{"id":332,"date":"2010-08-01T21:07:54","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T21:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=332"},"modified":"2018-08-01T10:57:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T10:57:07","slug":"will-the-real-lunasa-lughnasa-lughnasadh-please-stand-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/will-the-real-lunasa-lughnasa-lughnasadh-please-stand-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Will The Real L\u00fanasa \/ Lughnasa \/ Lughnasadh Please Stand Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

We\u2019ll take a break here from pronunciation notes, to address the holiday at hand, currently called \u201cL\u00e1 L\u00fanasa<\/strong>\u201d (August 1).\u00a0 The entire month of August also derives its name from this holiday, m\u00ed L\u00fanasa<\/strong>, or simply, L\u00fanasa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And while there\u2019s a book\u2019s worth of information on how this festival was traditionally celebrated, we\u2019ll start by looking at the name itself and if there\u2019s any space left, we\u2019ll discuss some of the gn\u00edomha\u00edochta\u00ed traidisi\u00fanta<\/strong> that were practiced on this day.\u00a0 In case we don\u2019t get to that, I\u2019ll at least note that it was a harvest festival, the time to welcome in the new potatoes, following the \u201cHungry Month\u201d of July.<\/p>\n

The three versions of the name are, in historical order, from oldest to newest, Lughnasadh<\/strong>, Lughnasa<\/strong>, and L\u00fanasa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The first part of the word, \u201cLugh<\/strong>\u201d is fairly straightforward \u2013 it\u2019s the name of a god, who eventually became a character in legend, with no recognition of his divine origin.\u00a0 A lot has been written about him, but the main points for our purposes are that he had supernatural powers, especially in spear-throwing and that his name is probably connected to the Latin word \u201clux<\/em>\u201d (light) and its many derivatives.\u00a0 Since Irish is an Indo-European language, it\u2019s not at all surprising for some of its oldest words to share similar roots, spellings, and meanings as words in other languages of the same heritage (like Latin and Sanskrit).<\/p>\n

Many of the Celtic deities show up this way in legend, not acknowledged as gods or goddesses, but possessing special attributes reflecting their original divinity.\u00a0 His name was spelled \u201cLug<\/strong>\u201d in Old Irish and \u201cLugh<\/strong>\u201d is simply a more recent spelling that shows that the pronunciation of the end of the word was softened or lenited.\u00a0 During the Irish spelling reform of the 1950s, many silent consonants were dropped (though not all), so now his name is simply alluded to in the modern form, \u201cL\u00fanasa<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the second part, \u201c-nasadh<\/strong>,\u201d later shortened to \u201c-nasa<\/strong>,\u201d it means \u201ca commemorative assembly\u201d or \u201ca funeral feast.\u201d\u00a0 But it\u2019s not used much in Modern Irish.\u00a0 All the references I find to it were archaic by the early 20th<\/sup> century and mostly refer to medieval history, or earlier.<\/p>\n

Today, if you wanted to say \u201cassembly,\u201d the most likely word would be \u201ction\u00f3l<\/strong>,\u201d used for many groups, gatherings, and events, such as Tion\u00f3l Thuaisceart \u00c9ireann<\/strong>, Tion\u00f3l Gaeltachta<\/strong>, teach tion\u00f3il Chumann na gCarad<\/strong>, and the St. Louis Tion\u00f3l, to name just a few.\u00a0 Commemorative would be indicated by \u201ccom\u00f3rtha<\/strong>\u201d or \u201ccuimhneach\u00e1in<\/strong>,\u201d or some such word.\u00a0 \u201cFeast\u201d could be \u201cf\u00e9asta<\/strong>,\u201d \u201cfle\u00e1 (fleadh)<\/strong>,\u201d \u201cf\u00e9ile<\/strong>,\u201d or \u201ccoirm<\/strong>,\u201d and \u201cfuneral,\u201d as an adjective, would be \u201csochraide<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, as you can see, just because \u201cnasadh<\/strong>\u201d once meant \u201ccommemorative assembly\u201d or \u201cfuneral feast\u201d doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019d use it to express those concepts today.\u00a0 In other words, the \u201c-nasa<\/strong>\u201d part of \u201cL\u00fanasa<\/strong>\u201d is quite obscure from today\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

Outside the Irish-speaking world, probably the greatest recognition this day has is through Brian Friel\u2019s Tony-award-winning play, Dancing at Lughnasa<\/em>, later made into a movie with Meryl Streep.\u00a0 Sticking strictly to the linguistic discussion, I\u2019ll just note here that Brian Friel probably picked up much of his Irish in the 1930s and 40s, prior to the spelling reform, so his title reflects the spelling of the day.\u00a0 Since the play is set in 1936, we could also say that he used the spelling that would have been known to his characters.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t necessarily add more emphasis to the Lugh connection, although a literary criticism approach might be tempted to say so.<\/p>\n

Whether Friel really weighed the question, \u201cShould I spell this as \u201cLughnasa\u201d or \u201cL\u00fanasa\u201d if I\u2019m writing in English?\u201d remains unknown.\u00a0 But, as a language teacher, the spelling issue jumps out at me.\u00a0 Friel\u2019s play was first produced in 1990, by which time the spelling reform was well entrenched, even if not everyone is satisfied with it.\u00a0 Today, you won\u2019t even find \u201cLughnasa\u201d as such in many modern Irish dictionaries, only \u201cL\u00fanasa.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there were more time and space here, I could easily wax poetic about this play, in both its stage and film versions, since it\u2019s one of my all-times favorites.\u00a0 Ach sin sc\u00e9al eile<\/strong>.\u00a0 Or should I say,\u201d Sin rosc eile<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 But that would imply that previous blogs were roscach<\/strong>, which might be a little and\u00f3chasach, <\/strong>though I do try, at least, to make them beomhar<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So to get back to our original question, all three versions of the name are correct, it just depends what decade or century is involved.\u00a0 For most modern purposes, aside from discussing Friel\u2019s play, I recommend \u201cL\u00fanasa<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

On that note, I might continue the L\u00fanasa<\/strong> discussion for another blag n\u00f3 dh\u00f3<\/strong>, or leap back into pronunciation notes.\u00a0 More than enough fodar cainte<\/strong>.\u00a0 SGF — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gluais: and\u00f3chasach, <\/strong>presumptuous; beomhar <\/strong>[By<\/sup>OH-wur], lively; gn\u00edomha\u00edochta\u00ed <\/strong>[GNEEV-ee-ukh-tee], activities; roscach<\/strong>, rousing, rhetorical, often but not necessarily connected with battle cries; sochraide <\/strong>[SOKH-ridj-eh] of a funeral; Tion\u00f3l Thuaisceart \u00c9ireann<\/strong> [TCHON-ohl HOO-ish-ky<\/sup>art AYRzh<\/sup>-un] the Northern Ireland Assembly, teach tion\u00f3il Chumann na gCarad<\/strong> [tchakh TCHON-oh-il KHUM-un nuh GAH-rud], Quaker meeting house<\/p>\n

Pronunciation note<\/em>: from the modern perspective, L\u00fanasa, Lughnasa<\/strong>, and Lughnasadh<\/strong> are all pronounced the same [LOO-nuss-uh].\u00a0 The stress is on the first syllable.\u00a0 The \u201cgh\u201d and \u201cdh\u201d are effectively silent, as in the words we just discussed a couple of blogs ago, \u201cfoghlaim<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cfadhb<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) We\u2019ll take a break here from pronunciation notes, to address the holiday at hand, currently called \u201cL\u00e1 L\u00fanasa\u201d (August 1).\u00a0 The entire month of August also derives its name from this holiday, m\u00ed L\u00fanasa, or simply, L\u00fanasa. And while there\u2019s a book\u2019s worth of information on how this festival was traditionally celebrated, we\u2019ll…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","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=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10731,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/10731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}