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Lengthening of ea and a in such words is a feature of Cois Fhairrge Irish. Whether it’s found in other parts of Conamara and, if so, how widespread it is I don’t know.
There are lots of examples of it in “Learning Irish” – perhaps this is where you’ve noticed it.I’m not a native speaker, but being a Catholic for nearly 70 years, I’ve heard a lot of “Our Father”s ..
We’ve always said “naoftar” (subjunctive – ?Briathar Saor) and “le saol na saol”
When I was at school in the 1950s, we didn’t use “fiacha” or “feiciúna” …
we said something like ” i gcionn xxx in ár n-adhaigh” (it’s so long ago, that I’ve forgotten)eadaoin
“…a chionntuigheann inár n-aghaidh…”
Naofar
There are first and second conjugation versions of this verb:-
1st. naomh, naomhaim, naomhann etc., &
2nd. naomhuigh, naomhuighim, naomhuigheann etc. (C.O. spelling: naomhaigh, naomhaím, naomhaíonn etc.).
The autonomous endings beginning with t were originally (and still are to some extent dialectically) lenited when affixed to a word ending in b, bh, c, g, gh[color=red]*[/color], m, mh, & p (just as the past participle endings still are), so:-
naomhtar & naomhthar (c.o. naofar)
naomhuightear & naomhuighthear (c.o. naomhaítear & naomhaíthear)Féichiúna
The original form of this noun was féicheamh, gen. féichimh or féicheamhan, pl. féicheamhna (c.o. féichiúna as above).
Two variants developed:-
féicheamhnach, pl. féicheamhnaigh, &
féicheamhnaidhe, pl. féicheamhnaidhthe (c.o. féichiúnaí, pl. féichiúnaithe)([color=red]*[/color]apart from single syllable verbs)
I hope this is of help.
I was wondering… iníon rí means “princess” does it not? Is it more specifically “daughter of a king”? If so, what would daughter of a queen, be?
Inghean Bhanríoghna/Iníon Bhanríona
Banphrionnsa or Banfhlaith = princess
I was wondering how to say moonflowers/moonlilies in singular and plural. Flowers that grow in the moonlight, in other words. Just something I made up.
Lilidh ré? blath gealach?
I’m not sure how portmanteau’s behave in Gaelic, but it can be one word or two. : )
Bláthanna/Lilí na Gealaighe (‘gealaí’ in CO orthography) is a literal translation.
My Scottish Gaelic is shakey at best but the following would be, I think, the SG equivalent:
“Giorraichidh dithis rathad“.Dithis = Ir. Dias or Dís (same meaning as Beirt).
Rathad = Ir. Ród or Ramhad.Whether this saying exists in SG or not I don’t know.
Seasann na soilse don tsaoghal.
Léirightear an saoghal sna soilse.
Chítear an saoghal sna soilse.
???
That’s interesting stuff Carmanach, thanks.
1) Actually, I think Brian Ó Cuív in Irish Dialects and Irish Speaking Districts mentions [u:] (which is pretty universal in East Munster, if I’m not mistaken) in the Déise and Dún Chaoin. An acquaintance of mine who is a very fine scholar indeed of Munster Irish reckons that “Déiseachas” (for want of a better word) was used in a band stretching from the Déise of west Waterford and south Tipperary right up though Limerick and even into north Kerry and streching on into Clare. Many of what we call “Déise features” today also pop up in Kilkenny and Wexford in south Leinster. My friend also mentions placenames from north Kerry and west Limerick which show clear “Déiseachas” but I can’t remember what they were (damn you, memory!).
If you don’t mind, what were the Déise features found in Wexford and how far into the county did they extend?
While Wexford shows definite Munster features such as /Å‹’/ in -inn (The Bing of Rosslare < Binn, etc), /ou/ in sceall < steall, etc., vocalisation of intervocalic /v/ - searús < searbhas, etc, it also showed Connachta (and even Ulster-like) features.
As I understand it, the “boundary” between what we’d now call (East) Munster Irish and the Irish of central Leinster, which was closer to Connacht Irish, passed somewhere through Wexford.
I’d imagine it would be difficult to determine which dialect was most widespread.
One very Munster-sounding placename right up in northern Wexford (not far from Gorey) does comes to mind though – Craanford/Áth an Chorráin.Re the OP –
Lughaidh mentions possibly making a Gaoth Dobhair version. Wouldn’t it be amazing if versions were produced for every sub-dialect (including those areas barely surviving like NW Mayo) 🙂
A fantasy, perhaps.1) Actually, I think Brian Ó Cuív in Irish Dialects and Irish Speaking Districts mentions [u:] (which is pretty universal in East Munster, if I’m not mistaken) in the Déise and Dún Chaoin. An acquaintance of mine who is a very fine scholar indeed of Munster Irish reckons that “Déiseachas” (for want of a better word) was used in a band stretching from the Déise of west Waterford and south Tipperary right up though Limerick and even into north Kerry and streching on into Clare. Many of what we call “Déise features” today also pop up in Kilkenny and Wexford in south Leinster. My friend also mentions placenames from north Kerry and west Limerick which show clear “Déiseachas” but I can’t remember what they were (damn you, memory!).
If you don’t mind, what were the Déise features found in Wexford and how far into the county did they extend?
My point was I can’t think of any case of the borrowing of an English “-ly” adverb and it’s use as an adjective ending in “-lidhe”/“-lí”.
I’d forgotten about /-u:/ in terminations of that kind. Is the final “-aí” a third plural suffix or simply the change of final /É™/ to /i:/ so common in Connacht?
It could have influenced it at least, I suppose, but I can’t think of any case of an English adverb becoming an adjective in Irish.
Knowing when the word entered Irish would be useful. McBain (under “silpidh“) and the DIL aren’t much help.According to “The Irish of Erris” it’s a small group of nouns ending in /-É™/ that form the plural with /-u:/. The examples given are: cleite, faithne, gearr-chaile, gloine, leithe, reithe, seithe & sine.
It does seem to be a Connacht feature, I found no mention of it in “Gaeilge Theilinn”Thanks for the response.
Yes, broad -(e)adha would generally become /u:/ but frequently didn’t, the best example of which is the old plural suffix -(e)adha > -(a)idhe > -(a)í. Interestingly, this developed as /u:/ after certain words in Mayo (“The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo” pg. 191).
I mentioned simplidhe as I’m unaware of any earlier form like “simpil” or “simple” to which the suffix could have been added. It’s possible the existence of adjectives ending in /i:/ influenced the form the loan word took in Irish, or that the suffix was added as it was adopted.
Is there anything that learners/non-native speakers can do about the decline of Gaedhealtacht communities?
Very little except going there and using the language and spending your money locally. What you can do from your own armchair is choose to focus on a particular dialect and study that. Every learner should already be doing that, but few do, as I think they confuse Irish with French or German or English which do have standard spoken varieties. Irish never had a single spoken standard form. They end up speaking school Irish which is not spoken by anyone anywhere nor was it ever spoken as a native language. When they are then confronted by real native speakers, you can see the shock in their faces. You can educate other learners about the existence of Gaeltacht Irish and to the linguistic and audio texts available online and in bookshops. But as someone else said earlier, you need to be critical in what texts you pick. Only pick texts from native speakers from the Gaeltacht. Ask yourself the question; if you were learning any other language, French, for example, who would you rather learn French from, a learner from New York or a mother tongue Francophone from Paris? It’a s nobrainer.
I agree with your recommendations and have long tried to practise them.
I do think awareness of the importance of, and use of, authentic Irish amongst learners is slowly growing. Certainly on forums such as this interest in dialects and use of dialect/non-CO language seems to me to have increased over the years.Considering that there is, as you say, very little that learners like ourselves on this forum can do about the decline of the Gaedhealtachtaí I think it’s best to concentrate here on what learners & non-native speakers actually can achieve.
