Irish Language Blog

Ceiliúrtar Lá na Brataí i Meiriceá ar an 14ú lá de mhí an Mheithimh.  Cad a dhéantar?  Paráidí in áiteanna (is fiú le rá Quincy, MA., Traoi (Troy), NY, agus Fairfield, WA), searmanais, canadh an amhráin náisiúnta, agus na bratacha iad féin curtha ar foluain. 

The Irish word for flag is “bratach.”  In the plural (na Bratacha), it can also mean “the Colors,” (regimental, etc.).  You might have noticed that to say “of the flag,” the ending changes to “-aí,” giving us “brataí.”  You might also have noticed that we use “na” in the phrase, not “an” for “(of) the.”  Both of these facts are clues that “bratach” is grammatically feminine.

This may be a bit of a surprise since learners of Irish are often told that “-ach” typically signifies a masculine noun (like Éireannach, Meiriceánach, Ceanadach, Oilimpeach, or oileánach).  And that is true.  There are many such masculine nouns, including virtually all nouns indicating nationality.  However, there is a distinct group of feminine nouns that also end in “-ach” and which have a different set of endings.  Besides “bratach,” we have “scornach” (throat) and “deilgneach” (chicken-pox), to name just a couple more examples that are feminine. 

These two sets of nouns could also be described in terms of the “declension” (noun category) to which they belong.  “Éireannach” is in the first declension; all first-declension nouns are masculine.  “Bratach” is second declension.  Over 99% of the nouns in the second declension are feminine.  There are three other declensions in Irish (third, fourth, fifth) but going into all of them will have to wait for another blog, in fact, probably another series.  If you’ve noticed all the abbreviations like “m1,” “f2,” or “m4,” used in many dictionaries, they tell you the gender (m/f) and declension (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).  That information then tells you what endings the noun takes when it is used in different functions in the sentence.  Except for the exceptions.  But then, the exceptions make the “riail,” don’t they? 

Getting back to “flag,” here are some of the main forms:

an bhratach, the flag (lenition or séimhiú, since it’s feminine singular)

na brataí, of the flag (no lenition, even though feminine, since it’s possessive; possessive ending)

na bratacha, the flags

na mbratach, of the flags (eclipsis or urú, since it’s possessive and plural). 

How does this differ from the masculine nouns ending in “-ach?”  Here’s a masculine example, from the first declension, deliberately picked to begin with the same letter as “bratach,” so the mutations are the same:

an Bostúnach, the Bostonian

an Bhostúnaigh, of the Bostonian

na Bostúnaigh, the Bostonians

na mBostúnach, of the Bostonians   

And by the way, for those of you up on your Irish insults, no snide comments here on anything connected to “bastún” (angl. “bosthoon”), please.  A reasonably polite translation of “bastún” is “lout.”  It has nothing to do with “Bostún,” the city, except a slight resemblance in pronunciation. 

Here are some other flag-related words and phrases:

crann brataí, flagstaff (lit. tree of flag, flag’s tree)

soitheach gan bhratach, flagless vessel

iompróir na brataí, flag-bearer

brateolaí, vexillologist

For a flag referred to as a tricolor, one can say, “bratach trí dhath” or “trídhathach,” or, for a specific reference (as in “The Tricolour”), “an Trídhathach” or “Bratach na dTrí Dhath.”  If one is speaking in Irish, the assumption will probably be that one is referring to “Bratach na hÉireann” (the Flag of Ireland), but, in theory at least, one could be referring to other tricolor flags as well, like those of Russia and India.   

Gluais: a chur ar foluain, to fly (a flag, as opposed to “eitilt,” which pertains to birds, planes, etc.); áit, áiteanna, place(s); ar an 14ú lá, abair “ar an gceathrú lá déag” (the –ú after the number stands for the adjectival ending used in creating most ordinal numbers in Irish; likewise, tríú, cúigiú, srl.), canadh [KAHN-uh, silent “d”], singing; ceiliúrtar, is celebrated; dath [dah, silent “t”], color; eolaí, scientist; searmanas, ceremony

As a tribute to the amount of snow that fell over the weekend ar chósta thoir na Stát Aontaithe, and, I suppose, as a belated tribute to the amount that fell in Éirinn i mí Eanáir, let’s talk about some of the ways it can fall or accumulate.

The most basic statement would be:

Tá sé ag cur sneachta.  It’s snowing, lit. It is “putting” snow. 

That verb “cur” (putting) is used for other forms of precipitation as well, as in “Tá sé ag cur fearthainne” or “Tá sé ag cur báistí” (both meaning “It’s raining”) and “Tá sé ag cur seaca” (It’s freezing).   

Other forms of snow are:

caidhleadh sneachta [KAL-yeh …] , a blizzard, from the verb “cadhail” (“pile” or “twist” in general, “drive” regarding “snow”)

flichshneachta [FLIH-HNAKH-tuh, the first “c” and the “s” are silent], sleet, from “fliuch” (wet) + “sneachta”

greallach sneachta, slush, from “greallach” (mire, puddle)

One of my favorite phrases in Irish is “muc shneachta.”  For those of you who know your domestic animals in Irish, yes, you read that right.  It means a “snow drift” but literally it is “pig of snow.”  For the plural, muca sneachta, you lose the first “h” in “shneachta,” following the standard pattern for feminine plural nouns (cf. fuinneog mhór, a big window, but fuinneoga móra, big windows)

I just learned a new term in English, thundersnow, for which I can’t find any Irish equivalent.  But, múineann gá seift, and we could always improvise with a beautifully long word like *toirneachshneachta [TIR-nukh-HNAKH-tuh] with no fleiscín (hyphen), as per the current rules of modern Irish punctuation.  Or we could go for the genitive and say “sneachta toirní” (lit. snow of thunder, on analogy with “stoirm thoirní,” thunderstorm, using “toirní,” the genitive case of “toirneach”).  Apparently that’s what some areas received this weekend. 

Beautiful as the tírdhreach sneachtúil may be, it can always present the danger of dó seaca (frostbite).  “Dó” literally means “burning” and is a completely different word here from “dó,” the number “two.”  There are two ways to say the adjective form, frostbitten, “dóite ag an sioc” and “siocdhóite.”  So, in Irish, the frost “burns” instead of “bites.” 

How many of these snow-related phrases can you figure out: daille shneachta, plúirín sneachta, liopard sneachta, fear sneachta, and liathróid shneachta?  If, as you work through them, you wonder why some say “shneachta” and others say “sneachta,” it’s because some are grammatically feminine.  “Daille,” blindness, follows many abstract nouns in being feminine (like áille, gile, etc.).  As for why “liathróid” (ball) is feminine, there’s no apparent reason.  It’s just a feature of Irish, like most Indo-European languages except English, that nouns have grammatical gender.  Every noun is either masculine or feminine, except for a handful of genderless nouns referred to in Irish grammar as “substantives.”  Most of these are limited to use in set or fixed phrases today, like “féidir” in “Is féidir liom” (I can).  So, from the group above, the “snowdrop” (flower), “snow leopard,” and (logically enough) “snowman” are all masculine.  Now that you have all five translations, you can probably match which one goes with which Irish phrase. 

Nótaí: gá [gaw] need, necessity; seift [sheft] plan (here “invention,” which should help you translate this phrase into the familiar proverb).  “Seaca” [SHAK-uh] is the possessive (genitive) form of “sioc” ([shuk] frost).  Even though phrases like “ag cur seaca” or “dó seaca” don’t involve possession in the sense of ownership, they are still required, in Irish, to be in the genitive case, which typically marks possession.  So you can think of these, very literally, as “at frost’s putting” (at the putting of frost) and “frost’s burning.” 

Before returning to the ábhar éadromchroích I had planned for following up on “Lochlannach,” I want to introduce some terms for discussing na himeachtaí i Háití. 

Mostly this will just be in list format, since I find the situation almost too overwhelming,

especially so close on the heels of other disasters around the world, to weave much of a text around it.  But perhaps some of you would like to send some smaointe using these frásaí in to the comments section.   

an t-adhlacadh [un TELL-uk-uh, both “dh’s” silent]: the burial

an bás (pl. na básanna): the death, the fatality

an brablach: the rubble

an Criól: the Creole (language)

an crith talún [krih TAL-oon] (pl: na creathanna [KRA-hun-nuh] talún): the earthquake

an daonra: the population

an deor (pl. na deora): the tear

an t-eipealár: the epicenter

an éasclíne [AYSK-LEEN-yeh]: the fault line (éasc, m, fault, in the geological sense + líne, f, line; since “líne” is feminine, the compound word éasclíne is feminine)

an leathsféar thiar: the western hemisphere (leath + sféar)

an méid [maydj]: the magnitude (also, “amount,” in general)

an t-oibrí cabhrach [KOW-rukh]: the aid worker

an t-olladhlacadh [un TOLL-ell-uk-uh]: the mass burial

an riosca seismeach [SHESH-makh]: the seismic risk

an tír is boichte [un tcheer iss BWIH-tcheh]: the poorest country (“boichte” is from “bocht,” poor.  “Bocht” has a broad “ch,” like the German and Yiddish sounds we’ve discussed previously.  “Boichte,” the superlative form, has a slender “ch,” meaning it’s very breathy, but not in the throat like “bocht” is.  You might know the slender “ch” also from words like “oíche” [EE-hyeh] or “fiche” [FIH-hyeh], “night” and “twenty” respectively.  The sound is like the initial “h” in words like “hew,” “Hugh,” and “humid.”  It’s not easy to represent in Roman letters.  In IPA, the sound would be represented by /x’/.  IPA is a great tool for learning Irish if you use a book that uses that transcription system such as the Foclóir Póca.  If you decide to learn IPA for Irish, remember that the Foclóir Póca uses “Irish-modified” IPA, which is a bit of a saga unto itself, so Á.B.E. (ábhar blag eile).

Coiste Idirnáisiúnta na Croise Deirge: the International Committee of the Red Cross

Crois Dhearg na hÉireann: the Irish Red Cross Society

scála Richter: Richter scale

ag caoineadh, ag gol: crying, weeping; caoineadh coscrach, heart-rending lamenting

ag sileadh na ndeor: shedding tears (as the subject of a sentence, deora is the plural, but here the plural form drops the final “-a,” for a combination of two reasons – it’s definite in Irish (na ndeor) though not in English, and it follows a verbal noun).   

ar iarraidh: missing

marbh: dead; na mairbh: the dead (as a noun)

an Háitíoch (pl, as noun: na Háitígh) [HAWTCH-eee, the last syllable drawn out just a tad longer than normal]: Haitian

Háití: There’s not too much difference in the spelling of Haiti in English and in Irish, except that the Irish has the two long vowels.  While many country names in Irish are preceded by the definite article (An Spáinn, An Fhrainc, An Bholaiv, an tSeapáin), some, like Háití and many others (Meicsiceo, Ceanada, Cúba, Eacuadór, Lucsamburg), are not.  “Háití” is feminine, as are many country names, but with no definite article and no lenitable consonant at the beginning of the word, it’s almost impossible to predict the inscne (gender).

“Tá ár bhféiniúlacht caillte againn.  Ní eisim.”  Sin dhá abairt choscracha ó mharantóir a bhí ar an nuacht agus a bhfuil Gaeilge curtha agam orthu. 

Nótaí: féiniúlacht, identity; caillte, lost; abairt, sentence; coscrach, heart-rending; eisim [ESH-im], I exist, in the philosophical sense; marantóir, survivor.  There are at least two more ways one could say “I don’t exist”—Níl mé ann (lit. I’m not in it, i.e. in existence) or “Níl mo leithéid ann,” a twist on the well-known expression “Ní bheidh ár leithéidí arís ann” (the likes of us will not exist again”), but here expressed in the present tense, giving it some added poignancy.  Hmm, maybe a fourth way, “Is neamhdhuine mé,” (I’m a non-entity/non-person).   

Nótaí deiridh: éadrom, light (adj); croíoch, -hearted; imeacht, going; imeachtaí, events