Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Some 40 years ago I heard on the radio (perhaps bbc shortwave) a beautiful version of “singing bird” in Irish Gaelic sung by an unknown Irish family. I asked around unsuccessfully to get the lyrics. The English version was then being sung by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. There was no internet at the time, but now perhaps it’s possible to find those lyrics and eventually give an old man the satisfaction of singing it in Irish (?)
In Buntús less. 111 there’s another sentence with the same construction, but without ” is = agus”
nach mbeifeá ag smaoineamh ar a dheanaí atá sé? = wouldn’t you be thinking of how late it is?
In this case the relative form “atá” is a link between “a dhéanaí” and the impersonal pronoun “sé”. A grammatical doubt rises about the fact that déanaí is a noun and the verb bí doesn’t want a noun as a predicate; I don’t think a phrase like “tá sé déanaí” is good grammar to say “it’s late”. I actually don’t even know how to translate “it’s late” in IrishNo, Aislingeach, there are several constructions based on this structure, like
tá a fhios agam = I know (= I have its knowledge = I have the knowledge (the notion) of it)
níor chuala mé riamh a leithéid = I never heard anything like this (never heard its like, the like of it, something like this)
The masculine possessive adjective a before an abstract noun is semantically neuter, that is impersonal: the noun doesn’t belong or relate to any specific subjet. That’s one of the numerous peculiarities of the Celtic languages. After learning a couple of idioms of the kind it’s easy to get how it works.a cartoon page 36 of buntùs cainte part two: a man is inserting a key into a door lock; caption: cuireadh cos ùr ann
All these answers are very instructive, thank you all. I think that words like siar and soir would require a special research as for their semantic story. I was impressed by their link with ancient memories lost in the past: saluting the first light of the day, looking at the sunrise in the east (soir), and the west being behind you (siar).
Great! I have eventually found a perfect exemple in the Dictionary of Hiberno-English by T.P. Dolan: “Let’s move west before the tide comes in” = let’s move back…
Could I substitute “d’imigh sé siar an bóthar” with “(d’imigh sé agus) chuaigh sé ar ais ar an mbóthar”?
well, if it’s true that cìos = rent money, according to the Irish sentence HE didn’t give HER the money, hence she is the owner of the house and it’s he that should live in a tent, less expensive than the house; but in the cartoon it’s SHE that lives in the tent, not he: one could deduce that the iconical meaning of the cartoon is not true (provided that cìos = money to be given for the rent), and this would sound strange, because all the numerous cartoons in Buntùs Cainte perfectly fit their related sentences. I suppose the knot of the dilemma lies in the verb tabhair, namely in the practical meaning of the phrase “cìos a thabhairt do dhuine”
