Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

By Simon

I made it to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig last night. It started to rain very heavily as the ferry arrived in Armadale. Fortunately there was a bus to the college, but I got rather damp just walking from the ferry to the bus, and from the bus into the college.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

So far on this journey I’ve heard quite a few different languages, including German, Lithuanian, Mandarin, French, Spanish and Dutch. I’ve had conversations in English, Scottish Gaelic and Irish, and spoken odd bits of Manx, Swedish, Russian and German.

My Scottish Gaelic is a bit rusty, but it’s coming back, and I fill in any gaps with Irish. On the way hear I listened to an audio book and some songs in Gaelic to tune my ears into the language.

Air an rathad dhan Eilean Sgitheanach

By Simon

Tha mi ann an Glaschu an-diugh, air an rathad dhan Eilean Sgitheanach. A-màireach bidh mi a’ dol dhan Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, agus a’ cursa ‘Sealladh Mara air Òrain Ghàidhlig‘ ri Maighread Stiùbhart a’ dhèanamh.

Glasgow

I’m in Glasgow today, on the way to the Isle of Skye. Tomorrow I’ll go to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye, to do the course ‘A Seascape of Gaelic Song‘ with Margaret Stewart. Looking forward to it.

Language videos

By Simon

This week I’ve been adding videos to some of the language pages on Omniglot. Many of them come from the Wikitongues, and others from the Endangered Languages Alliance or Easy Languages.

If you have suggestions for videos for other languages, do let me know. Ideally I’d like to have one or more on each language page to give a flavour of the language.

It would also be great to have videos in different varieties, accents and dialects. If you know of any good ones, or feel like making one, do let me know.

Here’s one of a guy from Glasgow who talks about different Scottish accents:

How many roads?

By Simon

How many roads?

Last week I learned that there are quite a few words for roads in Irish. These include:

bóthar [ˈbˠoːhəɾˠ] = road; way, manner. From the Proto-Celtic *bow-itros (cow path).

Related words in other Celtic languages:

– bóthar [boː.ər] = alley, lane (Scottish Gaelic)
– bayr [bajr] = avenue, drive, lane, pad, roadway (Manx)
– beidr [beidɪr] = lane, track (Welsh)
– bownder [‘bɔʊndɛr] = lane (Cornish)

bóithrín = country lane, boreen (diminutive of bóthar)

bealach [ˈbʲalˠəx] = way, road track; pass. From the Old Irish belach (gap, pass, road, path).

Related words in other Celtic languages:

– bealach [bjal̪ˠəx] = pass; access; detour; breach, gap, opening; inlet (Scottish Gaelic)
– bollagh = channel, course, curving uphill road, gap, gorge, lane, passage, route, thoroughfare (Manx)

ród [rˠoːdˠ] = road, highway. From the Old Irish rót (road, highway).

Related words in other Celtic languages:

– rathad [ra.ad] = road, way, route (Scottish Gaelic)
– raad [reːd̪, raːd̪] = avenue, drive, lane, pad, roadway (Manx)
– rhawd [r̥aud] = course, career (Welsh)
– roud = route, trace (Breton)

slí [ʃliː] = way, road, track, route, passage. From the Old Irish slige (gap, pass, road, path).

Related words in other Celtic languages:

– slighe [ʃl̪ʲi.ə] = path, track, trail, way; course, passage, route (Scottish Gaelic)

cosán = path; footway, track; way, passage; direction. From the Old Irish casán (path, footpath), from cás (foot).

Related words in other Celtic languages:

– casan [kasan] = path; supporting beam; treadle; wattle (Scottish Gaelic)
– cassan [keːzən] = passage, path, pathway, sidewalk, thoroughfare; walk, footpath; trajectory (Manx)

cabhsa = causeway; path, lane

sráid [sˠɾˠɑːdʲ] = street; level (surfaced) ground around house; village. From the Old Irish sráit (street, road, path, way), from the Old Norse stræti (street), from Late Latin strāta (a paved road).

Related words in other Celtic languages:

– sràid [sdraːdʲ] = street (Scottish Gaelic)
– straid = street; farmyard; thoroughfare (Manx)
– stryd [striːd] = street (Welsh)
– stret [strɛ:t] = street (Cornish)
– straed = alley, lane (Breton)

Incidentally, the English word road comes from the Middle English rode/rade, from the Old English rād (riding, hostile incursion), from the Proto-Germanic *raidō (a ride), from the Proto-Indo-European *reydʰ- (to ride).

Sources: teanglann.ie, Wiktionary, Fockleyreen, Am Faclair Beag, Dictionnaire Favereau breton, cornish dictionary / gerlyver kernewek

Difficult Irish

By Simon

Following on from my last post, I decided to look at words for difficult, and related words, in Irish today.

There are a number of different words for difficult in Irish:

– deacair = hard, difficult; difficulty; hardship, distress; (used in Connacht)
– doiligh = hard, difficult; hard to bear, distressing; hard to deal with; difficult, intractable (used in Ulster and Munster)
– crua = hard; Firm, solid; difficult; strenuous; tight; forceful; severe; harsh, unfeeling; stingy; hardy
– dian = intense, vehement; hard, severe
– duaisiúil = laborious, difficult, troublesome, distressing
– dúshlánach = challenging
– casta = twisted, wound; complicated, intricate, involved; gnarled, bent; wizened
– ciotach = left-handed; Awkward, unhandy; difficult, troublesome; inconvenient

Here are some examples of usage:

– Is deacair ceann críonna a chur ar cholainn óg = You can’t put an old head on young shoulders
– Is deacair a bheith suas leis = He is a very tricky person to deal with
– Is doiligh ciall a bhaint as = It is hard to make sense of it
– Is doiligh corrán maith a fháil do dhrochbhuanaí = A bad workman quarrels with his tools (It is hard to get a good sickle from a bad reaper)
– Ceist chrua = A difficult question
– Fadhb chrua le réiteach = A difficult problem to solve
– Bhí saol crua aici = She had a hard life
– Tá mé ag staidéar go dian = I am studying hard
– Tá tú mós dian air, = You are a bit too hard on him
– Obair dhuaisiúil = Tedious, wearing, work
– Aistear duaisiúil = Weary/wearying journey
– Scéal casta = Complicated story
= Ceist chasta = Knotty question

In Scottish Gaelic words for difficult include:

– doirbh [dɤrʲɤv] = difficult, hard; tricky
– bruaill [bruəl̪ʲ] = difficult; intractable
– duilich [dulɪç] = sorry; difficult, hard; regrettable; sad
– doilidh [dɔlɪ] = sorry; difficult, hard; regrettable; sad
– deacrach [dʲaxgrəx] = difficult, hard; mournful, sad
– cruaidh [kruəj = hard, firm; difficult; painful, distressing; scarce

In Manx words for difficult include:

– doillee = difficult, hard, stiff, ticklish, uphill
– doccaragh = arduous, grievous, hard, inconvenient, laborious, painful, uphill
– condragh = difficult, mischievous, wicked
– creoi = adamant, difficult, distressing, hardy, heartless, obdurate, severe, stubborn
– neuaashagh = awkward, difficult; discontented, restless, uneasy

Sources: foclóir.ie, teanglann.ie, Am Faclair Beag, Fockleyreen

A difficult language?

By Simon

Quite a few people I’ve talked to here in Glencolmcille have told me that Irish is a difficult language. This got me thinking about what makes a language difficult to learn.

Here are some aspects of Irish that learners may find difficult:

Spelling and Pronunciation
Irish spelling takes quite a while to get used to. It is far more regular than English, though works in different ways, and there are many silent letters. For example, bhfaigheadh (would get) is pronounced [wiu], which you would never guess from the spelling. Some older Irish texts are written in the Gaelic Script (An Cló Gaelach), which adds a extra layer of difficulty.

Vocabulary
Irish vocabulary is quite different to English, and most other European languages, so very few words are familiar to learners, unless they know Scottish Gaelic or Manx. There are words borrowed from English, and a few from Latin, though.

Grammar
Irish grammar is similar to the other Celtic languages, but quite different to other European languages. For example, the word order is VSO (Verb, Subject, Object); verbs have positive (tá = am/is/are), negative (níl = am not/isn’t/aren’t) and question forms (an bhfuil = am/is/are?); there is no verb ‘to have’; there are no single words for yes or no, and the pronouns fuse with prepositions – le (with) and mé (I) becomes liom, do (to) tú (you, singular) becomes duit, and so on. On the other hand, there are only 11 irregular verbs, no indefinite articles, and verbs only conjugate for person and number in some tenses.

Dialects
Like many languages, Irish has dialects. The differences between then are mainly in pronunciation and vocabulary. If you learn one, you might find the others a little difficult to understand at first, but before long you’ll be able to understand most things.

These are all things that can be difficult in any language. Basically the more differences there are between your mother tongue and the language(s) you’re learning, the more challenging it will be.

Have you learnt or are you learning Irish?

Do you find it difficult?

What aspects of Irish do you find most challenging?

Linguistic adventures

By Simon

This week I have been speaking quite a bit of Irish. Even though I rarely speak it at home, it is usually there when I need it. When trying to understand songs or poems in Irish, I realise that there are plenty of gaps in my vocabulary, but I can at least get the gist of them.

On Monday night there was a little Russian-speaking corner in the pub made up of three Belarusians, a Bulgarian, and me. I was able to understand quite a bit of what the others were saying in Russian, and to join in occasionally.

Yesterday I learnt a bit about Finnish language and culture from the Finnish guy who is doing the harp course. He told me that Finns tend to be less talkative than people from other countries, but that there is a lot of non-verbal communication between them.

I have also had opportunities to speak a bit of German, and have learnt a bit about German musical terms. For example, in German musical notes are not A to G, but A to H – H refers to B, and B refers to B♭, which is slighly confusing to someone used to the English system.

Do musical notes have other names in your language, or in other languages you know?