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Interesting question. Though superficially similar, those words actually sound different in all dialects. First of all, there is a long vowel at the end of ‘comhrá’ which is why the two cannot quite overlap. Because of this, in Munster Irish the stress moves to the last syllable. In Ulster Irish, the difference between long and short vowels is less marked, but in ‘comhartha’ you would still hear the ‘th’ which is absent in ‘comhrá’. Perhaps in Cois Fhairrge, the ‘th’ would disappear, but the ‘o’ would sound rather like ‘u’, plus there is still a long vowel at the end of ‘comhrá’. But yes, better listen to it on Teanglann, as Aled points out. 😀
Compared to English, there are quite a lot of different ways to express that. If you’re looking for the closest equivalent for RIP, then perhaps ‘Suaimhneas síoraí” (literally ‘Eternal peace’) would be the best. Other common expressions include ‘Suaimhneas síoraí dá hanam’ (‘Eternal peace’ to her soul’), ‘Grásta ó Dhia ar a hanam’ (‘God grace her soul’), ‘Ar dheis Dé go raibh sí’ (‘May she be at the right hand of God’), ‘Go ndéana Dia trócaire uirthi’ (‘God have mercy on her’) etc.
Don’t really have an answer, though ‘gluais’ means ‘gloss, glossary, commentary’, so a word-for-for translation of your sentence would be ‘as if the name Paddy Doyle was accompanied by a glossary/commentary’ … Would that make any sense in the context? If not, maybe you could copy a larger paragraph from the text?
Yes, that’s right. The phrase ‘gabh i leith’ sounds more or less as if it was written ‘goile’. The Donegal equivalent would be ‘goitse’.
Don’t know, over here in Europe they seem to work okay, at least using Chrome… Hope you get them back! Beir bua!
‘Buail’, as you mentioned, would be the most common word for ringing bells, though in the case of sleigh bells, ‘cling’ could work even better.
https://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/chime“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”.
In Connemara and Munster Irish the first vowel of the word is pronounced the same way as “ou” in “house”. In Donegal, it’s simply /o/. “Dh” and “gh” are pronounced as /É£/ or /j/ only at the start of the word. Everywhere else they tend to be silent or turn into diphthongs (vowels).
Haigh, a Rosie! These are both compound nouns, so they’re declined just like the last element in both words, i.e. ‘páiste’ (4th declension, masc.). For example, you could say ‘teach garpháiste’ and ‘teach garpháistí’ (‘a grandchild’s house’ and ‘a grandchildren’s house’) or ‘teach an gharpháiste’ and ‘teach na ngarpháistí’ (‘the grandchild’s house’ and ‘the grandchildren’s house’), which would be more natural, I suppose. Notice the lenition and the eclipsis on ‘garpháistí’ in the genitive singular and plural, respectively. By the way, you can check the genitive case of most words in the online English-Irish Dictionary (www.focloir.ie) by clicking on the bit where it says which declension and gender a particular word belongs to. In the case of ‘garpháiste’, this information isn’t displayed, but you can find it under ‘páiste’.
Yes, it’s ‘shóide’ because ‘deoch’ is a feminine noun. Compare for instance with ‘uisce sóide’ where there’s no lenition, because ‘uisce’ is a masculine noun. The plural of ‘deoch shóide’ would be ‘deochanna sóide’. ‘Sóide’ doesn’t change, as it means ‘what kind of drink’, regardless of whether you want to use the singular or the plural, i.e. ‘a drink of soda’ or ‘drinks of soda’. The same happens for example in ‘teach leanna’ (ale house) – ‘tithe leanna’ (ale houses). The qualifier or the second noun doesn’t take the plural. As for declining the word ‘sóid’, it belongs to the 2nd declension like ‘súil’, so you would have nom.sg. ‘an tsóid’, gen.sg ‘na sóide’ and nom.&gen;.pl. ‘na sóideanna’. Hope that makes it clearer! 🙂
If I remember correctly, O’Siadhail writes in his Learning Irish that “comhar” is pronounced with /u:/ in Cois Fhairrge Irish, while “comharchumann” is pronounced with /o:/ due to the fact that the former has always been in the dialect, but the latter is a recent coinage and has therefore not undergone the same historical sound changes. I wonder if something similar is at work here..?
Interesting question. Indeed, Ó Dónaill’s Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla and the new online English-Irish dictionary seem to prefer “hart” (no genitive), whereas de Bhaldraithe’s English-Irish Dictionary has “hairt” (genitive). In a way, it would make sense to use the genitive case here, but most sources appear to argue against it, so it would be good to have the opinion of a native speaker…
I would recommend you to combine different resources, both RnaG and TG4, but also news websites like tuarisc.ie which are very useful for building up vocabulary. Once you’re familiar with the most common terms used in a given field, try tuning in to a TV or radio broadcast dealing with the same topic and you’ll gradually find it easier to follow what’s being said. Don’t aim too high at the beginning, concentrate on shorter and simpler items, as that will enable you to get used to different dialects and pronunciations. I think there are some learning materials on the http://www.teg.ie website (based on news programmes), but there’s no single resource that would cover everything. Coinnigh ort! 🙂
Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhaoibh uilig! Actually, ‘pictiúr’ is in the genitive case here, but it’s genitive plural, rather than genitive singular (like in “leithreas na bhfear” – men’s toilet = the gents). That’s also the reason why there’s no lenition on “pictiúr”. As a rule, nouns following a feminine noun (like ‘sraith’) are lenited, but that does not apply if they are in plural (also “sraith clár”, not “chlár” – “a series of programmes”).
