Irish Language Blog

(le Róislín)

On the topic of fools (amadáin), Irish seems to have an endless supply of words.  Probably other languages do as well (Welsh offering up ffŵl, ffwlcyn, hurtyn, lolyn, penbwl, twpsyn, and ynfytyn, just for starters), but our focus here, ar ndóigh, will be on Irish terms.  We’ve recently discussed quite a few (gamal, pleidhce, pleota, and specifically female, óinseach).  Let’s review some of those from previous blogs, plus a few more, this time with a rough guide to pronunciation, both in the basic form and in the vocative (for direct address, direct address at your own risk, that is):

amadán [AH-muh-dawn], fool, fairly straightforward in pronunciation.  In direct address: “A amadáin!” “Fool!”  This is pronounced almost the same, but the “n” at the end is now slender, marking the vocative, so is tenser, almost like an “aw-in” sound, but more flowing.  Rhymes with “Táin,” the famous Cattle Raid of Cooley.

Now if this fool really were on a hill, as suggested by Lennon/McCartney, we’d probably say “An tAmadán ar an gCnoc” for the title of the song (or “ar an Chnoc” for Northern Irish).  I don’t recall that the song actually had any direct address, but if we did want to greet the fool on the hill, we could say “a amadáin ar an gcnoc,” or I’d be tempted to add poetic license to song and say “A amadáin an chnoic!” (O fool of the hill!).  As for the “foolish grin” in the song, that’ll have to wait for blag eile, since there are quite a few ways to say “grin” in Irish, as one might expect (“cár” agus “drannadh” ina measc).

dundarlán [DUN-dur-lawn], dunce, dunderhead, which Severus Snape implies is the intelligence level of his incoming Rang Posóidí (“mura bhfuil sibh in bhur ndundarlán chomh mór is a bhíonn os mo chomhair de ghnáth”).  In the vocative singular, this will be “A dhundarláin!” “Dunderhead!”  Same comments for the pronunciation of “-áin” as above.  There’s also a change from the normal initial “d” to an initial “dh,” bringing us to the voiced velar fricative as discussed in various previous blogs (among them, “Saying ‘I love you’ in Irish and Minding Your Velar Fricatives,” http://blogs.transparent.com/irish/saying-i-love-you-in-irish/ ).  The rough guide to that “dh-“ is a throaty (guttural) gargling sound, best learned by hearing native speakers.

gamal [GAH-mul], fool.  In direct address, “A ghamail!” [uh γAH-mil].  That symbol that looks sort of like a “y” is the phonetic symbol (“gamma”) for the sound I just described, which has no equivalent in the English language.  It comes from the “gamma” letter of the Greek alphabet.

gamalóg, [GAH-mul-ohg], female version of the above.  In direct address: “A ghamalóg!”  Same initial “gh-“ sound as for “gamal,” otherwise, no change.

óinseach [OHN-shukh], female fool.  In direct address: “A óinseach!” [uh OHN-shukh, no change to the main word]

óinsín [OHN-sheen], young or small female fool.  No change in direct address.

pleidhce [PLAI-kyuh, “ai” rhyming with “I,” “aye,” “eye,” and “my”], fool.  In direct address: “A phleidhce!” [uh FLAI-kyuh, with “flai” rhyming with “fly”].

pleota [PL^yOH-tuh], fool.  In direct address: “A phleota!” [uh FL^yOH-tuh]

And then, of course, words can be paired up to intensify the effect:

pleidhce amadáin, a silly fool.  In direct address: “A phleidhce amadáin!”

stumpa amadáin, an out-an-out fool, as Hagrid calls Mr. Dursley in the Irish version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Guess you can tell what I’ve been reading lately.  Actually re-reading, on the lookout for the stórfhocal is suimiúla.  ‘Sea, sin é, Harry Potter agus an Órchloch, which so far is the only volume from the series to have been translated into Irish : (

Bhuel, tá súil agam nach am amú é seo uaim atá amanna i m’óinseach, is dócha.  SGF, Róislín

P.S.  In case anyone was wondering about “gnáthfhadhbanna,” cited in the last blog,  it breaks down fairly neatly to “gnáth-“ [gnaw] + fhadhb [aib, rhyming with scribe, tribe, etc.] + -anna [uh-nuh, a plural ending].  For that one, I think we can skip the direct address form!  As you may recall, the word is from the line, “Agus tá na gnáthfhadhbanna fós á ciapadh: an Pleota sa bhaile agus Bean Uí Bhatamór ar scoil” (from a “blurba” for the children’s book “Cailitín” by Caitríona Ní Mhurchú, http://www.siopaancarn.com/irishchildrensbooksnsrang67?pm2_a=show&pm2_id=389).  Got the rest of the sentence?  It’s “And the ordinary problems are still pestering her: the fool [her silly brother] at home and Bean Uí Bhatamór [lit. Mrs. “Big-stick”] at school.”

As you may have guessed, this blag will introduce some of the Irish terms for “fool” and will resume our long-awaited (right) series of irregular verbs in direct and indirect relative clauses.  This is in honor of Lá na nAmadán, the day of fools, April 1.  Amadán is the most basic Irish word for “a fool.”  Look for a few more below. 

Let’s first refresh the pattern we had set up for this, using a verb we had recently (déan – make, do).  An cuimhin libh na habairtí seo (all based on “She makes a muzzle for the calf”)?

Aimsir láithreach: Déanann sí soc don lao.  An ndéanann sí soc don lao?  Sin í an bhean a dhéanann soc don lao.  Sin í an bhean a ndéanann a hiníon soc don lao.

Aimsir chaite: Rinne sí soc don lao.  An ndearna sí soc don lao?  Sin í an bhean a rinne soc don lao.  Sin í an bhean a ndearna a hiníon soc don lao.

Aimsir fháistineach: Déanfaidh sí soc don lao.  An ndéanfaidh sí soc don lao?  Sin í an bhean a dhéanfaidh soc don lao.  Sin í an bhean a ndéanfaidh a hiníon soc don lao.

Remember how important séimhiú (lenition aka aspiration) and urú (eclipsis) are in Irish?  Lenition and eclipsis are what this system is all about.  They’re why we’re spending at least aon bhlag déag (11 blogs) on it.  Irish doesn’t use a relative pronoun “who” in the way English does, to say things like “This is woman who bakes every day.” You might try to work out the Irish for that, by the way; the answer is thíos (below).  It simply uses the “relative particle” (an páirteagal coibhneasta) which is spelled “a” and pronounced “uh.”  Oh, yes, and followed by lenition (b->bh, etc.).

Likewise, to say “whose” in the relative sense (as in “This is the woman whose son bakes every day,” Irish below), we also use “a” but it is followed by eclipsis (b->mb, etc.).  Please do note that this is not the interrogative “whose” (as in “Whose book is this?”).  That could be covered in another blog series.  Interested – please let me know by writing in the comments section.  Or, if anyone can recall the “lumpy pillow” anecdote famously used to illustrate this feature of Irish, I’ll plunge right into it (maybe after a short change of tack to deal with Easter, Passover, and related terms).

Now, having said all that, here are our examples, using the verb “say” (abair, which changes “root” to “deir-,” dú-,” or “déar-“ for our samples below, so this one’s highly irregular).  This is the seventh out of the 11 briathra neamhrialta of Irish we’ll cover in this series and, to be topical, for Lá na nAmadán, we’ll use fools as the subject:

Aimsir láithreach: 

Simple sentence and question: Deir an t-amadán rudaí amaideacha.  (The fool says foolish things).  An ndeir t-amadán rudaí amaideacha?

Sentences with relative clauses:

Direct relative: Seo é an t-amadán a deir rudaí amaideacha.  This is the fool who says foolish things.

Notice anything amiss there?  Yep, there’s always an exception to break the rule.  The verb “deir” (says) doesn’t get lenited after our particle “a” (or after other particles, for that matter, cf. “ní deir sé” – he doesn’t say, etc.  The same will apply in the past and future.)

But we do eclipse for the indirect relative:

Seo é an t-amadán a ndeir a bhean rudaí amaideacha.  This is the fool whose wife says foolish things.

Aimsir chaite (and now we’ll switch to “óinseach,” for a female fool.  Maybe she’s bean an amadáin, the fool’s wife):

Dúirt an óinseach rudaí amaideacha.  An ndúirt an óinseach rudaí amaideacha?

Sentences with relative clauses:

Seo í an bhean a dúirt rudaí amaideacha.  Seo í an bhean a ndúirt a cara rudaí amaideacha.

Aimsir fháistineach (and let’s have the friend be a “gamal,” yet another word for fool):

Déarfaidh an gamal rudaí amaideacha.  An ndéarfaidh an gamal rudaí amaideacha?

Sentences with relative clauses:

Seo é an gamal a déarfaidh rudaí amaideacha.  Seo é an gamal a ndéarfaidh a mhac rudaí amaideacha. 

Yes, Irish does distinguish between male and female fools.  I’ve heard “amadán” used much like “guys” in English gender-wise (originally masculine, but now used for men and women).  “Óinseach” is specifically female.  At least I’ve never heard it applied to a man!  Which is probably just as well!

Nóta (though you might have figured it out already): Direct relative: Seo í an bhean a bhácálann gach lá.  Indirect relative: Seo í an bhean a mbácálann a mhac gach lá.  Both sentences are based on the verb “bácálann” (bakes).

  We’ve recently discussed fools in general in the April 1st and 3^rd blogs.  We’ve differentiated amadáin from óinseacha and worked gámaithe, gamail, gamalóga, agus gamaraill into the mix.  Now lets segue to “wise fools” and then to various terms for being clever, “cute,” smart, intelligent, wise and/or cunning. 

  Wise fools, first.  This will be a direct translation of from the Greek-based “sophomore.” The English word “sophomore” is popularly derived from Greek “sophos” (wise) and “moros” (foolish), although it is actually more likely from “sophumer” or “sophom,” a dialectic exercise.   Either way, the Irish term is “sofamór,” based on the sounds in English.   

  “Sofamór” seems to be a fairly new word in the language.  It’s not in any of the older dictionaries I have and now shows up as being “for approval” in Irish vocabularies, suggesting that it’s a newcomer.  Most likely the term has been added recently to Irish as the language gets increasingly internationalized.  The Irish educational system doesn’t use the terminology found in the U.S. for which year you are in at high school or university (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior).  So far, the word “freshman” doesn’t exist as such i nGaeilge, and the adjectives that mean “junior” or “senior” (sóisearach, sinsearach) would have to be qualified.  At an Irish university, you generally just identify the year you are in by number (sa chéad bhliain, in the first year, for example) rather than by saying “I am a freshman.” 

  Words used to describe smartness in Irish can range from the truly complimentary to those suggesting slyness or cunning, sometimes referred to in Irish English as being “cute” (short for “acute”).  Here’s a selection:

  cliste: clever, smart

  éirimiúil: intelligent, clever, talented, gifted

  cleasach: smart, cute, tricky, crafty

  slim: sly, cunning, also slim, smooth, or sleek (remember to pronounce this one as “shlim,” not like the English word)

  glic: smart, cute, sly, shrewd, crafty

  As hinted at in a previous blog, “glic” is the key to the wordplay in Doyle’s The Last Roundup, which follows the life of Henry Smart.  When Smart comes to America, he takes the surname Glick, which fits well in the Jewish community where he finds himself in multicultural New York, since Glick, based on German Glück, is well known there.  But Henry knows the word’s double meaning and probably feels all the more “glic” for having picked it. 

  Just one more, for closers, críonna: wise, prudent, mature, thrifty, old

  “Críonna” is used for two of my favorite expressions for grandparents, “máthair chríonna” and ”athair críonna” (wise mother, wise father).  How many expressions for grandparents are there i nGaeilge?  Quite a few more – that’ll be the pointe bíse (cliffhanging or suspense point) for blag éigin eile (some other blog).  Bhur mblagálaí — Róislín