{"id":11225,"date":"2019-11-30T21:56:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T21:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=11225"},"modified":"2020-01-02T00:28:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T00:28:52","slug":"frasai-an-tseasuir-seasonal-phrases-in-irish-sona-or-not-sona-happy-or-not-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/frasai-an-tseasuir-seasonal-phrases-in-irish-sona-or-not-sona-happy-or-not-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"Fr\u00e1sa\u00ed an tS\u00e9as\u00fair (Seasonal Phrases) in Irish: ‘Sona’ or not ‘Sona’? (‘happy’ or not ‘happy’?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong>, taking a short break from the “Nature Words” series, in honor of the season)<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0NB: Of the 21 ways one can say ‘happy’ listed here, only 1, 2, 3, 4, and 16 are typically used for “Happy New Year.”<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

‘Tis the season where we go around wishing people ‘Happy’ (‘sona<\/strong>‘ in Irish) _____ (fill in your holiday). Or do we?<\/p>\n

One of the most basic words for “happy” in Irish is “sona<\/strong>,” which sometimes appears as “shona<\/strong>,” as for example in the phrase “Nollaig Shona!<\/strong>” (Happy\/Merry Christmas).\u00a0 Why “shona<\/strong>” sometimes instead of “sona<\/strong>“?\u00a0 We use “shona” when describing a noun that is grammatically feminine and singular, like “an Nollaig<\/strong>” (Christmas) or “\u00f3c\u00e1id<\/strong>” as in “\u00f3c\u00e1id shona<\/strong>” (happy\/joyous occasion).\u00a0\u00a0 When spelled “shona<\/strong>,” the “s” is completely silent, btw, so the first syllable is pronounced like “hun”.\u00a0 “Sona<\/strong>” (with the regular “s” at the beginning) is used when the nouns are masculine, like “L\u00e1 Breithe Son<\/strong>a” or plural, as in “Nollaig\u00ed Sona<\/strong>” (happy Christmases, which could be said, for example if recalling all the joyous Christmases of one’s childhood).<\/p>\n

But … given that Irish has at least 20 ways to say “happy,” as posted in several previous blogs (naisc th\u00edos<\/strong>), we shouldn’t always leap to the conclusion that “sona<\/strong>” automatically goes with every holiday.\u00a0 So, backing up to Halloween, let’s look at some typical holiday greetings.\u00a0 We’ll include the North American holiday, Thanksgiving, since so many readers here are from the US or Canada, and then we’ll continue up to An Nollaig<\/strong> and An Athbhliain<\/strong>.\u00a0 At some point, I’d like to continue this with\u00a0 L\u00e1 Vailint\u00edn, L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig<\/strong>, and An Ch\u00e1isc<\/strong>, and maybe even L\u00e1 na M\u00e1ithreacha<\/strong> and L\u00e1 na nAithreacha<\/strong> here, basically looking at whether we say “happy” or “the blessings of … on you,” but there isn’t \u00a0enough room today; we can continue this theme \u00a0in another blog post, though.<\/p>\n

The following table is divided into 5 columns: the name of the holiday itself, the greeting connected to it (not necessarily the same as the basic name, as, for example, when we drop the “an<\/strong>” (the) from Christmas, i.e. “An Nollaig<\/strong>” to say “Nollaig Shona<\/strong>” for “Merry Christmas”.\u00a0 I’ve also included the number of Google hits for the greeting as a set phrase (search in quotation marks).\u00a0 Of course, the online usage of these holiday greetings could be a study unto itself, including variant forms and adding pronouns for all phrases (Nollaig Shona duit \/ dhuit \/ duitse \/ dhuitse \/ daoibh \/ dhaoibh \/ daoibhse \/ dhaoibhse<\/strong>, etc.), but I haven’t examined all of those possibilities — barra\u00edocht do bhlagmh\u00edr amh\u00e1in<\/strong>. \u00a0\u00a0I do think it gives an interesting preliminary profile of online usage, though, for each phrase, especially when there are several choices of terminology.<\/p>\n

For New Year’s, there largely seems to be a lot of mix and match using the words s\u00e9an<\/strong> (good luck, prosperity), maise<\/strong> (adornment, state of flourishing) and bl\u00e1t<\/strong>h (blossom, bloom, prosperity, state of flourishing), and the two adjectives “maith<\/strong>” (good) and “rath\u00fail<\/strong>” (prosperous).\u00a0 As usual, the results of these searches aren’t “prescriptive” — they simply show what some people are using and saying.\u00a0 But they do provide rough guidelines to what’s typical to say in the language.<\/p>\n

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Cairt le R\u00f3isl\u00edn, 2019<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

So that’s traditional 22 ways to say “Happy New Year!”, most of which seem reasonably familiar, as if I’ve heard them in some natural context.\u00a0 The interesting thing about all of these traditional greeting is that they don’t use any typical word for “happy” (sona, \u00e1thasach, gliondrach<\/strong>, etc. — see the blog posts linked below for a longer list).\u00a0 The theme seems to be more “prosperity” and “flourishing”, rather than “happiness” as such.\u00a0 Hmm, no doubt a heyday of intrigue for the feals\u00fanaithe<\/strong> amongst us.<\/p>\n

But, the plot thickens.\u00a0 When I started this assemblage, I figured that combinations with terms for New Year (Athbhliain, Bliain \u00dar, Bliain Nua<\/strong>) and “happy” as such (“sona<\/strong>“) would be relatively scarce on the Internet.\u00a0 I don’t recall, offhand, seeing a single educational resource that actually _taught_ combinations using “sona<\/strong>.”\u00a0 But, lo and behold, look at what a quick search found.\u00a0 The results are filtered but I haven’t pored through them yet to see if they seem to represent a linguistic trend, but my hunch is that they do:<\/p>\n

1) Athbhliain Shona<\/strong> – 120 hits<\/p>\n

2) Bliain Nua Shona<\/strong> (the phrase that’s most like English, literally “year-new-happy”) – 186 hits (more than any other combination).\u00a0 And, and I guess I should have thought of this earlier, Google translation gives just one response for English to Irish for “Happy New Year” — this version “Bliain Nua Shona<\/strong>.” \u00a0Curiously, when I feed Google Translate the Welsh phrase\u00a0 for “Happy New Year” (Blwyddyn Newydd Dda<\/em>, lit. “Good New Year”), Google gives me “Athbhliain Shona<\/strong>.”\u00a0 And when I feed it “Blwyddyn Newydd Hapus<\/em>,” an alternate Welsh form, Google gives me just one response, back to “Bliain Nua Shona<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Interestinger and interestinger, to fall down the same grammatical rabbit hole that Alice did.<\/p>\n

3) Bliain \u00dar Shona<\/strong> – 10 hits, including one “Bliain \u00dar Shona Rath\u00fail<\/strong>” and one “Bliain \u00dar Shona Sh\u00e1sta<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

4) Somewhat discouragingly, I got 115 hits for the grammatically incorrect phrase “Bliain Nua<\/strong>” followed by “Sona<\/strong>” (as opposed to the correct form “Shona<\/strong>“.\u00a0 Sigh!)<\/p>\n

5) When I tried “Athbhliain<\/strong>” followed by the grammatically incorrect “Sona<\/strong>,” reassuringly, I only got 2 hits, one with a few other minor errors (but not looking like machine-translation), and the other on a site that didn’t have much Irish but which looked very nicely done.<\/p>\n

6) Also, reassuringly, no hits for “Bliain \u00dar<\/strong>” followed by “Sona<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

7) Discouragingly, but not really surprisingly, I got 11 hits for an Irish phrase with English word order, namely and cringe-worthily, “sona<\/strong>” followed by “nua<\/strong>” followed by “bliain<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Sigh, again.<\/p>\n

Update 1\/1\/20: And lo and behold, yet another phrase.\u00a0 I’ve listed this one with the pronoun (ort, oraibh<\/strong>) because it comes before the actual “New Year” part of the phrase, so it’s kind of hard to leave it out:<\/p>\n

Rath agus S\u00e9an ort san Athbhliain<\/strong> 50 (said to one person)<\/p>\n

Rath agus S\u00e9an oraibh san Athbhliain<\/strong> 30 (said to 2+ people)<\/p>\n

This is often embedded in a longer phrase starting with “Gu\u00edmid<\/strong> …” (we wish …).<\/p>\n

Interestingly, I got just 7 hits when I tried “Rath oraibh san Athbhliain<\/strong>” (plural) and no hits for the singular “Rath ort …<\/strong>” (with no “s\u00e9an<\/strong>“) and also no hits for\u00a0 either “S\u00e9an ort san Athbhliain<\/strong>” (singular) or “S\u00e9an oraibh … <\/strong>” (plural).\u00a0 It seems that “Rath<\/strong>” and “S\u00e9an<\/strong>” mostly go hand in hand in this phrase.\u00a0 Somehow I can only imagine here my friend and fellow Irish-speaker, Rath, calling out “S\u00e9\u00e9\u00e9\u00e9\u00e9\u00e9\u00e9aaaaan<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Oops, that was Little Joe calling out “Shaaaaaaaaane,” from the 1953 movie of the same name.\u00a0 With the echo (since it’s a western), it takes about 2 seconds, and that’s pretty long for a single-syllable word.\u00a0 Oh well, “s\u00e9an<\/strong>” and “Shane” just happen to sound alike.\u00a0 Never heard that memorable mionghiot\u00e1in\u00edn cainte<\/strong> before?\u00a0 There’s a nasc th\u00edos<\/strong> from the beginning of the movie’s trailer but in the actual movie, it’s the final scene.\u00a0 Anyway, remember: s\u00e9an<\/strong> = prosperity, good luck, etc. while Se\u00e1n<\/strong> is a man’s name and “sean<\/strong>” (no fada<\/strong>) means “old.”<\/p>\n

Conclusions: The Irish phrases for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas greetings with “sona<\/strong>” (mostly) parallel the English usage of “happy.”\u00a0 New Year’s, though, is a horse of a different color, with many traditional versions in Irish (usually without “sona<\/strong>“) competing with structures closer to English.\u00a0 Upshot: after all this, I still prefer the phrase I first learned, “Athbhliain faoi sh\u00e9an agus faoi mhaise duit \/ daoibh \/ dhuit \/ dhaoibh, srl.<\/strong>”\u00a0 Next, I’d go with any of the other more traditional phrases.\u00a0 But if you go with “sona\/shona<\/strong>,” at least remember the change from “sona<\/strong>” to “shona,<\/strong>” the pronunciation of “shona<\/strong>,” and, need I say it, Irish word order, which in almost all cases is noun first, then adjectives (fear m\u00f3r rua, bean bheag bh\u00eddeach<\/strong>), much like the Romance languages and the occasional English phrase like “attorney general,” “heir apparent,” or, more tastily, “whiskey sour.”\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, to all of you out there,\u00a0 “Athbhliain mhaith rath\u00fail faoi sh\u00e9an agus faoi mhaise agus faoi bhl\u00e1th daoibh uilig go l\u00e9ir, <\/strong>just make sure you’re not faoin mbord agus t\u00fa \u00f3lta!\u00a0 \u00d3, agus bliain l\u00e1n le Gaeilge!”\u00a0 SGF — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

nasc<\/strong>: \u00fas\u00e1id shamplach i gcomhth\u00e9acs:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.donegaldaily.com\/tag\/bliain-ur-faoi-mhaise-daoibh\/<\/a> (2014)<\/p>\n

nasc<\/strong>: Little Joe ag r\u00e1 “Shane” https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9vWNrFP4-AY<\/a> (seconds 00:00:01 to 00:00:03 of the official trailer).\u00a0 In the full movie, it’s probably in the last two minutes, just before the credits.\u00a0 And if we need a Celtic connection for that<\/em>, check out Archif ITV Cymru\/Wales @ LlGC | ITV Cymru\/Wales Archive @ NLW<\/a> (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rFGk44P2YYM) for the extract “Shane Speaks Welsh”, discussing the Welsh dubbing of Shane, The Sin of Father Mouret, and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.\u00a0 OK, Welsh, not Irish, but the issue still pertains.<\/p>\n

Naisc d\u2019iarbhlaganna ar an \u00e1bhar seo:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twenty Ways to Say \u2018Happy\u2019 in Irish and Which Ones to Use for \u2018Christmas\u2019 and \u2018New Year\u2019<\/a> Posted by\u00a0r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a>\u00a0on Dec 25, 2017 in\u00a0Irish Language<\/a><\/p>\n

How many \u2018happys\u2019 are there in Irish for the various seasonal greetings?<\/a>\u00a0Posted by\u00a0r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a>\u00a0on Dec 14, 2017 in\u00a0Irish Language<\/a><\/p>\n

Happy, Happiness and Happy Dances in Irish (mostly based on \u2018\u00e1thas\u2019)<\/a>\u00a0Posted by\u00a0r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a>\u00a0on May 25, 2015 in\u00a0Irish Language<\/a><\/p>\n

Happiness Is \u2026 Lots of Ways to Say \u201cHappy\u201d in Irish (including \u201cHappy Christmas\u201d)<\/a>\u00a0Posted by\u00a0r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a>\u00a0on Dec 3, 2011 in\u00a0Irish Language<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn, taking a short break from the “Nature Words” series, in honor of the season) ‘Tis the season where we go around wishing people ‘Happy’ (‘sona‘ in Irish) _____ (fill in your holiday). Or do we? One of the most basic words for “happy” in Irish is “sona,” which sometimes appears as “shona,” as…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":11235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[255507,4240,514375,307111,365257,331900,6274,376449,211595,508763,6779,365255,111625,514376,13056,111602,461031],"class_list":["post-11225","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-altaithe","tag-athbhliain","tag-bhlath","tag-bliain","tag-mhaise","tag-mhaith","tag-nollaig","tag-nua","tag-oiche","tag-rathuil","tag-shamhna","tag-shean","tag-shona","tag-shugach","tag-sona","tag-sugach","tag-ur"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11225","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=11225"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11245,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11225\/revisions\/11245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}