Category: Irish (Gaeilge)

Selective attention

By Simon

The other day an English guy who has lived in Wales for many years and who doesn’t speak Welsh told me that when he listens to people speaking Welsh, he hears lots of English words, words derived from English, and words from French or Latin, so he believes that Welsh is made up mainly of such words.

I suggested that such words just seemed to be prominent and ubiquitous because they are the only ones he understands, and that the majority of Welsh words are completely different, though they share the same ultimate roots as words in most other European languages.

He wasn’t convinced, and when asked for examples, could only think of a few: parcio (parking) and ffenestr (window) and pont (bridge).

I can understand why he’s convinced that there are lots of words of English, French and Latin origin in Welsh – selective attention. It’s like if someone says that you don’t see many yellow cars around, you will start to notice ever yellow car and might become convinced that they are more common than they really are.

Have you any mistaken impressions of languages you don’t know?

When I first heard spoken Irish I thought it was mainly made up of the occasional English word, plus lots of agus (and), and mumbling in an Irish accent. Now I know better.

Yezhoù, kanaouennoù ha sonerezh

By Simon

The Breton couchsurfers arrived yesterday, with an Austrian friend, and we’re having a great time. They’ve taught me a bit of Breton, we’ve also talked in French, English, Welsh, Irish and German – I love having opportunities to use my languages like this. I’ve learnt more about Brittany and Breton and have shown them round Bangor – they particularly like the older parts of the university.

Last night we did some silly singing at the crazy choir – a small group of us who get together every other week to improvise songs and harmonies and generally be silly. After that we went to a folk music session at a nearby pub. Tonight we’re going to a cèilidh, which will the first time they’ve been to one, though they do have something similar in Brittany – fest-noz.

Labhair Gaeilge liom

By Simon

I just watched a video of an interview in Irish that Benny Lewis did on Raidió na Life, the Irish language radio station in Dublin. Benny mentions that he has had a t-shirt made with “Labhair Gaeilge liom” (Speak Irish with me) on it and that people who see the shirt speak Irish to him, if they can, even in places where he didn’t expect to find Irish speakers.

What a good idea, I thought. In Ireland you can’t tell if someone speaks Irish just by looking at them, so you never know who to speak Irish to, and people don’t know if you speak Irish either. A t-shirt like Benny’s clears up both uncertainties. The same is true in Wales, Scotland and other places where minority languages are spoken – you don’t know who speaks them. Similar clothing or badges could be useful for other languages as well.

It would be interesting to wander round London, for example, wearing a t-shirt with “Labhair Gaeilge liom” and/or “Siaradwch Gymraeg â fi” (Speak Welsh with me) to say how many Irish and/or Welsh speakers you could find. Or I’m sure you’d get a lot of interest if you wore a badge saying “你可以跟我说汉语” (You can speak Chinese to me).

Have you tried this for any languages?

Could you give me translations of this phrase in various languages so I can put together a new phrases page?

Gaelic

By Simon

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye

While I was in Scotland last week I took part in conversation circles in the evenings after class. Among those attending there were some whose Scottish Gaelic was very fluent, others who struggled to put sentences together, and people like me who are somewhere in between. I could understand almost everything people said and could contribute to the conversation, though tended to make mistakes and mix in bits of Irish when I didn’t know the Scottish Gaelic equivalents. Fortunately this wasn’t a problem as some people there spoke Irish and provided corrections where nessecary.

I’ve never done classes in Scottish Gaelic, but have been learning bits and pieces for many years, and listening to Gaelic radio programmes regularly. I rarely have opportunities to speak the language, so it was very helpful to take part in the conversation circles, and especially to listen to the fluent speakers. When I had conversations with less fluent speakers they were fairly short and simple, and they tended to switch to English after a while. With fluent speakers conversations tended to be much longer and more complex, and they stuck to Gaelic almost all the time, which really encouraged me to do the same.

While my Scottish Gaelic still needs quite a bit of work, I feel a lot more confident about speaking it now and will see about arranging Gaelic conversations on Skype, and to writing more stuff in Gaelic on my other blog.

One thing I still find difficult is understanding the words of songs. If I really concentrate I can understand some of the words, but I have to hear a song many times in order to understand more. It also helps to see the written lyrics. It’s simliar for songs in other languages, especially if the singers slur the words together.

Can you understand songs in languages you’re learning? Do you understand them the first time you hear them, or do you need to hear them many times.

Spòg

By Simon

I came across the Scottish Gaelic word spòg (foot) in a song I learnt today and it caught my attention because I heard it a couple of weeks ago when I was in Ireland being used to mean foot in English. I thought it might be a Irish word, but didn’t get round to checking.

In Scottish Gaelic spòg /sbɔːg/ means claw, talon, hand, radius, spoke, paw or leg. It is also used for the hands of a clock: spòg an uaireadair.

I can’t find spog in any of the Irish dictionaries I’ve checked, so maybe it’s a word used in Hiberno-English, but which is no longer used in Irish. The usual word for foot in Irish is cos, which also means leg.

Have any of you come across the word spog before?

Menhirs, dolmens and cromlechs

By Simon

A menhir from Brittany and a cromleac from Ireland

The word menhir come up in discussion yesterday and I posted it on Facebook today along with the the Welsh translation maen hir, which is what I found in this dictionary. This provoked further discussion about whether the two terms mean the same thing. So I thought I’d find out.

A menhir is a standing stone of the kind that Obelix delivers in the Asterix books. According to the Dictionary of Word Origins and the OED, menhir comes from Breton mean-hir (long stone), which is what the Welsh term maen hir means, so it seems that they are the same. The usual Breton word for such standing stones is peulvan, however.

The word dolmen (a prehistoric structure of two or more upright stones surmounted by a horizontal one), comes via French from Breton: the men part means stone, and the dol part either comes from the Breton word tōl (table), a borrowing from the Latin tabula (board, plank), or from the Cornish tol (hole). So dolmen either means ‘stone table’ or ‘stone hole’.

The word dolmen also exists in Welsh, and another word for such structures is cromlech, which exists in Welsh and English and comes from the Welsh words crwm (bent, stooped) and llech (stone), and is related to the Irish word cromleac (‘bent stone’).

Cars, carts and chariots

By Simon

Last week I was told that the English word car originally comes from the Irish word carr (donkey cart). Apparently when cars came to Ireland Irish speakers thought it was better to come up with a new word for them than to name them after the humble donkey cart, so the term gluaisteán (‘moving thing’) was coined. I hadn’t heard about this before so thought I’d check it.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the English word car has been used to refer to a wheeled vehicle since 1300 and comes from the Old Northern French word carre, from the Latin carrum/carrus, which originally referred to a two-wheeled Celtic war chariot, from the Gaulish word karros, from the Proto-Indo-European word *krsos, from the root *kers- (to run).

There are related words in Welsh carr (cart, wagon), and in Breton: karr (chariot, cart), in Cornish: karr (car), in Manx: carr (car), in Spanish and Italian: carro (cart, wagon) and probably in other languages.

The word chariot comes from the same root as car, but cart probably comes from the Old Norse word kart-r (cart), according to the OED.

Another vehicle-related word we discussed last week is carbad (chariot), from the Old Irish carpat (war-chariot, waggon). It is related to the Welsh cerbyd (vehicle, car, carriage, coach), the Old Breton cerpit, the Gaulish carpentoracte, from the Latin corbis (basket), from carpentum (two wheeled chariot), which was probably borrowed from Gaulish. The root idea is ‘wicker’, referring to the basket character of the body of these chariots.

Counting rhymes

By Simon

We learnt this Irish counting rhyme in class today:

Lúrabóg lárabóg
Ladhra buithe
Buíeán Eoghain
Eoghean an Phreabáin
Preabán suilí
Súilí saic

The first two words are made up nonsense words, the others mean something like, “yellow toes, Eoghain’s egg yolk, Jack-in-the-Box, ??, eyelets of a sack”.

There are quite a few other rhymes like this in Irish. Do any of you know them, or counting rhymes in other languages?

One I know in English is:

Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.
Catch a tigger by his toe.
If he squeals, let him go.
Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.

I haven’t seen it written down before and I’m sure there are different ways to spell the words, and different versions of this rhyme. A Latin version was discussed in class, but unfortunately I didn’t write it down.

There are various theories about the origin is rhymes like this, but as most of them have been passed on from generation to generation of children with each generation changing them, we cannot be sure where they originally came from.

Deiseal agus tuathal

By Simon

Yesterday we discussed the Irish words deiseal (/ˈdʲɛʃəl/) and tuathal (/’tuəhəl/) in class. Deiseal means clockwise, dextral, right-hand, rightward, starboard, and tuathal means the opposite: anticlockwise, sinistral left-hand, leftward, port.

Some examples of usage:
– bogadh ar deiseal = to go in a clockwise direction
– dul deiseal = to go in a rightward direction
– fad is a bheas grian ag dul deiseal = whilst the sun follows its course
– ag bogadh ar tuathal = going in an anticlockwise direction
– cúl tuathail = own goal

They are related to the course of the sun, and date back to a time when the sun was thought to move around the earth from east to west. The course of the sun was considered the correct, right and good direction or deiseal, while the opposite direction tuathal was considered the wrong and bad direction. Buildings were built facing towards the rising sun, and adhering to these directions was thought to bring luck and prosperity.

The word deasil also exists in English, though isn’t commonly used. The opposite is widdershins or withershins.

Deiseal comes from the Old Irish word dessel, which means ‘direction of the sun, right-hand course, and comes from dess (right) and sel (turn).

Tuathal comes from the Old Irish word túaithbel, which means ‘a turning lefthandwise, against the sun, withershins’ and is a combination of túath (northern; left, on the left; perverse, wicked, evil) and sel (turn).

Source: Early Irish History and Mythology, T. F. O’Rahilly, via Wiktionary, and eDIL.

Do other languages have words for directions with similar roots?

Gleann Cholm Cille

By Simon

I returned to Bangor from the Isle of Man yesterday after a very enjoyable week at Yn Chruinnaght. I spoke and sang lots of Manx, and heard all the other Celtic languages, except Breton, being spoken and/or sung. I also spoke a bit of French and German, and even some English.

I was even inspired to write a new song while I was there, which is even sillier than my previous efforts.

Today I arrived in Gleann Cholm Cille for the Summer School in Irish language and Culture at Oideas Gael, so am now switching to Irish mode. During the week I’m here blog posts, up-dates on Omniglot and replies to emails might become somewhat sporadic.