{"id":181,"date":"2010-04-19T19:34:02","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T19:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=181"},"modified":"2010-04-21T09:48:35","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T09:48:35","slug":"oileansleibhteoighearshruth-an-ghaeilge-ar-%e2%80%9ceyjafjallajokull%e2%80%9d-mar-dhea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/oileansleibhteoighearshruth-an-ghaeilge-ar-%e2%80%9ceyjafjallajokull%e2%80%9d-mar-dhea\/","title":{"rendered":"Oile\u00e1nsl\u00e9ibhteoighearshruth (an Ghaeilge ar \u201cEyjafjallaj\u00f6kull,\u201d mar dhea)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or, how to say Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull in Irish, as it were (sort of).\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to the more pressing issues raised by the cloud of luaith bholc\u00e1nach, <\/strong>including two of my students being stranded in Belfast for a week, I was immediately curious about what exactly the Icelandic name of this volcano means.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My curiosity was further piqued by listening to some ABC broadcasters working on the pronunciation, coached by an Icelandic guest, Erla Skuladottir, a filmmaker and interpreter (http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/GMA\/video\/pronounce-eyjafjallajokull-10392613<\/a>).\u00a0 Skuladottir is a 2002 graduate of New York University’s Graduate Film Program at Tisch School of the Arts, and, conveniently for ABC, is living in New York.<\/p>\n

A more humorous approach can be found at http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9jq-sMZtSww<\/a> (Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull \u2013 You\u2019re Doing It All Wrong!)<\/p>\n

Well, getting back to the Irish, we could probably parse this phrase in several different ways, but at least we can see that the volcano\u2019s name, if literally translated as one long compound, is even longer in Irish than the original Icelandic!<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s break it down into its component parts, first Icelandic to English, then into Irish.\u00a0 At the end, maybe I\u2019ll decide to switch the word order and use a traditional structure but for starters, it\u2019s intriguing to check out the word agglutinatively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And please, readers, do rest assured that figuring out this Icelandic was a bit of a mad scramble, once the news started breaking.\u00a0 I\u2019m always potentially interested in place names and their meanings, but this wouldn\u2019t have been on the tip of my tongue a week ago!<\/p>\n

The Icelandic word is much more pronounceable if you divide it into its component parts:<\/p>\n

eyja<\/em>, island, related to English \u201ceyot\u201d or \u201cait\u201d (little island, generally in a river), as in Chiswick Eyot or Isleworth Ait, both in the Thames; also the source of the name \u00a0Ireland\u2019s Eye<\/em> (island) off the coast of Dublin.\u00a0 You might recall this from \u201cSurtsey<\/em>,\u201d the new island off the coast of Iceland formed in the 1960s after an underwater volcanic eruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n

fjalla<\/em>, of mountains, related to the English word \u201cfell\u201d (rocky mountain), mostly used in northern England and Scotland, as in Above Beck Fells (Lake District), and occasionally farther afield (Snaefell, Isle of Man, and Middlesex Fells, Massachusetts)<\/p>\n

j\u00f6kull<\/em>, glacier, related to English \u201cicicle\u201d<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s translate this into Irish:<\/p>\n

island: there are two main words, oile\u00e1n<\/strong> and inis<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u201cInis\u201d <\/strong>\u00a0is used primarily for Irish islands (with Inis Fada<\/strong> in New York and Inis Iocht<\/strong>, the Isle of Wight, as the exceptions that make the rule).\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cInis<\/strong>\u201d can be interpreted as an \u201cisle,\u201d smaller than an \u201cisland\u201d in general but it doesn\u2019t seem that there\u2019s a rigorous distinction.\u00a0 NY\u2019s Inis Fada<\/strong>, for example, isn\u2019t particularly small!\u00a0 At any rate, \u201coile\u00e1n<\/strong>\u201d seems the better choice for islands in the Icelandic context.\u00a0<\/p>\n

of mountains: sl\u00e9ibhte<\/strong> [SHLAYV-tcheh], plural of \u201csliabh<\/strong>\u201d (mountain), which you may also recognize in its anglicized form as in \u201cSlieve.\u201d\u00a0 Sl\u00e9ibhte<\/strong> doesn\u2019t change form for the tuiseal ginideach<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

glacier: oighearshruth<\/strong> [OY-er-HRUH, silent g, s, t], lit. \u201cice-flow\u201d<\/p>\n

Now for the structure of the phrase.\u00a0 Apparently this volcano is covered by a glacier and its base is ringed by smaller mountains, so we could construe the name as \u201cglacier of the island of the mountains.\u00a0 That would, I believe, be more traditional in Irish than a lengthy three-element compound word.\u00a0 The Irish would be \u201cOighearshruth Oile\u00e1n na Sl\u00e9ibhte<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 Only problem is \u2013 it doesn\u2019t look quite as unpronounceable!\u00a0<\/p>\n

At any rate, this is all rather speculative.\u00a0 Although the individual Irish vocabulary words are presented quite straightforwardly, the net result is probably more of a curiosity than anything else.\u00a0 So far, no one else seems to have made the attempt \u2013 at least Google shows no results and doesn\u2019t even make any suggestions for what it thinks I might be looking for.<\/p>\n

Hmmm, it just occurred to me that another approach would be to render the sounds of Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull as they would be spelled in Irish.\u00a0 Why bother?\u00a0 Well, le haghaidh an chraic<\/strong>, of course, but there\u2019s a bit of a time-honored tradition in this vein also, with Myles na gCopaleen\u2019s \u201cdibheairseans<\/em>\u201d and \u201caidbhintiurs<\/em>\u201d as just one pair of examples.\u00a0 But I think I should either quit while I\u2019m ahead (if one can call this r\u00e1mhaille<\/strong> \u201cbeing ahead\u201d) or save that for a rainy day project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hmmm agus hmmm eile<\/strong>, just can\u2019t resist.\u00a0 How about Aghaidheafiadlagheocadal<\/strong>?\u00a0 If you just keep in mind that, as in standard Irish practice, the gh\u2019s and the dh are a near-silent \u201cy\u201d sound, you actually have a pretty nifty Irish-medium pronunciation guide for Icelandic.\u00a0 Not that the world was crying out for one!\u00a0 However, I can sort of imagine an Irish version of the ABC news clip URL\u2019d above.\u00a0 A bilingual Icelandic and Irish speaker coaching a TG4<\/strong> crew for \u201can Nuacht\u201d as Gaeilge<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yes, the Icelandic has a \u201ct\u201d sound as part of their double l\u2019s in this word, but somehow I think the Irish \u201cd\u201d would work better for this project.\u00a0 Feedback welcome, especially from anyone out there a bhfuil \u00cdoslainnis agus Gaeilge aige n\u00f3 aici<\/strong> (note that indirect relative clause there, by the way, we will return shortly to those!).\u00a0 An ch\u00e9ad bhlag eile, b\u2019fh\u00e9idir!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or, how to say Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull in Irish, as it were (sort of).\u00a0 In addition to the more pressing issues raised by the cloud of luaith bholc\u00e1nach, including two of my students being stranded in Belfast for a week, I was immediately curious about what exactly the Icelandic name of this volcano means.\u00a0 My curiosity was…<\/p>\n

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