Irish Language Question

Quote:

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

You'd be surprised. Words like "computer" and "internet" and others which you'd think - being relatively modern inventions - would have no Irish equivalent do have translations (r�omhaire, gr�as�n - calculator, network). Other words - particularly scientific ones - wouldn't be English in origin anyway, so it's not that big a deal that Irish uses similar phrases - the microbiology department in UCD is "m�crobitheola�ocht", which sounds like a cop out, but the word microbiology itself comes from three Greek words (mikros, bios and logia). But in everyday language, I'd say the vast majority of words we use are very old, and have perfectly serviceable Irish equivalents. Your post includes no idea newer than a couple of hundred years old, I'd say. The only word there's probably no direct translation for is "poxy", but there's other words for that.

Learning it isn't that hard I think. Probably the hardest part is finding a medium for keeping from rusting up. I was down in two parts of the Gaeltacht at the weekend (Connemara and the Dingle peninsula) and heard one word of Irish spoken in that time "chicken kiev agus burger". It is different from most other languages - it's not like knowing Spanish and learning Portuguese, for example. Syntactically, it's different and the word order can throw you (You don't say "I am a teacher", for example - you have to say something like "I am in my teachership". There's no words for "Yes" or "No" either. Stuff like that)

The only other issue is whether it's worth learning. I don't think there's anyone alive who speaks only Irish and no other languages. Your choice of books in Irish is very limited - I'm told you can get Harry Potter, but you can get that in English too. The news is in English and Irish. There's bugger all practical advantage to be gained from learning it. But it is handy as a secret code abroad, or as a conversation topic. And some of the phrases are wonderfully descriptive - "Uisce beatha", "Staighre beo" and "Craiceann a bhualadh le" for example; they mean "Whiskey", "Escalator" and "To have sex with", but literally translate as "Water of life", "Living stairs" and "To meet the skin with"; it's worth learning the language for those kind of insights alone.

what about 'is mise muinteoir' = 'I am a teacher'? sounds like you are thinking about describing feelings, i.e. 'T� br�n orm' = = ' I have sadness on me', meaning 'I am sad'.
Yes = sea, No = N� shea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Cac tarbh was the one I heard for that, but I think it was a makey-uppey phrase (a literal translation rather than a genuine phrase).

There's a thread on boards about it, but again, a lot of the phrases seem to be just literal translations of English ones.

P�g mo th�in is the obvious one that everyone'd know.

yeah we always said cac b� for bull sh1t, same idea as cac tarbh

"Sea" is a shortened version of "Is ea", meaning "It is". "N� shea" isn't Irish. There's no direct translation for yes and no in Irish. You have to affirm the original verb -

"Is that your car?" "It is" ("An � sin do charr?" "Is �.")
"Are you ready?" "I am indeed" ("An bhfuil t� r�idh?" "T�, cinnte")
"Were you in Murphy's last night?" "I was." ("An raibh t� i Tig U� Mhurch� ar�ir?" "D'Bh�os")
"Would you like a pint?" "I would like" ("Ar mhaith leat pionta?" "Ba mhaith liom", or "An bhfuil pionta uait?" "T�, go deimhin")

"T� m� i mo mh�inte�ir" is one way of saying "I'm a teacher". I know because I used to enjoy driving my Irish teacher mad saying it; he'd be always ready to come down like a ton of bricks on "T� m� m�inte�ir". I think the alternative is "Is m�inte�ir m�", not "Is mise m�inte�ir".

B� is a cow; tarbh is a bull (a cow is a female; a bull is a male). Cac b� means cow****.

This issue of not saying (or being able to say) yes or no in Irish has also had an impact on the way Irish people speak English. Quite a few studies have been done (none of them to hand now) on how Irish people don't say 'yes' or 'no' as much as other English speakers.