“An T-Uisce Beatha” or “Uisce na Bheatha”?

[Rosie]

I was wondering if anyone knew if “the whiskey” would be “an t-uisce beatha” or would it be “uisce na bheatha.” And would that apply to ALL words (with the article) that include a genitive? Like “mac tíre” and “planda ubhthiraidh”?🙃

[Onuvanja]

“An t-uisce beatha” is the correct one. And yes, you can extend the analogy to all similar expressions, e.g. “an mac tíre” and “an cainteoir dúchais”.

[Labhrás]

I was wondering if anyone knew if “the whiskey” would be “an t-uisce beatha” or would it be “uisce na bheatha.” And would that apply to ALL words (with the article) that include a genitive? Like “mac tíre” and “planda ubhthiraidh”?🙃

an t-uisce beatha = the water of life = the whiskey (as a heading: An tUisce Beatha, small letter t, no hyphen)
uisce na beatha = the water of the life (whatever this is)*

btw: … na b[color=red]h[/color]eatha cannot be correct (no lenition following na: an bheatha, na beatha)

* Latin aqua viva is indifferent because there’s no article in Latin, so other languages as German translate it as “das Wasser des Lebens” – but Irish doesn’t. That is more correct because viva is an adjective, “living water”. The indefinite noun beatha replaces the Latin adjective.

[Rosie]

Thank you so much to both of you! This helped SO much!

[Author]

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