{"id":10522,"date":"2018-05-08T18:20:53","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T18:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=10522"},"modified":"2018-05-30T12:52:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T12:52:01","slug":"which-irish-speaker-visited-oirthear-na-gearmaine-east-germany-in-1960-cuid-pt-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/which-irish-speaker-visited-oirthear-na-gearmaine-east-germany-in-1960-cuid-pt-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Irish Speaker Visited ‘Oirthear na Gearm\u00e1ine’ (East Germany) in 1960? (cuid\/pt. 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/East_Germany#\/media\/File:Soviet_Sector_Germany.png<\/a>, fearann poibl\u00ed; T\u00e9acs Gaeilge le R\u00f3isl\u00edn, 2018<\/p><\/div>\n

Recently we practiced different ways to say “East” and “West” in Irish, and one set of examples used in passing was “Oirthear na Gearm\u00e1ine<\/strong>” and “Iarthar na Gearm\u00e1ine<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Most of the examples, as you may recall, used “Thoir<\/strong>” (East) and “Thiar<\/strong>” (West).\u00a0 While doing some online checks for examples of these phrases, I stumbled across an interesting situation, as recorded by Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde in his 1961 article straightforwardly titled, “\u00c9ireannach in Oirthear na Gearm\u00e1ine<\/strong>,” originally published in Comhar<\/em> <\/strong>(Imleabhar 20, Uimhir 2, Feabhra 1961<\/strong>), and now available online at jstor.org (nasc th\u00edos<\/strong>).\u00a0 His trip was actually in 1960 and the article appeared in 1961.<\/p>\n

How many Irish people were visiting East Germany in 1960?\u00a0 And how many Irish speakers were visiting East Germany in 1960? And how many were in an official capacity?\u00a0 Not many, certainly, probably just one, and according to \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde, he’s pretty sure he was the first Irishman there since the nation had been established in 1949.\u00a0 The phrases he uses are “chomh fada le m’eolas<\/strong>” (as far as I know) and “ba m\u00e9 an ch\u00e9ad \u00c9ireannach a thug cuairt oifigi\u00fail ar an St\u00e1t sin<\/strong>.”I was the first Irishman who gave an official visit to (lit. “on”) that state.”<\/p>\n

The main place he stayed was in Erfurt, in the southwestern part of (the former) East Germany.\u00a0 To get to Erfurt, the group he was in flew from London to Brussels and from Brussels to Berlin (the Wall had not been built yet).\u00a0 From there, the group traveled in what he calls “gluaiste\u00e1in scioptha<\/strong>\u00a0(fast? express? cars) ar na hAutobahnen<\/strong> (he uses a plural form here — on the Autobahns?)\u00a0 So I suppose we could say, “Ni raibh aerfort in Erfurt<\/strong>“!\u00a0 He also visited Weimar and other places in Th\u00fcringen (an T\u00faraing<\/strong>, i.e. Thuringia), and Sachsen (an tSacsain<\/strong>, i.e. Saxony).\u00a0 N.B. “scioptha<\/strong>” = “sciobhta<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Most of the rest of this blogpost miniseries will be a glossary for learners to go with the article, but first, we will also look brief at briefly at the small bit of information I was able to find out about \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde.<\/p>\n

C\u00e9rbh \u00e9 Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde<\/strong>, and what took him behind the “C\u00fairt\u00edn Iarainn<\/strong>” so many years ago?\u00a0 I only have a few brief sources of information about him.\u00a0 One is what he reveals in the above-named article, and the others are simply based\u00a0 on a few more articles also published in Comhar<\/strong><\/em>, starting in 1946. \u00a0\u00a0One earlier article (1960) is called “Birmingham: Pr\u00edomhchathair na h\u00c9ireann i Sasana<\/a>\u00a0[Birmingham: Ireland’s Capital in English — obviously he’s speaking somewhat figuratively here].\u00a0 So it’s likely that he taught school in Birmingham.\u00a0 Interestingly, Comhar<\/strong><\/em> (1962) also has an article by a S\u00e9amus \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde called “Ag M\u00faineadh Scoile i Sasana<\/strong>” [Teaching School in England].\u00a0 Dearth\u00e1ireacha<\/strong> (brothers)?<\/p>\n

The remaining articles by Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde reflect his interest in the relationship between Ireland, England, and the rest of Europe.\u00a0 The titles include “\u00c9ire agus an Eoraip<\/strong>” [Ireland and Europe], “Mar facthas d’\u00c9ireannach \u00f3g i Laingcis\u00edr Shasana<\/strong> [How It Seemed to a Young Irishman in Lancashire, England], and the intriguing title, “Sasana agus Gomorrah<\/strong>” [England and Gomorrah].\u00a0 For what it’s worth, the translations of all the article titles in this blogpost are my own; they’re pretty straightforward though, no particular challenge.\u00a0 In the 1949 issue of Comhar<\/strong><\/em>, \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde also wrote on “An Litr\u00edocht Sh\u00f3ibh\u00e9ideach<\/strong>,” interesting not only for the topic, which I doubt was being real widely discussed in Irish at that time, but also for the earlier spelling for “Soviet.”\u00a0 Today, the usual spelling uses the letter “v” (S\u00f3iv\u00e9adach<\/strong>), and for some reason or other (unknown to me), the “d” is now broad.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde added the abbreviation M.A. to his name for one of his articles, so at least we know a little bit about his credentials, although, so far, I don’t know which university he attended.\u00a0\u00a0If anyone happens to know more biographical information about either Se\u00e1n or S\u00e9amus \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde, or perhaps had him as a teacher in the 1950s or 1960s, it would be fascinating if you could let us know.<\/p>\n

And now for the glossary, which I’m predicting will extend into at least one more blogpost.\u00a0 I can’t reprint the article here, but I hope you will check out the link below and follow along.\u00a0 I should warn you that while the first page of the article is available for free on jstor.org, for the rest, you either have to join jstor (limited access is free; other levels have a fee) or log in, if possible, through your university or community library.\u00a0 The vocabulary words are roughly in order of appearance (not “in ord na haib\u00edtr<\/strong>e”).<\/p>\n

1.. ar an taobh thall den Chuirt\u00edn Iarainn<\/strong>, on the far side of the Iron Curtain.\u00a0 Note the genitive case usage, exactly what we would expect, distinguishing “iarann<\/strong>” (iron) from “iarainn<\/strong>” (of iron)<\/p>\n

2.. i nOirthear na Gearm\u00e1ine<\/strong>, in East Germany, as discussed above but today many people would write this as “in Oirthear na Gearm\u00e1in<\/strong>e”<\/p>\n

3.. i bPoblacht Democratach na Gearm\u00e1ine<\/strong>, in the Democratic Republic of Germany (the formal name of East Germany, 1949-1990); very interesting that “Democratic” basically just gets an Irish ending.\u00a0 Normally, today, the word would be “daonlathach<\/strong>,” and following “Poblacht<\/strong>,” which is grammatically feminine, it would become “Dhaonlathach<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

4.. r\u00ed-sp\u00e9isi\u00fail<\/strong>, nothing to do with kings, at least not overtly — this means “very interesting,” which could also be expressed as “an-sp\u00e9isi\u00fail<\/strong>” or “an-suimi\u00fail.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

5.. in Iarthar na hEorpa<\/strong>, in the west of Europe. This might also be translated as “in western Europe,” which also shows how the distinctions between east\/west and eastern\/western can become blurry, especially when one is trying to focus on what part of speech (noun or adjective) indicates the geographic direction.<\/p>\n

Bhuel, sin an ch\u00e9ad ch\u00faig focal agus t\u00e1 tuilleadh le teacht<\/strong>.\u00a0 I hope you found it interesting, both from a language and a historical viewpoint.\u00a0 SGF\u00a0 – R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

nasc<\/strong>: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20550939?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents, retr’d o5\/25\/18\u00a0 Comhar<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Iml. 20, Uimh 2, Feb., 1961<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0JOURNAL ARTICLE\u00a0 \u00c9ireannach in oirthear na gearmaine\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Maoilbhr\u00edde\u00a0 Comhar\u00a0 <\/em>Iml. 20, Uimh 2<\/strong> (Feb., 1961), pp. 11-12, 14\u00a0\u00a0 Published by:\u00a0Comhar Teoranta<\/a>\u00a0 DOI: 10.2307\/20550939\u00a0\u00a0 Stable URL: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20550939<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Page Count: 3<\/p>\n

Naisc faoi airde an chomp\u00e1is:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saying \u2018East\u2019 and \u2018West\u2019 in Irish, or, de r\u00e9ir an tseanfhocail, \u2018Soir gach\u00a0siar,\u00a0faoi\u00a0dheireadh\u00a0thiar\u2019<\/a> (le\u00a0R\u00f3isl\u00edn)<\/p>\n

Saying \u2018North\u2019 and \u2018South\u2019 in Irish (A Follow-up to the Blogpost on North and South Korea)<\/a>Posted by\u00a0r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a>\u00a0on Apr 28, 2018 in\u00a0Irish Language<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) Recently we practiced different ways to say “East” and “West” in Irish, and one set of examples used in passing was “Oirthear na Gearm\u00e1ine” and “Iarthar na Gearm\u00e1ine.”\u00a0 Most of the examples, as you may recall, used “Thoir” (East) and “Thiar” (West).\u00a0 While doing some online checks for examples of these phrases, I…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":10537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[513229,513230,309473,513222,513238,513244,513236,513233,513224,513223,219001,513225,513216,5064,513246,513243,513241,8426,513242,513247,513237,513239,12441,5655,513232,513245,513240,6484,513227,197290,513220,374830,513234,513235,6970,513231,253806,12432],"class_list":["post-10522","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-513229","tag-513230","tag-birmingham","tag-bpoblacht","tag-chuirtin","tag-comhar","tag-cuirtin","tag-curtain","tag-daonlathach","tag-democratach","tag-democratic","tag-dhaonlathach","tag-east","tag-eireannach","tag-eoraip","tag-erfurt","tag-gearmaine","tag-germany","tag-ghearmain","tag-heorpa","tag-iarainn","tag-iarann","tag-iarthar","tag-interesting","tag-iron","tag-maoilbhride","tag-oirthear","tag-poblacht","tag-republic","tag-ri","tag-ri-speisiuil","tag-scoil","tag-scoile","tag-speisiuil","tag-suimiuil","tag-thall","tag-very","tag-west"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10522"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10542,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10522\/revisions\/10542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}