Category: Irish (Gaeilge)

Tonnmharcaíocht

By Simon

An interesting word I heard yesterday on Raidió na Gaeltachta was tonnmharcaíocht or surfing – literally “wave riding”. I hadn’t heard it before, but was able to work out the meaning from its component words. Another word for this kind of surfing is tonnscinneadh (wave glancing / skimming). Surfing the internet is scimeáil ar an Idirlíon, and sciméail also means to skim (milk).

Words related to marcaíocht (riding, to ride / drive / lift), include marcach (rider / horseman), marcaigh (to ride) and marcshlua (cavalry). The root of these is marc, the Old Irish word for horse, which is related to the Welsh march, the Cornish margh, and the Breton marc’h, all of which mean stallion.

The words for mare in Old High German (marah), Norse (marr), and Anglo-Saxon (mearh) as well as the English words mare and marshal are also related and can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European *mark (horse).

Cennin Pedr

By Simon

Daffodils / Cennin Pedr / Narcissi

Yesterday was St David’s Day (Dydd Gŵyl Dewi), a day when many Welsh people wear daffodils (cennin Pedr) in honour of their patron saint. The daffodil (cenhinen Bedr) is one of the national symbols of Wales, along with the leek (cenhinen), and the Welsh name for daffodil means “Peter’s leek”. The leek has been a Welsh symbol for many centuries and features prominently in traditional Welsh dishes such as cawl cennin (leek soup). The daffodil became popular as a national symbol during the 19th century, especially among women.

The names for daffodil in Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic are similar: lus an chromchinn, lus ny cam-ching and lus a’ chrom-chinn, which mean “bent-headed plant”. Alternative names in Manx include lus ny n’guiy (goose plant) and lus yn arree (Spring plant).

The English word daffodil is thought to comes from the Middle English affodill (asphodel), from the Middle Lation affodillus, from the Latin asphodelus, from the Greek asphodelos, the origin of which is unknown. The initial d perhaps came from a merging of the Dutch definite article de with affodil (Source).

According to Plutarch the Latin name for daffodil, narcissus, comes from the Greek ναρκαώ [narkao] (to numb), which is also the root of narcosis, as the plant which produces numbness or palsy (Source). Although other sources claim that the narcissus was named after Νάρκισσος [Narkissos], the character in Greek myths.

The daffodil or narcissus is a symbol of vanity in the West, while in China it’s a symbol of wealth and good fortune.

Word of the day – ig

By Simon

The Welsh word ig (plural: igion) means hiccough. The verb, to hiccough / sob, is igian, igio or igion.

When I’m singing or playing the tin whistle or other wind instruments I often get hiccoughs, and the other day I was trying to explain this to a Welsh friend in Welsh, but didn’t know the Welsh word for hiccup. So I looked it up.

The English word hiccough (also spelt hiccup) is thought to be an imitation of the sound of hiccoughs, and the Welsh word ig probably is as well.

In other languages hiccough is:
Czech: škytavka
German: Schluckauf
Dutch: hik
French: hoquet
Irish: snag
Italian: singhiozzo
Spanish: hipo

The medical terms for hiccough are synchronous diaphragmatic flutter (SDF), or singultus, from the Latin, singult, “the act of catching one’s breath while sobbing”.

Do you have any good cures for hiccoughs?

I usually hold my breath and/or drink water.

Word of the day – cawl

By Simon

Today’s word, cawl /kaul/, is a Welsh word meaning soup, broth, gruel or a mess.

Cawl is also a traditional Welsh stew made with meat and vegetables. It’s the kind of dish that’s made from whatever is available so the exact ingredients vary, but it often includes lamb and leeks, and is often served with bread and cheese. There a recipe for cawl and more information here.

The word cawl probably comes from the Latin caulis, which means the stalk of a plant, a cabbage stalk or a cabbage. It is related to the Irish cál, the Scottish Gaelic càl, the Cornish caul, the Breton kaol, the German Kohl, the English cole, as in coleslaw, and the Scots kail, all of which mean cabbage. The Welsh word for cabbage is completely different – bresychen.

The Proto-Indo-European root of caulis is *kaw(ǝ)l, which means tubular bone or pipe.

Y Cooish

By Simon

I’m currently in the Isle of Man for the Cooish, a festival of Manx language and traditional music from the Isle of Man, Ireland and Scotland. Last night I went to an excellent concert in Peel which included the Arrane son Mannin (Song for Man) competition, and there’s a lecture in Manx (Leaght y Ghaaue) this evening.

Yesterday I met a Manx-speaking friend on the boat coming over and we talked Manx throughout the crossing. Well actually she did most of the talking and I contributed to the conversation whenever I could. It was the longest conversation I’ve ever had in Manx and I was pleased to find that I could understand almost everything, and even got the jokes.

My Manx tends to get mixed up with Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and even Welsh sometimes, but my friend is fluent in Irish, and speaks some Scottish Gaelic and Welsh, so this didn’t matter so much. We did try to stick to Manx most of the time though.

One of the things we were discussing was false friends between the Gaelic languages. For example, daoine means people in Irish, while in Manx dooiney means men, and the word for people is sleih, mooinjer or pobble. In Scottish Gaelic people is poball or sluagh, and men is daoine.

We also tried to translate Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody into Manx, though couldn’t remember all the words in English and weren’t sure of the Manx equivalents of some of the words we could remember.

Word of the day – moli

By Simon

Today’s word, moli, is the Welsh for ‘to praise’ and appears in a song we’re learning at the Welsh learners’ choir. I don’t think it’s commonly-used in modern Welsh, but does appear in some songs and maybe in poems. The more common word for to praise is canmol, which appears to come from the same root.

Related words include moliannus, praiseworthy; molianrwydd / moliant / molud, praise.

The words for ‘to praise’ and ‘praise’ in Irish and Scottish Gaelic are simliar to the Welsh: moladh, and mol, in Manx they’re moylley and moyll, and in Breton they are meuliñ and meuleudi.

Another meaning of moli is ‘to gather scurf in the eyes’. Scurf, or môl, is a word I haven’t come across before and means the stuff that appears in the corners of your eyes during sleep. There’s probably another name for it – does anybody know?

Word of the day – gliniadur

By Simon

Gliniadur / laptop computer

Gliniadur is a Welsh word for laptop computer. It combines (pen-)glin, knee, with iadur from cyfrifiadur, computer, and could be translated as “kneeputer”. It is similar to the Irish for laptop, ríomhaire glúine (knee computer).

Other Welsh words for laptop include cyfrifiadur côl (lap computer), sgrin-ar-lin (screen on the knees) and cyfrifiadur cludadwy (portable computer).

The suffix adur denotes a tool or thing and also appears in geiriadur (dictionary, “word tool”), gwniadur (thimble, “sewing tool”), teipiadur (typewriter, “type tool”), and termiadur (a dictionary of terminology).

This word came up last night at the French conversation group when we were discussing how to say laptop in French (ordinateur portable) – are there any other words for laptop in French?

Do any other languages have interesting words for laptop?

Language modes

By Simon

I’ve just returned from a wonderful week of Irish language and culture in Gleann Cholm Cille in Donegal, Ireland. This was my fifth visit to Gleann Cholm Cille, and my third time at the summer school – I enjoy it so much that I keep going back. And I’m not the only one – many of the people I met there last year and the year before were there again this year, and many of the first-time visitors said that they’d be back.

I spent most of my time there immersed in Irish language, songs and music. Although this week is the only one during the year when I get to speak much Irish, my proficiency in the language does seem to be improving. I still make plenty of mistakes, of course, but am getting better as expressing myself in the language without resorting to English very much.

One thing I noticed was that when I tried to think of Welsh equivalents some of the Irish words and phrases I encountered, they often refused to surface from wherever it is they lurk in my memory. I suspect this was because my brain was in Irish mode and this suppressed my other languages to some extent.

Have you had any similar experiences with languages?

By the way, apologies for Omniglot being down temporarily – it was something to do with the firewall, which I think I fixed now.

Irish on the radio

By Simon

There are a number of radio stations in Ireland and Northern Ireland that broadcast entirely or partly in Irish, and I listen to one of them, Raidió na Gaeltachta, reguarly. However I wasn’t aware until the other day that there’s a radio station in New York (Nua Eabhrac) that broadcasts a weekly radio show in Irish, according to this article.

The show, Mile Failte, is broadcast on WFUV-FM and has been running since 1989. It originally lasted just 10 minutes, but has grown to an hour and includes Irish music, language lessons, poetry and information about Irish culture and history. The same station also broadcasts an Irish music programme called Ceol na nGael.

There seems to be a quite a few Irish speakers in New York, and plenty of Irish language classes in New York City and State, according to this site. There’s some details of some of the Irish-speakers there on this site.

When is a language extinct?

By Simon

The recent publication of UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger has generated quite a few new stories and discussion.

The Atlas has a list of 2,500 endangered languages ranked according to five different levels: unsafe (607), definitely endangered (632), severely endangered (502), critically endangered (538) and extinct (200). Of these languages, 199 have fewer than 10 speakers, and 178 have between 10 and 50 speakers. The Atlas is apparently available online, although I can only find information about endangered languages in Africa.

Among the extinct languages it mentions Manx and Cornish, which has stirred up a lot of comment, especially among those who speak these languages and are learning them. For example, the website iomtoday.co.im tells us that the ‘Manx language is very much alive’ and there are articles on Manx and Cornish on the BBC site.

The comments on the iomtoday site are interesting and seem to agree that Manx is nobody’s first language, which I believe is true. One commenter points out that Manx is dead because “there are no longer any monoglot Manx speakers, or even speakers with Manx as a first language”. I’m not sure why it’s essential for there to be monoglot speakers of a language for it to be considered living. There are very few, if any, monoglot speakers of Welsh, Irish or Scottish Gaelic over the age of 5 or so, but there are plenty of people who speak them as their first language.

My dissertation will be a study of the revival of Manx, and this will give me a better idea of the current state of the language.