Tag Archives: eachtardhomhandaigh
How To Say ‘Tweet’ and ‘Twitter’ in Irish Posted by róislín on Sep 30, 2013
(le Róislín) Remember when “tweets” and “twittering” mostly referred to birds, especially the “spideog” or the “smólach imirce“? Or perhaps the sound of “caint eachtardhomhandach” (the speech of extra-terrestrials) as in H. G. Wells’ insect-like Selenites? You might recall that they made “a slight elusive twittering,” as observed by Messrs. Bedford and Cavor (The First…
Who Says Irish Doesn’t Have Many Cognates with English? (Cuid a Trí/Pt. 3: Grian, Gealach, Sol, Luan) Posted by róislín on Apr 30, 2013
(le Róislín) Continuing the quest for cognates (naisc thíos), let’s look at another pair of words, sun and moon, each of which typically has many similar-looking cousins throughout the Indo-European language family. Given that the Irish word for sun is “grian” and the Irish for “moon” is “gealach,” it looks like we have a bit…