Posts tagged with "pronunciation"

Téarmaí Geimhridh (Winter Terms)

Posted by róislín No Comments
Jan 30 2012

(le Róislín)

This winter is proving to be unusually cold (fuar) in some parts of the world (an Eoraip) and unseasonably mild (bog) in others (Meiriceá, b’fhéidir Ceanada).

Before we proceed, let’s look briefly at the pronunciation of the adjectives “fuar” and “bog.” For “fuar,” I’ll simply note that each vowel is pronounced, so it’s “foo-ur.”  That’s noticeably different from most other 2-vowel combinations in Irish, which usually have just one discrete sound (fear, duine, buí, maith, srl.).

The pronunciation of “bog,” might seem to be straightforward, but it is worth noting that it’s not the same as the pronunciation of “bog” in English, although the two words are historically related (a bog being a soft place).  “Bog” in Irish, is most commonly used as an adjective (soft, tender, lenient, mellow, loose).  As such, the short “o” sound is as in “pota” (not quite the same sound as English “pot”) or “ros.”  I emphasize this because it is easy to assume that two similar-looking words, especially short one-syllable ones with only one vowel, would be pronounced the same, even if they are in two different languages.  It’s almost a gut reaction (and I’ve heard the phenomenon happen many times over the years in teaching Irish).  But chance homographs from two different languages are rarely pronounced alike.  Irish and English share a number of homographs but they are different in pronunciation, meaning, and part of speech.  Examples include as/as, is/is, air/air, and gorm/gorm (the English “gorm” being the nearly defunct root of “gormless”).  And that intriguing situation might actually be ábhar blog eile.

To wrap that up, “bog” in Irish isn’t actually the noun for “a bog” (a place for digging peat, or in the U.S., for growing cranberries); that is generally “portach” (or “criathrach,” although that is more specifically a “pitted” bog; hmm, a “cranberry bog,” I might have to re-think that one since cranberry bogs don’t look anything like an Irish “portach”).  “Bog” in Irish can also be a verb (soften, become soft, loosen), or it can be a noun referring to something soft, as in “bog na cluaise” (the ear lobe).

Anyway, now that we’ve established the basics (geimhreadh iontach fuar vs. geimhreadh bog), let’s look at some other winter-related words:

an geimhreadh [un GYEV-ruh or GYEER-uh], the winter (comparable to Welsh “gaeaf”)

geimhridh, [GYEV-ree], of winter, as in “éadaí geimhridh” or “glaslus geimhridh;” when used with feminine singular nouns, gheimhridh [YEV-ree], as in “aimsir gheimhridh”

… an gheimhridh [un YEV-ree], of the winter, as in “ráithe an gheimhridh” (winter-time, lit. the season of the winter)

geimhrí [GYEV-ree] or geimhríocha [GYEV-ree-ukh-uh], winters, and na geimhrí, or na geimhríocha, the winters

geimhreata or geimhriúil, wintry

As for “snow,” the basic word is “sneachta,” with the following forms:

an sneachta, the snow

… an tsneachta, of the snow, as in “doimhne an tsneachta”

It doesn’t occur much in the plural, but it can, so, we do have “na sneachtaí,” the snows.  But, for whatever reason, the classic phrase “the snows of yesteryear” (one of the few plural uses even in English) remains in the singular, as “sneachta na bliana anuraidh.”  I would have thought “sneachtaí,” but so be it.  Yossarian did pluralize his “Snowdens of yesteryear” quip (Catch-22), but that, of course, is derivative.  Sneachtaí Kilimanjaro, would be a legitimate example, is dócha, but I see neither hide nor hair of it online.  Don’t tell me no one has translated Hemingway into Irish!   An ndeir tú (tú being Google!) liom?

And now, a little more vocabulary practice.  Can you match these winter terms with their definitions?  Freagraí thíos (A).

1. sneachta 2. flich-shneachta 3. calóga sneachta 4. reodóg 5. síobadh sneachta 6. greallach shneachta
a. snowflakes b. icicle c. snow d. slush e. sleet f. blizzard

And what happens to some of our English phrases that evoke wintriness in a more abstract or metaphoric manner?  As one might guess, their Irish equivalents are a little more literal.  Can you match up these expressions?

1. wintry reception 2. a dead frost 3. slushy sentimentality 4. wintry smile
 a. gáire beag fuar b. truflais mhaoth-chainte c. fuarfháilte d. gan aon mhaith

More wintry terms coming up, in upcoming blogs, since we are i ndúlaíocht an gheimhridh, at least from the North American perspective (winter season = December, January, February, equinoxes notwithstanding).  In the traditional Irish calendar, spring starts on Lá Fhéile Bríde (1 Feabhra).  Go dtí sin, agus ag smaoineamh ar an ngrian, SGF, Róislín

Gluaisín: bog, mild (re: winter, not for a “mild personality,” which would use adjectives like “séimh” or “caomh,” or “mild beer,” which would be “séimh”); greallach, loam, mire, trampled ground

Freagraí A: 1c, 2e, 3a, 4b, 5f, 6d; Freagraí B: 1c, 2d (as in “failure,” rather dated slang, I know, but still metaphoric), 3b, 4a

Nóta: sneachta vs. sneachtaí.  Hmm, Rossetti kept the plural in his iconic translation of “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?” but I see a German translation in the singular “Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?  So, is snow countable or uncountable?  Is Irish different from English in this regard?  Or does it matter, since the “snows” in Villon’s poem are actually women, such as Joan of Arc, Heloise, and “Berte au grant pié” (Bertha of the Big Foot, as per the medieval French spelling).  Looking for “sneachtaí” online, I find very few actual uses in context.  Most of the 63 hits (a pretty small sample, at that) are simply dictionary entries that repeat the existence of a plural form.  An unusual exception is the phrase “dá mbeinn i dTír Bheannaithe na Sneachtaí,” a reference to Tibet, from a poem called “Féinghlacadh” by “TQ” (a Dubliner whose full name isn’t given in his blog,   http://machnamh.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html).  On the other hand, Irish poet and translator Gabriel Rosenstock treats Issa’s “snows of Shinano” as singular in his phrase “sneachta Shinano” (http://haikuguy.com/issa/rosenstock.html).  And that raises a question that I can’t answer – is “snow” countable or uncountable in Japanese?  Bhuel, bia smaoinimh as seo amach.

Nuashonrúchán (Update): Nóta re: Ceartúchán do na Freagraí (Freagrai A):  Tá siad ceartaithe (corrected) agam anois.  Bhí dhá fhreagra “c” agam.  Brón orm má chuir sé amú thú.

TSAGGSSL (An Gaeilge É Sin? Is That Irish?)

Posted by róislín No Comments
Jan 26 2012

(le Róislín)

Bhuel, to answer the title question, braitheann sé.  It depends.  You might remember “TSAGGSSL” from the last blog.  No, it’s not some permutation of “Yggdrasil” or a new companion to the smallish list of words with 8 letters but only one vowel.  Yes, there are some examples of those 8-letter wonders in languages like Béarla and Gearmáinis and perhaps i dteangacha eile (for samples, féach nóta 1 thíos).

So what is TSAGGSSL, aside from seacht gconsan agus guta amháin?  It stands for “Tá súil agam go gcuidíonn sé sin leat.”  IOW, “HTH.”  At least for most purposes, it would mean the same as “Hope this helps,” but without the edge of sarcasm that “HTH” sometimes has.  I say “for most purposes” since HTH, like many abbreviations, has more than one meaning (hand-to-hand, etc.).

And what exactly does “Tá súil agam go gcuidíonn sé sin leat” mean?  “Hope is at me that that helps with you,” in other words, “Hope this helps.”  Broken down further:

Tá                   súil      agam    go       gcuidíonn       sé         sin       leat

(there) is +       hope + at me + that +  helps +            it +       that +   with you.

“Súil,” as many of you will recognize, also has a more literal meaning, “eye.”  There is another word for hope in Irish, “dóchas,” which is usually used more abstractly, and which also shows up in the place name, “Rinn an Dóchais.”

Our “Tá súil agam …” sentence  is in the singular, addressing one person, as marked by the word “leat.”  We could also use “libh” for “with you” (plural), but the acronym would still come out the same.  For that matter, we could also substitute “againn” (at us) for “agam,” to make the wish come from more than one person (i.e. if several people helped to solve the problem).  But again, the acronym would still be the same!

Did you notice the two words “that” in the sentence?  The first one (“go”) introduces indirect statement, as in “Deirim go bhfuil sí ann,” “Chuala sé go raibh sí ann,” or “Thug sé an leabhar go raibh sí ann.”  The second one, “sin” [shin] is the demonstrative adjective, as in “an fear sin” or “an bhean sin.”  In Irish, the demonstrative adjective is often combined with pronouns (like “sé,” it), to give the sense of “this (thing)” (sé seo) or “that (thing)” (sé sin).

A few pronunciation tips: gcuidíonn [GUDJ-ee-un], eclipsed after the word “go” (that); sé [shay]; sin [shin]

Of course, I guess if we’re really going to acronymize “I hope that this helps you,” we could do what English does and shorten the entire concept.  In English, instead of saying “I hope that this helps you,” we reduce it to “Hope this helps.”  So if we drop the ending in Irish, we could just have “TSAGG” or even just “SAGG” – but I like having the initial “t” – tá cuma níos Gaelaí air, sílim.  Does this remind you of all those initial-ts words in Irish?  Like “(an) tsráid,” “(carr an) tsagairt,” and “(airgead an) tsliúcaiméara”?  Or a few more choice examples, like “(an) tsliosfhuinneog,” “(an) tslime,” “(an) tslachtmhaireacht,” or “(ainm an) tslatóra.”  Remember, “s” is silent after an initial “t” in Irish (an tsráid [un trawdj], etc.).  So, if we pronounced the acronym TSAGG as per Irish rules, it would sound like “tag,” which sounds appropriate for the context, vaguely computery-jargony.  BTW, English has only a handful of initial-ts words.  An cuimhin leat iad?  Muna cuimhin leat, féach sna nótaí thíos (2).  Of course, in Irish, the “ts” combination only occurs due to a trigger from a preceding word, like “the” before certain nouns starting with “s.”  These include feminine singular nouns (an tslat, an tsnáthaid) or the possessive forms of masculine singular nouns (sleán an tsleánadóra)

But to get back down to earth, and to deal with practical applications of the “HTH” idea, there’s no reason you have to make an acronym out of it.  It would be perfectly fine to use the full phrase, as given above, creating variations like the following:

Tá súil agam gur chuidigh sé sin leat.  I hope that helped you

Tá súil agam go gcuideoidh sé sin leat. I hope that will help you.

Tá súil agam go gcabhraíonn sé sin leat.  I hope that helps you (using “cabhraigh” instead of “cuidigh” for “help”).

Tá súil agam gur chabhraigh sé sin leat.  I hope that helped you.

Tá súil agam go gcabhróidh sé sin leat.  I hope that will help you.

And now how, I find myself wondering, has this concept been acronymized in other languages as well?  How ‘bout TMADGBESACL? GMH? Or JEQCTA or EEQCTA (although I’m getting a little out of my Celtic comfort zone with the last two!).  Cad iad siúd, in ainm Dé?  Féach nóta 3 thíos.  

As for whether the acronym form of “HTH” is widely used in Irish, or even in the other languages directly above, I’d say probably not.  I have a hunch that English is one of the most acronym-prone languages out there, to the extent that there are lots of protests against acronymization (e.g. Jeff Atwood’s http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/02/dont-acronymize-your-users.html).  Hmmm, “anti-acronymizationism (?)”!  But meanwhile, it sure gives us an opportunity to explore stórfhocal [STOR-OK-ul] na Gaeilge.  Tá súil agam go raibh sé seo cabhrach.  Or “HTH’d.”  Hope this helped (at least to explain the acronym sa bhlag roimhe seo).  SGF, Róislín

P.S. Hmm, can I “past-tense-ize” HTH as “HTH’d”?

Nóta 1: Focail fhada nach bhfuil ach guta amháin acu:

A. Béarla:

Strength: it’s unusual in English that both the 3-letter cluster “str-“ joins up with the 4-letter ending “-ngth,” but here it is – ocht litir, guta amháin.  The ending “-ngth” is pretty rare in and of itself, but it’s only with the initial “str-“ that it real chalks up points for near-vowellessness.  The other two examples of final “-ngth,” “length” and the quite obsolete “youngth,” simply have fewer consonants in proportion to the vowels.

Schnapps, tagann an focal seo ón nGearmáinis, “schnaps” (gan ach “p” amháin).  “Schnapps” i nGaeilge?  Focal atá i bhfad níos giorra [shorter] – “sneap” [shnap].

B. Gearmáinis:

Naoi litir agus guta amháin, mh’anam!: “schrumpfst”

Ocht litir agus guta amháin, reasonably “mh’anam-ish” freisin: “schwimmt.”

Again, what can I say, but nach iontach na cairn chonsan iad?  (carn, here, “cluster,” often “heap, mound”).  So, of these two German words, which means “he/she/it swims” and which means “you shrink”?  More or less a “tabhartas in aisce,” déarfainn.

C. Gaeilge: i nGaeilge, bhuel, ní fhaighim ach focail le seacht litir agus guta amháin ina measc: “(i) bhfadhb,” “(i) ndrúcht,” agus “(i) bhflosc,” mar shamplaí.  Níl mé ábalta smaoineamh ar aon fhocal a bhfuil ocht litir aige nach bhfuil ach guta amháin ann.  An féidir libhse?  N.B. Ceist eile ar fad í ceist na bhfocal fada nach bhfuil ach an guta céanna iontu, mar shampla, “adhantach.”  

D. Teangacha eile: Polainnis?  Sanscrait?  Moltaí ar bith agaibhse? 

If any readers can think of some other one-vowel goodies i dteangacha eile, it would be fun to see them.  Please do write in.  Irish has lots that are seven letters with one vowel, as we just saw, especially when we apply urú (eclipsis).  It has some really long words with proportionately few vowels, ach sin ábhar blag eile.  And then there’s always “na hadhbha” and “na hadhbhtha” but, guess what, sin ábhar blag eile freisin!

Nóta 2: Focail A Thosaíonn le “ts” i mBéarla:  These are all I could find, and they’re all focail iasachta (loan words).  In Irish, these words just start with a regular single “s.”  An féidir le duine ar bith agaibh smaoineamh ar cheann ar bith eile?  Additional suggestions welcome!

Ón Rúisis: tsar (czar), tsarina (czarina).  I nGaeilge?  Sár, Bansár, No initial “t” of “sár” unless possessive (mac an tsáir, the son of the tsar).  “Bansár” has the “ban-“ prefix and so would never get an initial “t.”

Ón tSeapáinis: tsunami, súnámaí; tsuzumi, susúimi (a type of Japanese drum).

Ón tSuáinis: tsetse fly, seitse [SHETCH-uh].  Note that “cuileog,” the actual word for a “fly” in Irish,  isn’t part of the term; it’s just “seitse.”

Nóta 3 (An tAcrainm i dTeangacha Eile?)

TM ADGBESACL? Tha mi an dòchas gum bi e seo a’ cuideachadh leat (or “… gu bheil e seo …”) (or “leibh,” etc.) (Gaeilge na hAlban)

GMH? Gobeithio mae’n help (or “… helpu”) (Breatnais)

JEQCTA or EEQCTA? “J’espère que ca t’aidera” or “en espérant que ca t’aide.”  Or plural forms: JEQCVA or EEQCVA for “vous”? (Fraincis)

Gluais: adhantach, igneous, inflammable; moltaí, suggestions; Rinn an Dóchais, The Cape of Good Hope; smaoineamh, to think, to reflect; Suáinis, Tswana (a language of southern Africa); tabhartas in aisce, a giveaway; thug sé an leabhar go …, he swore that … (lit. he gave/took the book that …)

Nótaí Fuaimnithe don Bhlag “Cé Mhéad Lá sa Mhí?” (Pronunciation Notes)

Posted by róislín No Comments
Jan 23 2012

(le Róislín)

Pronunciation notes always seem welcome here, so here’s another batch, this time for the discussion of na míonna, from the previous blog (nasc: http://www.transparent.com/irish/ce-mhead-la-sa-mhi-how-many-days-in-the-month/). 

That blog seems to have generated a lot of lenition (séimhiú), so we’ll certainly be looking at that here.  Urú (eclipsis), hmm, I only see one example.  An meas tú sin!  We’ll also look at a few other points, like word stress (which syllable is emphasized) and various vowel sounds.  Ag tosú le séimhiú, with the usual disclaimer, that this is just an overview, for selected examples, not an córas go hiomlán!

I.   Séimhiú

1. after “cé,” the word “méad” (amount) becomes “mhéad” [vayd]

2. after “sa” (in the), “mí” (month) becomes “mhí” [vee] and “cairt” (chart) becomes “chairt” [khartch]

3. after “ar” (the particle changing the question “An maith leat …?,” do you like …?, to “Ar mhaith leat …?, would you like …?), “maith” (good) becomes “mhaith” [wah, or “vah” or “wai” (like “why”) in some dialects)

4. after “ceithre” (4), “mí” (month) becomes “mhí” [vee]; lenition follows the numbers two through six, for most nouns

5. on an attributive noun or adjective after a feminine singular noun, like “bliain.”  This time, can you find the example (in the last blog), instead of me just writing it in?  Freagra (1) thíos.

6. lenited sounds in the middle of a word: Fómhair [FOH-wirzh], Feabhra [FyOW-ruh], and Samhna [SOW-nuh, with “sow” like “now” or “cow,” not “tow” or “snow”] have a “w” sound; the “t’s” of “laethanta” (days)  and “Meitheamh” are silent [LAY-hun-tuh], [MEH-huv]; slender medial “ch” (flanked by e or i) is basically breath, as in “fiche” (20) [FIH-huh]; broad medial “ch” (flanked by a, or u) is guttural, as in “tríocha” [TREE-uh-khuh].

7. lenited sounds at the end of a word, typically silent or very softened: deireadh [DJERzh-uh], bhisigh [VISH-ee or VISH-ig in Munster Irish], Mithimh [MIH-hiv], Meitheamh [MEH-hiv]

II. Urú: after the preposition “i” (in).  Can you find the sampla?  Leid: initial “b” is eclipsed by “m.”  Freagra (2) thíos.

III. Gutaí:

  1. ue – I think “bhuel”  is the only word in Irish that has this spelling (explainable by its being borrowed from English).  It’s like the short “e” of “well,” not like “gruel” or “flue.”
  2. aoi – like “ee” in English, as we’ve discussed previously (naoi, faoi, etc.)
  3. eo – usually “oh” in Irish, as in “teo” (plural of “te,” warm, hot); also “ceo” (mist, fog), Tóiceo, teoranta (limited, as in company names), but not like the two main exceptions, “seo” [shuh] or “anseo” [un-SHUH]

IV. Béim: cén siolla?  There’s a lot of variation as to which syllable is stressed in an Irish word, but the dominant pattern is “stress on the first syllable.”  As a point of comparison, English, I would say, is notoriously varied in this regard (produce section, to produce, a graduate, to graduate, regard, regal, window, endow, etc., etc., etc.), so English isn’t very useful as a basis of comparison (although overall I’d say more words are stressed on the first syllable).  French, in contrast, if I remember my “Clouseauais” correctly, is fairly consistent in stressing the last syllable (fiancé, fiancée, Paris [par-EE], fromage, buffet, ballet, etc.), so one can emphasize the last syllable of most words and sound sort of French, as did Inspector Clouseau, who, I imagine, referred to the “pink panTHER” when discussing the theft of the jewel.  A rusty memory, that, so I guess I’ll put that on my next Netflix instant list.  For current purposes, we’ll just look at the one main exception from the January 20th blog: amháin [uh-WAW-in], with the “WAW” and “in” run together, almost like one syllable

V.   And, as a final note, we saw one permanently lenited word, “bhuel” (well), pronounced “well,” similar to the English, from which it is borrowed.

So, that’s a bit more pronunciation help.  HTH.  Hmm, that (HTH), abbreviated in Irish, would be “TSAGGSSL,” or something to that effect.  And what exactly does that unpronounceable abbreviation stand for?  Ara, isn’t it grand the cliffhanger that that would be.  So hang on tight, till next blog.  SGF, Róislín

Freagraí: 1) lenited attributive noun: bhisigh, in the phrase “bliain bhisigh,” leap-year, lit. year of increase; you may already know “bhisigh” from its basic form, “biseach” (improvement, increase), as in “An bhfuil biseach ort anois?”; 2) urú: i mbliain [im-lee-in]

Gluais: Meas tú sin! Roughly equivalent to “What do you know?” or “What do you think about that?” or “Imagine that!” or “Just imagine!” or “Fancy that!”  Literally, it’s from the verb “meas” (judge, deem, consider).  Normally we’d expect the “-ann” ending typical of present-tense verbs (first conjugation!), giving us “measann” but for this particular verb, the ending is optional, especially when the phrase is used as a rhetorical question.  Word endings aren’t usually optional, but this verb seems to follow the same pattern as established by “deir / deireann,” where both forms exist, with “deir” more common, at least i mo thaithí féin.

Cúig Fhrása (Béarla) Gan Mhaith (De Réir Fhionntán Uí Thuathail aka Fintan O’Toole) (Cuid 2/4)

Posted by róislín 2 Comments
Jan 8 2012

(le Róislín)

Remember what gátar, déine, and tarrtháil have in common?   Hmmm, the first two have related meanings and are nearly interchangeable (beart gátair, austerity measure; cáinaisnéis déine, austerity budget) but “tarrtháil” is completely different in function as well as meaning.  It’s  an ainmfhocal briathartha, not a gnáthainmfhocal (ordinary noun).  We could also note that  “gátar” and “déine,” are “abstract nouns” (ainmfhocail theibí), making them even more different from “tarrtháil,” which is primarily an action.  “Tarrtháil” expresses a fairly physical concept of “saving.”  This could be contrasted to other concepts of saving (anamacha, srl.) for which, please see an nóta below.

So what do “gátar,” “déine,” and “tarrtháil” have in common?  It doesn’t have to do with ciall per se; these three words are simply my choice of how to translate two of the five terms that leading Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole thinks should be outlawed in 2012, as he wrote  in http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0103/1224309734610_pf.html [SPOILER ALERT: I encourage you to read O’Toole’s article but you might want to wait until after you finish this blog, or even this mini-series of blogs, since the rest of this article is set up as a challenge to discover what English words O’Toole is thinking of, via Irish.]

The charge against these words, according to O’Toole?  Distortion, concealing reality, etc.  Not that he probably expects that the words will literally be exiled, but he does raise some interesting points, best expressed by O’Toole himself, as you can read in his article.

Why did I offer three Irish words for O’Toole’s two?  The question really is why do I include two words for “austerity”?  Because I think it would be unfair to “gátar” (if a word can sense unfairness) to only list “déine” for “austerity,” and likewise, it would be unfair to “déine” to only list “gátar.”  For “tarrtháil,” I’d say the choice was more straightforward, without so many tempting comhainmneacha.

So that brings us up to focal a trí on O’Toole’s list.  Again, we’ll try the same approach.  I’ll offer a group of Irish synonyms and a variety of Irish equivalents, but I won’t give the translation that completely reveals O’Toole’s third term.  That’s the dúshlán.

3.  Achrannach? Anróiteach? Deacair? Doiciúil? Doiligh? Duaisiúil? 

So, as I said, I’m not going to cut right to the chase and simply offer up one Irish word to correspond to O’Toole’s list.  Instead, we’ll look at some possibilities and their additional meanings.

achrannach: entangled, intricate, quarrelsome, rocky (regarding terrain); cf. achrann, tangled growth

anróiteach: distressing, hard, inclement (of weather), severe, weather-beaten; cf. anró, hardship

deacair: hard, reluctant, troublesome; cf. deacracht, distress, discomfort

doiciúil: hard to manage, impeding; cf. doic, impediment, hesitation, reluctance

doiligh: distressing, hard, hard to bear, hard to deal with, intractable, reluctant; cf. doilíos, affliction, reluctance, sorrow

duaisiúil: distressing, laborious, tedious, troublesome, wearying; cf. duais, dejection, distress, gloom, sorrow (not the perhaps more familiar “duais,” a prize, gift, or reward, which is a different word altogether – comhainmneacha!)

And then there’s always “crua” (hard), which can either describe something physical (clúdach crua, for a book, as opposed to “clúdach bog”) or something more abstract (obair chrua).

What is the key word that could be used to translate all of the above?  “Difficult,” and that’s no. 3 on O’Toole’s list.

Which one probably matches O’Toole’s meaning the best?  “Deacair (or ‘doiligh’) a rá,” I’d say!  “Deacair” appears to be the most widely used, and therefore is probably the best choice.   One point of comparison could be Google hits:

269,000 for “deacair,” by far the most prevalent of the six words for “difficult,” and, as far as I checked through the amais ([AH-mish], hits), “deacair” doesn’t seem to overlap with any words in other languages.  When that overlap does occur, it may give false high results for a search.  Examples of false highs include “nach,” with 2,330,000,000 hits (!), including, among others, 1) Nach, the Spanish rapper (short for Ignacio), ca. 5 million hits, 2) the German “nach” as in “Drang nach Osten,” which itself accounts for about 930,000 of those hits, and finally, the Irish “nach,” which can either be the conjunction, as in “Deir sé nach bhfuil …,” or the verbal particle, as in “Nach bhfuil …?”

18,100 for “doiligh,” which is also more typical of Northern Irish, and therefore somewhat limited in the total amount of use

6,790 for “achrannach,” including several hundred (apparently) for the phrase “achrannach liked this” (interesting in that it shows usage of the word as someone’s screen name, but that’s not our main focus here)

502 for “anróiteach,” narrowed to 165

158 for “duaisiúil,” narrowed to 46

139 for “doiciúil,” narrowed to 26

Not that volume of hits necessarily makes a word the best choice for a particular context, but in this case it seems to point to the word “deacair” covering the idea of “difficult” in the broadest possible sense.  So I’ll nominate “deacair” as most applicable to O’Toole’s focal a trí.  Do bharúilse?

All that to deal with just the single word “difficult”?  But wait, there’s more!  Dhá nóta thíos.  Which leads me to conclude that this mini-series should be four parts, not three, since this blog has already gotten quite long enough, thank you very much.  So please stay tuned for Cuid a Trí agus Cuid a Ceathair.  SGF, Róislín

Nóta 1 (re: tarrtháil agus focail eile ar “saving”):  Tarrtháil overlaps somewhat with the word “sábháil,” but “sábháil” can mean “save” either in the physical sense (“é a shábháil ar an mbás”) or in the spiritual (“anam a shábháil”).  Other words for “save” or “saving” also tend to be on the abstract, or at least the non-physical side (anam a shlánú, which is another way to say “to save a soul;” é a shlánú air, to indemnify him against it; banc taisce, savings bank).  “Tarrtháil” is more typically “save” in the sense of “rescue” (é a tharrtháil óna bhá / óna bhás, to save him from drowning / death; gléas tarrthála, life-saving apparatus; tuga tarrthála, a salvage-tug; rafta tarrthála, a life-raft; seaicéad tarrthála, life-jacket, etc.).

In summary, then:

Tarrtháil, to save, usually in the physical sense

Sábháil, to save, physically or spiritually

Slánú, to save, usually spiritually (cf. Slánaitheoir, Savior, Redeemer)

Taoscadh, to bail out, pump out, drain, shovel, earth up

I’d have to acknowledge  that using the word “save” (tarrtháil) for “bailout” doesn’t have quite the edgy sense of desperation evoked by the image of the sinking boats.  Not that our budget planners are literally out there in a sinking ship (hmmm?), getting bailed out with buckets (that would be “taoscadh”) but the expression is used figuratively in English.  To appropriate “taoscadh” for “bailout” in the economic sense in Irish would be a really big stretch; at any rate, modern Irish usage gives us “tarrtháil” for this purpose.

[And now for the “fonóta,” which is now beagnach chomh fada le blag féin!]

Fonóta: Speaking of “bailing,” just a reminder here that this is “bail” spelled with an “i.”  As we can see from the abundant commentary on the topic (http://www.beedictionary.com/common-errors/bail_vs_bale, http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/bail.html, or [Bryan] Garner’s Modern American Usage, http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/?view=usa&ci=9780195382754, under bail/bale, m. sh.), there’s a lot of confusion on this spelling issue, and considerable leeway as well, depending on if you’re using British or American English.  “Baling” or “to bale” is usually for hay, cotton, or packages (baling wire, etc.).   At any rate, don’t try “baling” the water in the boat, or you might end up with the liquid version of the “súgán sneachta,” as immortalized by Mairéad Ní Ghráda in her 1959 dráma of the same name and by Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin in his amhrán of the same name on his album “Imíonn an tAm” (2004:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tmdhonnagain3).  Súgán sneachta – now that’s a topic that deserves a bhlag féin!

Nóta 2 (re: fhuaimniú): Isn’t it nice when English homophones generate all kinds of confusion and the corresponding Irish words are nice and straightforward and logically spelled?  I can’t think of any other Irish word that sounds like “taoscadh.”  Hurá!  It’s also interesting to consider how much of the homophone problem in English is caused by that ever-present silent “e” (as in “bale,” bate/bait, cane/Cain, Dane/deign, pane/pain, bore/boar, brake/brake, etc.).  Irish, quite logically, doesn’t have that silent “e” issue; final e’s, while not stressed (aiceanta), are usually articulated, unless the speaker is talking a mile a minute and the final “e” is glommed onto a following word that starts with a vowel (Tá páiste anseo [taw PAWSH-tchun-shuh]).  In that case, it’s not officially “silent;” it’s just swallowed.  There was an old lady who swallowed a guta neamhaiceanta — nah, that would truly be a digression.

Final e’s in Irish also don’t have that perplexing habit we find in English, where they sometimes cause the previous vowel to be pronounced long (can/cane, ban/bane, kit/kite, con/cone) and sometimes not (have, give, one, and the double-agent “live/live”).  What, you ask, what about all those silent letters, and consonant and vowel clusters, in Irish?  Yes, it does have its fair share, as in bhfuil, aghaidh, bhfaighidh, fhadhb, and aoi / aíonna, which was formerly aoighe / aoigheadha (!).  Yeah, I get it, consain chiúin go leor, consain a fhuaimnítear mar ghuta, trí ghuta i gcrobhaing, séimhiú, urú!  Well, to that, I can simply say, each language has its leithleachais, or should I say “À chacun son goût” (or should that be “À chacun son ‘guta’”?).  Ba-dum-bum-ching (and that’s probably the same in any language, at least in any language that has a stand-up comedy tradition)!  “Buille imill,” to be technical about it.

Gluais: ainmfhocal briathartha [AN-yim-OK-ul BREE-uh-hur-huh, with both t’s silent], verbal noun; anam, soul; bá, drowning; bás, death (ar an mbás [err un mawss], here: “from death”); ciall, meaning; crobhaing, cluster; dúshlán, challenge; imeall, rim, border (genitive form: imill); leithleachas, idiosyncrasy; neamhaiceanta, unstressed; óna, from his (ó, from + a, his)

Maidir le Dreoilíní

Posted by róislín No Comments
Dec 26 2011

(le Róislín)

Lá an Dreoilín sa Daingean

Wren Day has become increasingly well-known outside of Ireland, ever since the Clancy Brothers recorded “The Wran (i.e. Wren) Song” in 1955.  Groups as diverse as Steeleye Span and the Chieftains have added to the musical legacy of the wren festivities.  Well, festive for everyone except an dreoilín.  Ar an dea-uair, the wrens in today’s processions are either artificial or symbolic, but the original custom did include actual wrens.  I think, though, that we need to look at the practice of hunting a live wren in the context of the times.  In an era when rural dwellers constantly dealt with the life-cycle of animals and the realities of the food chain, it probably didn’t seem as disconcerting.  And if the custom is as old as it appears to be, perhaps pre-Christian, we could look at a lot of other life-and-death situations of the times and wonder why life was taken so casually.  But suffice it to say here that in those days, the notion of quarry stretched far beyond wrens.

As many of you know, the basic wren procession involved men and boys in handmade costumes, usually of straw (“strawboys”).  The Irish name for the strawboys, however, doesn’t refer to straw, which would be “tuí” or “cochán” or “sop.”  It’s “cleamairí,” which could also be translated as “rompers” or “mummers.”  Nowadays, women and girls may participate.  The group is sometimes called “lucht an dreoilín” (“wren-boys,” lit. the wren “crowd”).  They sang and played music, especially on easily portable instruments like the orgán béil and the bodhrán, and proceeded from house to house in their local community, performing and asking for money.  The wren was displayed, often on a miniature beribboned funeral bier.  The word “dreoilín” is probably one of the most widely recognized Irish words, even in English speaking communities.  It’s sometimes anglicized as “droleen” and most versions of the “Wran Song” that I’ve heard use both terms at different points in the lyrics: “The wren, the wren, the king of the birds” and “Droleen, droleen, where’s your nest?”

“Droleen,” as an anglicized Irish word, has its own interesting history.  Droleen II is a 33.6 ft. yacht built in 1945.  The British Classic Yacht Club description of it gives no hint as to why it was called Droleen II.  Or what happened to Droleen I?  If there’s a luamhaire or díograiseoir luamh reading this, you’ll find the mionrudaí on Droleen II at http://www.britishclassicyachtclub.org/register/Droleen.htm.  Hmmm, ainmneacha bád in Irish in general, even in anglicized Irish, now there’s a topic in itself.  The British Classic Yacht Club also lists Talisker Mhor, Corrie, Huff of Arklow (huff?!), Kelpie, Rinamara (Rí na Mara?), Cuilanaun, and Ceilidh Mhor.  Lots of food for thought there!  “Droleen” also occurs as a name for dogs (Milton Droleen, an Irish Terrier aka “the American Erin” – whereby must hang a tail/tale!) and horses (Cnoc na Droleen, not grammatically correct but c’est la vie, and Glencairn Droleen; for the grammatical analysis of “Cnoc na Droleen,” see below).  There is also the Droleen Cup (Bray Sailing Club) but I can’t find any background to that – thereto must hang a sail, or a scéal, but níl na mionrudaí agam.

But what about the word “dreoilín” itself?  Cén díochlaonadh?  An bhfuil ciall ar bith eile leis?

“Dreoilín” is a fourth-declension masculine noun, with the familiar “-ín” suffix, used for diminutives.

All the forms of this noun are fairly straightforward:

An dreoilín, the wren; the same form is used for the possessive (mar shampla: cosa an dreoilín, cinniúint an dreoilín, the feet of the wren, the fate of the wren)

Na dreoilíní, the wrens

Na ndreoilíní [nuh NROH-leen-ee], of the wrens (cosa na ndreoilíní, cinniúint na ndreoilíní, srl.)

“Dreoilín” is used in various phrases, e.g. dreoilín teaspaigh, grasshopper, lit. wren of hot weather, dreoilín ceannbhuí, goldcrest (the bird, aka “golden-crested wren”), and dreoilín spóirt, an object of ridicule

Various related words also suggest silliness!  For example, “dreoileachán” can mean “a little wren” or “a silly wretch.”  And “dreolán” can either be an alternate spelling of “dreoilín” or yet another word for “a silly person,” for which Irish already has a rich vocabulary, including “glagaire,” “pleidhce,” and the intriguing “leathamadán,” a silly person, lit. a “half-fool,” presumably in contrast to a full-fledged “amadán” (fool).

Ornithologically speaking, it’s quite interesting that the wren is so celebrated, if infamously, in Irish tradition.  Apparently, there are about 80 species of wrens, but only one of these is native to the Old World, the Eurasian wren.  Although all the species are small in size, they are known for having disproportionately loud and complex songs.  Perhaps that contributed to the notion of the wren as a betrayer, revealing the hiding place either of San Stiofán, when he was i bhfolach, or of saighdiúirí Éireannacha, who were then attacked by Uigingigh.  Which reminds us of the original theme of the day and why the wren is singled out for the strawboys’ attention.  The San Stiofán connection, of course, leads us back to the alternate name for this day, Lá Fhéile Stiofáin (St. Stephen’s Day), which is also alluded to in “The Wran Song”: “… on St. Stephen’s Day, he was caught in the furze.”  And that may suggest another ábhar blag for the future — “whin” do we say “furze,” and “whin” do we say “gorse,” and “whin” to we say “whin”?  And how does “aiteann” connect to all of those?  Ach sin ábhar blag eile, ar ndóigh.  SGF, Róislín

Gluais: díograiseoir, enthusiast; i bhfolach [ih WOL-ukh]; in hiding; luamh [LOO-uv], yacht; Uigingeach, a Viking

Nóta gramadaí faoin bhfrása “Cnoc na Droleen”: the word “na” would be used either if “dreoilín” were grammatically feminine (which it isn’t) or if it were plural, in which case it would have the “-í” ending.  “Cnoc” is “hill,” so to say “the hill of the wren,” it would be “Cnoc an Dreoilín.”  That could anglicized as “Cnoc an Droleen” (not “na Droleen”).  If we want to retain the “na,” the word for “wren” would have to become plural and it would take eclipsis (“d” changing to “nd”), which would probably end up anglicized as “Cnoc nan roleenee.”  And that looks to me like a situation where all three words would be run together, creating “Cnocnanroleenee.” Which barely looks like even anglicized Irish to me, but sin scéal eile.  It would mean “the hill of the wrens,” at any rate.  The original “d” of “dreoilíní” would have become silent, since it was “eclipsed.”

In fact “Cnoc na Droleen” is another example of hybridization when Irish words are used in an English-language context.  “Cnoc” is the actual Irish spelling of the word for “hill” and is often, if oddly, anglicized as “Knock” (as in Knockmany, Knockmealdown, or simply Knock, Co. Mayo, the shrine site).  Why do I say “odd”?  Because in Irish the initial “c” is pronounced like a “k” [cnoc, “knuk”], but we have to understand the initial “k” as silent in the English version [knock, “nahk”].  Anyway, one might think that if “dreoilín” is going to be anglicized to “droleen,” then “cnoc” would be also, giving us “Knock an droleen.”  But it isn’t, so once again, c’est la vie.  Ag an ainmneoir an t-ainm, is dócha, which roughly means, “to the namer (belongs) the name.”  I wonder what the horse would have to say about it, dá mbeadh caint aige!

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