Irish Language Blog

(le Róislín)

We’ve had quite a run of exploring vocabulary related to horses in recent blogs, but, believe me, the topic is far from exhausted.   So today’s take is about “ráinigh” and the sound they make (seitreach).

And while “Tá an ráineach ag seitreach” does have an intriguing ring to it, I have to admit that “hinnies hinnying” does have a certain alliterative “je ne sais quoi” that the voiceless velar fricatives of “ráineach” and “seitreach” don’t quite convey.

At this point, some of you might be wondering what a “hinny” is, in particular, a “hinny” in the context of animal husbandry.    I say that because there are other non-horse-related meanings of “hinny,” such as “hinny” meaning “darling,” especially in northern England and Lowland Scotland (“ma bonny hinny,” etc.).   And then there’s always urbandictionary.com, which consistently comes up with the edgiest definitions for anything.

A “hinny” is a cross between a female (or “jenny”) donkey and a male horse (a stallion).  They don’t seem to be bred nearly as often as mules, which are a cross between a male (or “jack”) donkey and a female horse (mare).   However, once you start exploring the cyberworld (and I’m sure the real world, but the cyber one is at my fingertips), you’ll find all kinds of discussion of both hinnies and mules.   I had to pull myself away from “Share your mule/hinny story” (on ebay, for some reason I can’t figure out – the hinnies don’t appear to be for sale on that page, but it was: http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/Countryrural-Style/Kiss-My-Hinny/510021659).  Anyway, the discussions there range from length of ears (typically shorter than a donkey’s, longer than a horse’s), tail length, foot shape (“dainty little feet, but mule-like”), and of course, as is generally true for mules and hinnies both, sterility.  And of course there are many such pages and discussions all over the Internet.

Depending on what variety of English you speak, you might also refer to a “hinny” as a “jennet.”  However, the more I look for examples of “jennet” in Irish, I find it defined or used as a “capaillín Spáinneach” or some similar phrase (e.g. the Scottish Gaelic “each Spàinteach“).  So “jennet” means completely different things in different contexts, and I’ll have to save that blog for a rainy day.

And what’s the Irish for “hinny”?  As you probably picked out from the title of this blog, it’s “ráineach” [RAWN-yukh, with that guttural/throaty "kh" sound at the end, as in German "Buch," Yiddish "Chutzpah," or Welsh "Fach" (or, for that matter "wisgi a chwrw")].

Curiously, at least, to me, there are far fewer references to “ráineach” online or in dictionaries than to “miúil” (mule).   I guess it parallels their breeding status, maybe in fact, the same would be true for “hinny” vs. “mule.”  “Hinny” doesn’t seem to have generated a lot of related words, and searches for it get a bit bogged down with “hinnies” as “sweethearts” and a surprising number of typos for Ginny Weasley (Hmm, ” ‘A Ginny, ma bonny hinny’ quotha Harry”?).  On the other hand, “mule,” as a word, seems to be very well entrenched in English, even for the non-equestrian among us, so we recognize phrases like “pack-mule,” “mule-driver,” “muleteer,” and “mule-skinner” (also actually a “driver” of mules), as well as the related words like “mulish,” “mulishly,” and “mulishness,” citing the mule’s (and some people’s) behavior.   In Irish, there’s a whole slew (slua!) of words that refer to stubbornness (ceanndánacht, etc.), ní nach ionadh, but, at least IMThF, Irish doesn’t typically base the word for “stubborn” on the actual word for mule, the way English does.  And as Welsh also does, for that matter (mul, a mule; mulaidd, mulish or stubborn).   I’ve found a sort of obscure usage of “múilleach” to mean “mulish” (i.e. stubborn), but it doesn’t seem to have persisted much in Modern Irish.

And I don’t know if hinnies (ráinigh) are actually as notoriously “stobarnáilte” as mules (miúileanna).  If anyone has raised one, I’m sure all of us on the list would be interested to hear about it and any tendencies to be “ceanndána.”

If you do look up “ráineach,” and get the plural “ráinigh,” be sure not to confuse the latter with the chance lookalike “ráinigh” (a verb meaning “arrive,” etc.).  Remember, there are lots and lots of comhainmneacha in Irish, even more so when you get into dialect sources or older texts.

As for the sound that hinnies or other equines make, the most basic word is “seitreach” [SHETCH-rukh, again with the voiceless velar fricative "kh" sound at the end].    It’s rarely conjugated like a ordinary verb these days.  Mostly we say, “tá sé ag seitreach” or “déanann sé seitreach.”   It can mean “hinnying” (which is really just an alternate form of “whinnying”), “neighing,” and “snorting.”  If we really want to get into the donkey sounds, though, we’d use “béiceach“  or “grágaíl” (for braying).  And that may also be a future blog.  But this one is almost fada go leor.

Just one more point though.  I’ve still been looking into “whickering” and “nickering” for horsey sounds, but so far I don’t see any distinctively Irish usage for these, separating them from “whinnying,” “hinnying,” and “neighing.”  It’s often hard to really differentiate between similar terms, especially for animal noises.  For example, “to neigh” as opposed to “to whinny” (or “to hinny”).  Ben Jonson must have had some distinction in the sounds in mind though, when he wrote “He neigheth and hinnieth, all is hinnying sophistry.”  Unless he was just repeating himself, for good measure.

Anyway, to come full circle, the “ráineach” could be “ag seitreach,” or as teideal an bhlag seo suggested, the “hinny” could be “hinnying.”  Or “whinnying.”  Or “neighing.”  But I suppose that depending on how much of the “asal” (donkey) comes through in hinny or mule vocalizations, they could also be “ag béiceach” or “ag grágaíl.”  And I haven’t even had time for “cuachaíl” (whinnying, whining, speaking in a falsetto voice).   More than enough food for thought for an chéad bhlag eile.   But not without one more (hopefully informative) digression.

With “cuachaíl” in our toolbox, then, I’ll attempt a translation of the Ben Jonson line.  Why, one might ask?  Le haghaidh an chraic, and also, of course, as forbairt stór focal.   Here goes:  “Ag seitreach a labhraíonn sé agus is cuachaíl a chuid cainte, níl i gcaint an chuachaire ach cuach-chailicéireacht” (lit. “Neighing he speaks and whinnying is his talk, the speech of the incessant talker is simply whining captiousness”).

Feedback welcome, especially from anyone who might happen to own one of these ceathairchosaigh!  Or live close enough to one to be “i raon na gcluas” (in earshot).  Slán go fóill, Róislín

(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.”

(le Róislín)

We’ve recently been looking at different ways to say “I love you” in Irish.  Some of you might have been wondering how to pronounce them, especially the phrases where the straightforward “grá” [graw] changes to “ghrá” [γraw, to be explained below] and the straightforward “croí” changes to “chroí” [khree].

I’ve noticed some pronunciation guides online that simply say “graw” for the pronunciation of both “grá” and “ghrá,” which is, unfortunately, misleading.  For the “ch” sound of “chroí,” you’ll find at least three approaches,  1) the official IPA representation of /x/, 2) the typical “pronunciation guide” usage of “kh” (which I mostly advocate in this blog, for practicality’s sake), and 3) some sources just glossing over the fricative sound and making the “ch” a simple “k” sound.

I’ve actually dealt with this issue previously in this blog, as some of you may recall, but since there are always more léitheoirí nua ar an liosta and also many reasons to proclaim one’s love, or to talk about how to do so, we’ll revisit the fricatives.  Some of the other blogs that discussed the fricatives are http://blogs.transparent.com/irish/treoir-don-treoir-a-guide-to-the-guide-for-pronunciation-cuid-a-2/ (which mostly dealt with the broad dh- and gh- sounds) and http://blogs.transparent.com/irish/treoir-don-treoir-a-guide-to-the-guide-for-pronunciation-cuid-a-3/ (which mostly dealt with the broad ch- sound).

Some of the love phrases we discussed previously were “Mo ghrá thú,” “Tusa mo ghrá,” “Is tú mo ghrá,” and “Grá mo chroí thú.”

For “grá,” the basic noun for “love,” transcribing the sound as “graw” is reasonable.  In the North, of course, the vowel sound is a little different, but for this blog, we’ll just stick to consonant issues.

For “ghrá” [γraw], as in “mo ghrá” (my love), I described the voiced velar fricative sound previously as “a rumbling guttural sound that seems to want to stay in the throat.”  That’s “guttural” as in Latin “guttur” (throat), not “gutters” as in drainage systems.  I added that, subjectively speaking, it is “a bit softer and less blunt than the more familiar voiceless velar fricative,” the latter being represented by German “Achtung” or “Buch.”  The voiced velar fricative may be found in some pronunciations of German “sagen” and some pronunciations of Spanish “agua,” but not in all, and not typically in the American high school language class presentation.  The best way to pick up sounds that are not in one’s linguistic inventory, of course, is to listen, listen, listen, and for that, short of living in the Gaeltacht, I’d recommend tuning into to www.rnag.ie as often as possible and listening to the native speakers.

For “croí” (heart), the sound is quite straightforward, “kree” as in “Cree” Indian, or “creel” or “creepie,” etc.  Remember the long vowel “í” here trumps the short “o” sound, which is, essentially, silent.

For “chroí,” as in “mo chroí” (my heart), the sound is as I’ve mentioned several times before – like German “Achtung” or “Buch,” like the Welsh “bach” or “fach,” and as you might hear in the pronunciation of “Loch” especially by a Gaelic speaker.  This is the voiceless velar fricative.  In American English, we may find it sometimes in the pronunciation of Hebrew- or Yiddish-derived words like “Chanukah” and “Chutzpah,” but many Americans tend to minimize the throaty quality of these sounds and simply start off with an initial “h” sound.  Unless, of course, they actually speak Hebrew or Yiddish, in which case the voiceless velar fricative comes quite naturally.

Feeling completely tongue-tied?  Actually, it’s a vocal cord issue, not really the tongue.  There is some good news – there are some ways to avoid the velar fricatives and still say you love someone, like “Tá cion agam ort” and “Tá grá agam duit.”

Tá cion agam ort, very literally, there is love/affection at me on you.

Tá grá agam duit, very literally, there is love at me to you.

Of course, if you pronounce the latter with typical Cois Fharraige Irish, the “duit” will become “dhuit” and you’ll be right back in there with the voiced velar fricatives.

In fact, at some point, to really master Irish pronunciation, you’ll need the velar fricatives.  If you want to say “Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú, a Dhonncha?,” you’ve got two voiceless ones and one voiced one.  If you want to talk about the poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, you’ve got a voiced one every time you say her surname.  If you live “sa Clochán Liath (Dungloe),” you’ve got two (voiceless, within the same word) and if your muintir are from “Contae Dhún na nGall,” you got a voiced one.  Not to mention speaking about “dúchas” (heritage), as in “Is as an gClochán ó dhúchas mé” (I’m from An Clochán/Clifden originally).  The phrase “ó dhúchas” is a “double-whammy” example, like “a Dhonncha,” with both a voiced and a voiceless velar fricative.  And isn’t that special!

And in case you think that velar fricatives are a bizarre topic for discussion in an Irish language blog, I’d like to add two points as closers.

First, both the voiceless and voiced velar fricatives are widely used sounds in Irish and they do occur in a variety of other languages.  They happen not to occur in English, except in a few loan words, and even there, English speakers will tend to soften them to the point where they are no longer fricative.  In other words, English speakers will tend to say Hanukah with an initial “h” sound instead of “Chanukah” with an initial “kh” sound.  They’ll also tend to say “Hallah” instead of “Challah” for the braided bread.  Whose talking about “Challah” these days?  Well, plenty of people in U.S. delis and bakeries, for one, but more recently, and newly exciting to both art historians and the world at large, anyone discussing Rembrandt’s “The Supper at Emmaus.”  Apparently the recent cleaning, removing many layers of varnish, revealed that the bread being served at Emmaus was, in fact, challah, bread braided in three strands before it’s baked.

Second, “Velar Fricatives” made headline news not too long ago in the online journal Significance: Statistics Making Sense (October 22, 2010).  A statistics journal, no less!  Michael O’Kelly’s article, “How’s your velar fricative? A numerical guide to urban and rural Irish speakers,” commented on some research by Dr. Brian Ó Broin, concerning the accuracy of pronunciation among difference demographics of Irish speakers.  O’Kelly’s article can be found at http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/870327/Hows-your-velar-fricative-A-numerical-guide-to-urban-and-rural-Irish-speakers.html

So keep your fricatives velarized when whispering “sweet nothings” in Irish, and remember to make them voiceless or voiced according to whether you’re saying “chroí” or “ghrá.”  Or, if you prefer, choose one of the fricative-less alternatives.

Hmmm, “sweet nothings” as Gaeilge.  “Baothbhriathra mealltacha” – that’s a nice mouthful, nach ea?  Ábhar blag eile, b’fhéidir?  You might note that while the Irish phrase is considered equivalent to the English, it contains neither the word “sweet” nor the word “nothing.”  How’s that?  Stay tuned!  SGF, Róislín