{"id":444,"date":"2010-09-30T23:34:44","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T23:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=444"},"modified":"2010-10-02T09:36:05","modified_gmt":"2010-10-02T09:36:05","slug":"the-word-%e2%80%9cbefore%e2%80%9d-in-irish-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/the-word-%e2%80%9cbefore%e2%80%9d-in-irish-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Word \u201cBefore\u201d in Irish, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve taken care of two of the seven-plus ways to say \u201cbefore\u201d in Irish, which Seanch\u00e1n, duine de lucht l\u00e9ite an bhlag seo<\/strong>, had asked about.\u00a0 Those were \u201croimh<\/strong>\u201d (used with nouns or with pronoun endings like \u201cromhat<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cromhaibh<\/strong>\u201d) and \u201csula<\/strong>\u201d used before verbs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The others were cheana, thar, os coinne, os comhair <\/strong>and ar tosach.\u00a0 <\/strong>And I think I\u2019ll be adding c\u00fapla ceann eile <\/strong>before this mionsraith <\/strong>is over.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOs coinne\u201d<\/strong> and \u201cos comhair\u201d<\/strong> are an interesting pair.\u00a0 Both are compound prepositions, using the word \u201cos<\/strong>,\u201d which on its own means \u201cover\u201d or \u201cabove.\u201d\u00a0 It shows up in occasional phrases with that meaning, like \u201cos do neart<\/strong>\u201d (above your strength) or the contrasting pair \u201cos ard<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cos \u00edseal<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 But these days, \u201cos<\/strong>\u201d is mostly used in mostly used in phrases like the aforementioned \u201cos coinne<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cos comhair<\/strong>,\u201d as the first element in a compound (i.e. two-word) preposition.\u00a0 The second word in these phrases is a noun.\u00a0 \u201cCoinne<\/strong>\u201d literally means \u201cappointment\u201d or \u201cexpectation.\u201d \u00a0\u201cComhair<\/strong>\u201d is limited to set phrases and is translated according to context (i gcomhair<\/strong>, intended for; an rud at\u00e1 faoi mo chomhair<\/strong>, the thing that is in store for me).\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do \u201cos coinne<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cos comhair<\/strong>\u201d mean \u201cbefore\u201d?\u00a0 Here are some examples:<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 l\u00e1 m\u00f3r oibre os a choinne.<\/strong>\u00a0 There is a big day of work before him (confronting him).<\/p>\n

os coinne na fuinneoige<\/strong>, in front of or opposite or before the window<\/p>\n

\u00a0os comhair mo sh\u00fal<\/strong>, in front of or before my eyes<\/p>\n

os a chomhair amach<\/strong>, in front of or before him \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Note that when a noun follows \u201cos coinne<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cos comhair<\/strong>,\u201d it\u2019s in the tuiseal ginideach<\/strong>, since it\u2019s following the noun used to construct the compound preposition.\u00a0 So \u201cfuinneog<\/strong>\u201d became \u201cfuinneoige<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cs\u00faile<\/strong>\u201d (plural) became \u201cs\u00fal<\/strong>\u201d (genitive plural).\u00a0 \u201cS\u00fal<\/strong>\u201d is then lenited, becoming \u201csh\u00fal<\/strong>,\u201d since it follows the word \u201cmo\u201d (my).\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cheana<\/strong> means \u201cbefore,\u201d \u201cbeforehand,\u201d or \u201calready.\u201d\u00a0 An bhfaca t\u00fa cheana \u00e9?<\/strong>\u00a0 Did you \u00a0see him already?\u00a0 (Have you seen him previously?).\u00a0 And no, in case you\u2019re wondering, this isn\u2019t exactly the \u201calready\u201d we know from Yiddishisms,\u201d as in \u201cShut up, already\u201d or even more dramatically, \u201cAlright already!\u00a0 What am I, chopped liver?\u201d \u00a0For that \u201calready,\u201d you\u2019d need to look into the \u201cshoyn<\/em>\u201d of the original phrases like \u201cgenug shoyn<\/em>\u201d and \u201cshvayg shtil shoyn<\/em>,\u201d which I\u2019ll leave to na blag\u00e1laithe Gi\u00fadaise<\/strong>.\u00a0 The Irish cheana<\/strong> (already) quite straightforwardly means simply \u201cat a previous time.\u201d\u00a0 Bhuel<\/strong>, it can mean a few more things, like \u201cfurthermore,\u201d ach sin sc\u00e9al eile,<\/strong> already.\u00a0 If it helps, the word \u201ccheana<\/strong>\u201d derives from Old Irish \u201ccene<\/strong>\u201d (without it).\u00a0 But like I said, I\u2019m not sure that really helps here!\u00a0<\/p>\n

And speaking of \u201csc\u00e9al eile<\/strong>,\u201d that\u2019s where the remaining words will be treated, sa ch\u00e9ad bhlag eile<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve taken care of two of the seven-plus ways to say \u201cbefore\u201d in Irish, which Seanch\u00e1n, duine de lucht l\u00e9ite an bhlag seo, had asked about.\u00a0 Those were \u201croimh\u201d (used with nouns or with pronoun endings like \u201cromhat\u201d or \u201cromhaibh\u201d) and \u201csula\u201d used before verbs.\u00a0 The others were cheana, thar, os coinne, os comhair and…<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","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=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}