(le Róislín)

July is a month lán go drad le (chock-full of) holidays.  Some of them are well-known enough to already have Irish version for their names.  A few others I’ve translated for the occasion (if a blog can be called an “occasion”!) and marked with an asterisk, in case anyone wants to propose an alternate, or finds one already in use.

Well, really I translated the non-traditional ones to provide vocabulary practice and perhaps a tuiseal ginideach workout, since the genitive case often rears its grammatical head once you start saying “Lá Mhic Uí Rudaí” or some such thing.  “Lá Mhic Uí Rudaí” means “Day of Thingumbob,” which I’ve used here as a sample, for want of a better word to fill the slot for the “commemoree”.  I don’t think “commemoree” is really a word in English, but it seems to fit the bill, i.e. the thing commemorated, since Lá Mhic Uí Rudaí, if it existed, would commemorate a “thingumbob.”  More on “thingumbob” in Irish below, for those interested.

The genitive case (tuiseal ginideach) is often involved even if you’re simply implying the “of” aspect in the phrase.  “Tom Sawyer Fence Painting Day,” for example, doesn’t have the word “of” or any real sign of possession, even the abstract.  But most such holiday names used the genitive and need to be more or less reversed in word order to come out correctly in Irish.  “Lá” (day) will almost always be first, as in “Lá Nollag” for “day (of) Christmas” or “Lá an Altaithe,” for “day (of) thanks, Thanksgiving.”  So I’ll do Tom Sawyer Fence Painting Day here, before we start the list, so you’ll have a somewhat more complex example:

*Lá Péinteála Fálta Tom Sawyer [law PAYNTCH-awl-uh FAWL-tuh …], lit. day of  painting of fences, with “Tom Sawyer” functioning as an adjective at the end.  Grammar hounds, see note below.   By the way, it’s held on July 4^th.

And now, here are a few to test yourself, both on the meaning, and for some, the actual dates (answers below):

1)      *Lá Tiarnais (note this term was actually superseded in 1982, but the new term is a complete giveaway, translation-wise, so this one is for anyone planning to write the Great Canadian Novel, in Irish, with a setting anywhere between 1867 and 1982.  That’s a huge giveaway, folks!)

2)      Lá na Saoirse (i Meiriceá)

3)      *Lá Déanta Taibhsí Préachán (i Meiriceá)

4)      *Lá Náisiúnta Sicín Friochta (i Meiriceá, ar ndóigh!)

5)      *Lá Phicnic na dTeidithe

6)      Lá an Bastille (more or less a tabhartas in aisce, actually completely a tabhartas in aisce, but note: no lenition with a foreign noun in the genitive-case slot, despite examples like Filíocht na mBeats, one of my favorite phrases in Irish.  But maybe French is more “foreign” than English.  Hmm, there’s a pointe cainte for you!)

And before you check out the answers (further below), here are some leideanna:

1) i gCeanada

2) Could use “neamhspleáchas, –ais” but this isn’t typically done.

3) Think “scanrú” but don’t use it in the translation!

4) Friochadh, as opposed to the healthier option, gríoscadh

5) suite i gcoill, ar ndóigh

6} Not really a clue, as such, for our “giveaway,” but a continuation of the explanation.  Contrast, for example, Lá an Bhasáir [law un wuss-AWR^zh] (the day of the bazaar).  Here, “basár” is lenited, even though it’s oriingally a borrowed word also (from Arabic and Persian).  But it’s been completely gaelicized, so qualifies for lenition.  Slenderizing the “r” here is predictable for an tuiseal ginideach for this category of noun and isn’t directly related to the issue at hand

Freagraí: 1) Dominion Day, since 1982 renamed as “Canada Day” (Lá Cheanada), 1 July.  It seems like Lá Tiarnais should have left some carbon-cyber-footprint online but I haven’t found it.  Maybe because the term was superseded before the international Irish language movement (of which all of you readers are a part) really took off, assisted by easy access to the Internet.  Even “Lá Cheanada” is scarce enough and, unfortunately, it’s outnumbered online by a grammatically incorrect form, with “Ceanada” remaining unlenited even though it’s showing possession.

2) Independence Day (America), 4 July;

3) Build a Scarecrow Day, lst Sunday in July;

4) National Fried Chicken Day, July 5 or 6 (sources vary);

5) Teddy Bears’ Picnic Day, 10 July; note the double genitive, marked by lenition.

6) Bastille Day, not to be mistaken for *Lá na Paistile, which, if it existed, would be “Pastille Day.”  But in Irish I think it would lack the élan of the typically French second-syllable stress of “pahss-TEEL,” since the Irish word “paistil” would be pronounced with a plebian “PASH-til.”

More “laetha saoire” to follow, sa chéad bhlag eile. Suggestions welcome!

Nóta faoin téarma, Mac Uí Rudaí – literally it means “son of O’Things,” from “uí” (possessive form of “Ó,” the surname prefix) and “rudaí” (pl. of “rud,” thing).  Interesting how genealogical the concept becomes in Irish, as opposed the the quasi-nonsensical-sounding “thingumbob,” “thingamy,” “thingamajig,” or whatever else you care to call the gizmo whose name you don’t know.  Like the plastic thing at the end of d’iall bróige or do charbhat bolo, the whatchamacallit that is always getting chipped apart and lead to fraying of the lace itself.  Aka “aglet.”

Nóta faoin “double genitive” – you might wonder why I didn’t use the standard double genitive rule for Tom Sawyer Fence Painting Day..  It probably could be done that way, too, but there are many many constructions where the second noun in a 3-noun phrase is a verbal noun, usually indicating an activity, and it goes right into the genitive, not following the double-genitive rule, which simply (hmm, simply?) lenites the nominative.  Cf. gléas déanta iógairt, a yogurt-maker, lit. a device (of) making (of) yogurt, or to notch it up a bit, córas amthaifithe déanta íomhánna trí áireamh fótón, lit. system time-resolved (of) making (of) images through counting photons, which, in “plain” English, is “a time-resolved photon-counting imaging system.”  This is where knowing the genitive case of your verbal nouns comes in really helpful.

The good news.  The genitive case of a verbal noun is usually the same as the verbal adjective form, which may already have been merrily using since you first learned words like ólta, déanta, and scríofa.  So, for example, the genitive of “déanamh” (making, doing) when used as a verbal noun, is “déanta,” which, as you might recognize, also means “done, made.”  Likewise, “triail tógtha focal,” a word-building test, lit. a test (of) building (of) words.  That one’s from “tógáil” (building), whose genitive when used as a verbal noun is “tógtha,” which, lo and behold, and upholding the rule stated above, which I’ll abbreviate as GCVN/VN = VA.  Mh’anam!  To me, at least, that means the genitive case of a verbal noun in the context of being used as a verbal noun is the same as the verbal adjective.