(le Róislín)

One last Christmas blog before the season really wraps up.  For any teachers out there, especially of adult ed/night school courses in the Irish language, this one could be a ready-made class activity.  For some lesson objectives, please see Nóta a Dó (thíos). We’re building here on a previous blog (nasc thíos) in which there was a matching game of Irish titles to English.  This time we’ll also fill in some blanks, so there is even more of a dúshlán [doo-hlawn].

Mar a dúirt mé sa chéad bhlag (9 Mí  na Nollag 2012):
“ Seo rogha de scannáin Nollag a bhfuil clú mór orthu.  Fad m’eolais níl leagan Gaeilge díobh ann so rinne mé an chéad chéim — na teidil a aistriú go Gaeilge.  An aithníonn tú iad?  Agus an féidir leat iad a mheaitseáil leis na teidil i mBéarla?  Mar chuidiú, tá gluais leis na freagraí.”  An uair seo, chuir mé gluais eile leis, gluais do théacs an bhlag.  Agus tá roinnt “pronunciation tips” ann freisin. 

In the previous movie title blog, I also gave the basic forms for the words for Christmas:

an Nollaig, (the) Christmas

na Nollag, of (the) Christmas

Nollag, of Christmas

And just for the sake of completion, even though you won’t need it for this exercise:

Nollaigí, Christmases

Líon isteach na bearnaí agus meaitseáil an teideal i nGaeilge leis an teideal i mBéarla (Fill in the blanks and match the Irish title with the English title; answers below).  The number of blanks corresponds to the number of letter in the word to be filled in.

	An Teideal i nGaeilge		An Teideal i mBéarla
1.	Sa __ __ __ __ __ __  ina Aonar	a.	It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
2.	Nollaig __ __ __ __	b.	The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
3.	Is Iontach an __ __ __ __  É	c.	Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
4.	An Nollaig  _  gConnecticut	d.	The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
5.	Nollaig Shéarlas de __ __ __ __	e.	A Christmas Story (1983)
6.	An Tromluí __ __ __ __ __  an Nollaig	f.	A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
7.	Míorúilt ar __ __ __ __ __ __  Tríocha a Ceathair	g.	Home Alone (1990)
8.	Bean  __ __  Easpaig	h.	The Polar Express (2004)
9.	Scéal __ __ __ __ __ __	i.	Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
10.	Traein __ __ __ __ __  an Phoil Thuaidh	j.	White Christmas (1954)

And I’ve added added one more for this 2015 version of the project:

11. Cloíonn Daidí na Nollag na  __ __ __  __  __  __  __  __ .  And the English is already indicated in the graphic that accompanies this blog.

Dála an scéil, I mentioned adult ed classes at the beginning of this blog because most of these films are in the vintage category.  Maybe next year I’ll work up a similar list with more recent and/or children’s movies.  A Oileáin na mBréagán Corr, seo chugat muid!

Ar bhain tú sult as?  Tá súil agam gur bhain!  SGF, Róislín

Gluais: a aistriú, to translate; bréagán, toy, na mbréagán, of the toys; céim, step; chugat (from the preposition “chuig / chun“), to you (in your direction); clú, fame; corr, misfit, odd; dúshlán [doo-hlawn, note where the word break is in this compound word], challenge; rogha [various pronunciations, but the “gh” is basically silent,  just affecting the vowel sound; I’ve heard it pronounced rhyming with “now” or “cow” and I’ve heard it pronounced rhyming with “ray,” especially in the North], choice; leagan, version; teideal, a title; teidil, titles

Freagraí, and a reminder, so far I don’t know of any official Irish language versions of these movies.  If you do, please write in and let us know.  Often the final translation of a film title is drastically different from the original, as I recently happened to notice with the 2009 movie, The Joneses, whose title in Spanish doesn’t mention “Jones” — it’s “Amor por contrato.”  For the Scandinavian languages, we have “Den perfekte familien” for Norwegian (no “Jones”) but “Familijen Jones” for Swedish (includes “Jones”) — Go figure!  I love reading the “akas” for movies at IMDb.com — I just wish more of them had Irish versions!  At any rate, if there are any official versions for the Christmas movies mentioned in this blog , they might be quite different from these suggestions.  These translations are basically for vocabulary practice and “le haghaidh an chraic.”

I’ve added a few additional notes since the first version of this blog was posted.

1g. Sa Bhaile ina Aonar: Home Alone (Macaulay Culkin mar “Chaoimhín Mac Alastair”); baile: town, home; aonar, alone, one person, lone person

2j. Nollaig Bhán: White Christmas (Bing Crosby); bán, white, lenited to become “bhán” [wawn OR vawn, depending on dialect] because “Nollaig” is feminine

3a. Is Iontach an Saol É: It’s a Wonderful Life (James Stewart); iontach, wonderful; saol, life, world

4i. An Nollaig i gConnecticut: Christmas in Connecticut (Barbara Stanwyck); i gConnecticut: the “C” of “Connecticut” is eclipsed to become “gC” because it follows the word for “in” [say: ih gun-ET-ih-cut].  Remember, the second “c” in Connecticut is silent anyway,  due, somehow, to the word’s Mohican origin.

5f. Nollaig Shéarlas de Brún: A Charlie Brown Christmas (Peter Robbins mar ghuth Shéarlais); mar ghuth, as the voice; Shéarlais, of Charles, but note the slight difference in “Nollaig Shéarlas de Brún” (Christmas of Charles Brown — “Shéarlas” here doesn’t have the letter “i” because we’ve added the surname.  Actually I think that if this is released in Irish (or has already been?), they’ll probably just call it “Nollaig Charlie Brown,” for the sake of recognition, but I think it’s good to at least practice using the full Irish version of the name.   As for the nuance of the “a” in the English title, it’s complicated ach féach an nóta thíos.

6b. An Tromluí roimh an Nollaig: The Nightmare before Christmas (Danny Elfman); tromluí [trum-lee], a nightmare

7c. Míorúilt ar Shráid Tríocha a Ceathair: Miracle on 34th Street (Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O’Hara); míorúilt [MEER-oo-iltch], “sráid” (street} becomes “shráid” [say: hrawdj, the “s” is now silent] after the word “ar“; tríocha a ceathair [say: TR^zhEE-uh-khuh uh K^yA-hir^zh, the “t” in “ceathair” is silent]

8d. Bean an Easpaig: The Bishop’s Wife (Cary Grant); easpag, bishop; easpaig, of a bishop; an easpaig, of the bishop; as for bishops having wives, please remember, ba easpag Easpagóideach é an t-easpag sa scannán seo.

9e. Scéal Nollag: A Christmas Story (Peter Billingsley); to get the sense of “a” Christmas story, we drop the word for “the” in Irish, leaving us with simply “Scéal Nollag.”  If we said “Scéal na Nollag,” it would most likely be interpreted as the story about “saolú Chríost.”  And remember, “Nollag” (no “i”) for “of Christmas,” but “(an) Nollaig” (with “i”) as the basic form of the word.

10h. Traein Luais an Phoil Thuaidh: The Polar Express (Tom Hanks); traein luais [tray-in LOO-ish] means “express train;” you might recognize “luais” (lit. “of speed”) from “Luas,” the Dublin light rail tram system.  There are actually two phrases for the “North Pole” in Irish: An Pol Thuaidh [un pol HOO-ee], and amazingly, but coincidentally similar, An Mol Thuaidh [un mol HOO-ee].  Here I’ve used the first one, and put it in the possessive form, with the initial “ph-,” which sounds like “f.”

11. Cloíonn Daidí na Nollag na Marsaigh: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  An Marsach, the Martian; na Marsaigh [nuh MAR-see], the Martians

Nóta: Iarsmaoineamh maidir le “A Charlie Brown Christmas” — le bheith cruinn, is dócha go mba chóir dúinn “Nollaig de Chuid Shéarlas de Brún” a rá.  Ach feictear dom gur lán béil d’fhocail é sin.  Barúlacha (Opinions)? 

Nóta a Dó:  Among the points illustrated by these examples are: séimhiú (lenition), urú (eclipsis) and an tuiseal ginideach (the genitive case).  Enjoy!

Nasc: Scannáin Nollag (Christmas Movies — na teidil i nGaeilge) Posted on 09. Dec, 2012 by róislín in Irish Language,  https://blogs.transparent.com/irish/cannain-nollag-christmas-movies-na-teidil-i-ngaeilge/