for which the literal English translation doesn’t have the same nuance as the Irish.  The same is true, of course, for other languages around the world, with terms such as “raj,” “glasnost,” or “wampum.”  In fact, it’s also true for some English terms that might be used in discussing American history in Irish, such as “the Pilgrim Fathers,” for which the Irish term is “na Pilgrim Fathers.”  One could always take “pilgrim” (oilithreach) and “father” (athair) and construct a term, but in some cases, it’s best just to leave the term in its original language.

Cineálacha Sneachta: Kinds of Snow

Posted by róislín 2 Comments
Feb 8 2010

As a tribute to the amount of snow that fell over the weekend ar chósta thoir na Stát Aontaithe, and, I suppose, as a belated tribute to the amount that fell in Éirinn i mí Eanáir, let’s talk about some of the ways it can fall or accumulate.

 

The most basic statement would be:

 

Tá sé ag cur sneachta.  It’s snowing, lit. It is “putting” snow. 

 

That verb “cur” (putting) is used for other forms of precipitation as well, as in “Tá sé ag cur fearthainne” or “Tá sé ag cur báistí” (both meaning “It’s raining”) and “Tá sé ag cur seaca” (It’s freezing).   

 

Other forms of snow are:

 

caidhleadh sneachta [KAL-yeh …] , a blizzard, from the verb “cadhail” (“pile” or “twist” in general, “drive” regarding “snow”)

 

flichshneachta [FLIH-HNAKH-tuh, the first “c” and the “s” are silent], sleet, from “fliuch” (wet) + “sneachta”

 

greallach sneachta, slush, from “greallach” (mire, puddle)

 

One of my favorite phrases in Irish is “muc shneachta.”  For those of you who know your domestic animals in Irish, yes, you read that right.  It means a “snow drift” but literally it is “pig of snow.”  For the plural, muca sneachta, you lose the first “h” in “shneachta,” following the standard pattern for feminine plural nouns (cf. fuinneog mhór, a big window, but fuinneoga móra, big windows)

 

I just learned a new term in English, thundersnow, for which I can’t find any Irish equivalent.  But, múineann gá seift, and we could always improvise with a beautifully long word like *toirneachshneachta [TIR-nukh-HNAKH-tuh] with no fleiscín (hyphen), as per the current rules of modern Irish punctuation.  Or we could go for the genitive and say “sneachta toirní” (lit. snow of thunder, on analogy with “stoirm thoirní,” thunderstorm, using “toirní,” the genitive case of “toirneach”).  Apparently that’s what some areas received this weekend. 

 

Beautiful as the tírdhreach sneachtúil may be, it can always present the danger of dó seaca (frostbite).  “Dó” literally means “burning” and is a completely different word here from “dó,” the number “two.”  There are two ways to say the adjective form, frostbitten, “dóite ag an sioc” and “siocdhóite.”  So, in Irish, the frost “burns” instead of “bites.” 

 

How many of these snow-related phrases can you figure out: daille shneachta, plúirín sneachta, liopard sneachta, fear sneachta, and liathróid shneachta?  If, as you work through them, you wonder why some say “shneachta” and others say “sneachta,” it’s because some are grammatically feminine.  “Daille,” blindness, follows many abstract nouns in being feminine (like áille, gile, etc.).  As for why “liathróid” (ball) is feminine, there’s no apparent reason.  It’s 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 “substantives.”  Most of these are limited to use in set or fixed phrases today, like “féidir” in “Is féidir liom” (I can).  So, from the group above, the “snowdrop” (flower), “snow leopard,” and (logically enough) “snowman” are all masculine.  Now that you have all five translations, you can probably match which one goes with which Irish phrase. 

 

Nótaí: gá [gaw] need, necessity; seift [sheft] plan (here “invention,” which should help you translate this phrase into the familiar proverb).  “Seaca” [SHAK-uh] is the possessive (genitive) form of “sioc” ([shuk] frost).  Even though phrases like “ag cur seaca” or “dó seaca” don’t 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 “at frost’s putting” (at the putting of frost) and “frost’s burning.” 

 

 

 

 

 

Deir seachtar (7) i nGaeilge gur “Gael-Mheiriceánaigh” iad ach deir 2805, “I’m (an) Irish-American,” de réir cuardach Google

Posted by róislín No Comments
May 28 2009
Well, that should be an attention-getter!  Not that Google searches are “bun agus barr an scéil” (the be-all and end-all) of information gathering, but this search result does provide food for thought.  This article shows the results of searches limited by quotation marks, so only the phrase sought is reported.  In other words, the results don’t include, for example, all instances of “American,” only those preceded by “Irish-.”   
On May 24, in the entire cyber-universe searched by Google, a total of seven sources were found that used a statement with the speakers saying, in the first person, that they were “Gael-Mheiriceánach.”  This is a compound word based on “Gael” (an Irish person, mostly used now in a cultural sense) and “Meiriceánach” (American).  You can say:

 Is Meiriceánach mé. I am an American.

Is Gael-Mheiriceánach mé. I am an Irish-American (note m -> mh change after “Gael-“)

 “Gael-Mheiriceánach” can also be used as an adjective to say that a person, thing, or concept is “Irish- American,” as opposed to the person being an Irish-American.  For example, “Is nós Gael-Mheiriceánach é a bheith ag díol béigeal uaine le Lá Fhéile Pádraig a cheiliúradh” (It is an Irish-American custom to sell green bagels to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day).

To say “I am Irish (of Irish nationality), most people would say “Is Éireannach mé.”  A future blog will discuss the compound word “Éireannach-Mheiriceánach,” which is also in use, with a slightly different nuance from “Gael-Mheiriceánach.”   No “hits” at all were found searching for the phrase “Is Éireannach-Mheiriceánach mé” (I am an Irish-American) so, for current purposes, we’ll emphasize the word “Gael” to  express Irish-Americanness.  Very few people would officially label themselves solely as a “Gael” these days, but there are many useful related terms and phrases, such as:

Glór na nGael (www.glornangael.ie), lit. “The Voice of the Gaels,” a group dedicated to promoting the Irish language

Fíorghael, lit. “a true Gael,” a term typically used to mean an “over-the-top” Irish person, and, since 2005, a comic Irish-medium short directed by Macdara Vallely and produced by Zanzibar Films (www.imdb.com/title/tt0887139)

In this cuardach Google (Google search), there were only seven self-identifying statements of Irish-American ethnicity given in Irish but there were about 2800 where the speaker says “I am Irish-American” or “I am an Irish-American” in English.  Now juxtapose that with the fact that about 40 million Americans claim some Irish heritage.  Certainly, many millions of these may think of themselves as being Irish-American without necessarily saying so in a manner searchable by Google, but we can use the search as a rough benchmark of identity.  About one in every 5.5 million Irish-Americans bothers to say in a searchable manner and in Irish, “Is Gael-Mheiriceánach mé.”  And that’s assuming that the seven statements collected are actual facts about the speakers; they could just be statements created for other purposes, such as examples of grammar using the Irish verb “is.”  But with a sampla (sample) of seven, I’ll just go ahead and claim all of them for present purposes.

About 400 times as many people say, online and searchably, that they are Irish-American in English as say it in Irish.  That’s the 2805 as opposed to the seven!

Next comparison, na Franc-Mheiriceánaigh (French-Americans), who number about 11 million, about a quarter the number of Irish-Americans.  How many of these write online, searchably and in French, that they themselves are French-American, again as of May 24th?  172, including both the masculine and feminine forms.  That’s 24 times the number who proclaim their Irish-American identity in Irish. 

How many of these 11 million say they are “Franco-“ or “French-American,” writing online in English? 118.  So, when it comes to discussing identity, the French-Americans are much more likely to state their ethnicity in French than in English.  I know it’s a small sample and should be repeated on different dates and with different search engines for better accuracy, but nonetheless, the treocht (trend) is clear.  If anyone would like to rerun the search and report the results in the “comments” section, bheadh suim agamsa agus ag na léitheoirí go léir ann, tá mé cinnte (All the other readers and I would be interested, I’m sure). 

What does this tell us?  There are about four times as many Irish-Americans as French-Americans in the U.S. but they are far less likely to talk about their identity in Irish than the French-Americans are to discuss their identity in French.  Yes, I know–we all know–that French has been a much more accessible language than Irish for decades, perhaps centuries.  But, finally, perhaps we could say, it’s a good time to be learning Irish, talking about one’s identity in Irish, and generally giving the Irish language a cibearphróifil (cyber profile) that’s at least comparable to that of other languages.  So, chugam bhur mbarúlacha, le bhur dtoil.  So, send me your opinions, please.  And yes, one of these days, I’ll tackle the compound identities many of us have on this side of the lochán (pond). 

Pronunciation Tip a hAon: m -> mh (say: v): Remember that after the words “Gael” or “Éireannach” used as prefixes, there is softening (lenition) of the next consonant.  Traditionally, these words are written in Irish with fleiscíní (hyphens).  They used to be in English, as well, but that technicality seems to be dying out, as we see in phrases such as, “I am Irish American” or “He is African American.”  At any rate:

Gael-Mheiriceánach: GAYL-VER-ik-yawn-ukh (Irish-American)

Éireannach-Mheiriceánach: AYR-un-ukh-VER-ik-yawn-ukh (Irish-American)

Those identities would be opposed to the phrases “Gael Meiriceánach” or “Éireannach Meiriceánach,” which would mean “an American Irishman,” normally understood as an Irish person residing in the U.S.  Among other places, this distinction is carefully noted in the book, The Legend of Being Irish-American, edited by David Lampe, which includes “Irish-American” and “American-Irish” poetry.  Please note that in Irish there is no fleiscín (hyphen) or lenition in the phrases “Gael Meiriceánach” or “Éireannach Meiriceánach,” since here, “Meiriceánach” is the adjective, modifying “Gael” or “Éireannach.” 

Sometimes, looking around at printed English, I think that I’m one of the last people on earth who believes in the use of hyphens and apostrophes.  If you’re of the same mind-set, maybe you could send a comment and let me know you agree!  Our slogan, perhaps: Fleiscíní agus Uaschamóga Abú!, which could loosely be translated as “Up hyphens and apostrophes” or “Hyphens and apostrophes rule!”  Why are they important?  As the Irish example above shows, they can change meanings!

 Pronunciation Tip a Dó: The Irish verb “is,” while it may look like the English verb “is,” is pronounced differently; it rhymes with “hiss” or “miss,” while the English “is” rhymes with “fizz” or “quiz.” 

 Bhur mblagálaí – Róislín

 

 

 

 

 

 

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