{"id":5330,"date":"2014-06-05T08:53:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T08:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=5330"},"modified":"2014-06-05T09:00:21","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T09:00:21","slug":"tir-scamall-fada-ban-aotearoa-probably","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/tir-scamall-fada-ban-aotearoa-probably\/","title":{"rendered":"t\u00edr + scamall + fada + b\u00e1n = Aotearoa (probably!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"Scamall<\/a>

Scamall fada b\u00e1n mar seo at\u00e1 i gceist san ainm “Aotearoa,” b’fh\u00e9idir — c\u00e9 go bhfuil an ceann seo thar Wyoming (nasc th\u00edos)<\/p><\/div>\n

So what was that d\u00fa-shl\u00e1n<\/strong> [DOO-hlawn] mentioned in the last blog (nasc th\u00edos<\/strong>).\u00a0 Gaeilge a chur ar Mhaorais<\/strong> (to translate Maori to Irish)?\u00a0 Bhuel, c\u00e9n f\u00e1th nach nd\u00e9anfa\u00ed sin<\/strong> (Well, why not, lit. why wouldn’t that be done)?The hitch is, here, that I’m just going to set out the vocabulary in this blog, and see if any readers take up the challenge of putting the phrase together.\u00a0An freagra, n\u00f3 mo leagansa d’fhreagra? Sa ch\u00e9ad bhlag eile.<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, also let me mention that “land of the long white cloud” is just one interpretation of what “Aotearoa” actually means.\u00a0 A couple links to sources discussing this further are listed in the links below.<\/p>\n

If we accept “land of the long white cloud” as our basic phrase, here are the four main words, with some variant possibilities.\u00a0 As with any “possessive” phrase in Irish, there will be no word equating to “of.”\u00a0 Irish uses the genitive case (an tuiseal ginideach) to express possession, even when it’s in the more descriptive sense, not ownership as such.\u00a0 A typical example is “T\u00edr na n\u00d3g<\/strong>” (land of the young, where the extra lower-case “n” is the real tip-off that the phrase is genitive).<\/p>\n

land: most typically, “t\u00edr<\/strong>” although there is also “talamh<\/strong>,” which can mean “land” as well as “ground,” as in “Talamh an \u00c9isc<\/strong>” (Newfoundland, lit. the land of the fish, understood to be codfish).\u00a0 In fact, I’ve always wondered why it’s “Talamh<\/strong>” not “T\u00edr<\/strong>” here, but if there’s an answer to that, it’ll have to be \u00e1bhar blag eile<\/strong>. \u00a0The word “land” doesn’t seem to literally be in the compound word “Aotearoa,” but, intriguingly, “ao<\/em>” can mean “cloud” or “world.”\u00a0 Hmmm.<\/p>\n

long (as an adjective here, of course, not as in “to long for”): fada<\/strong>.\u00a0 Not too much variation here.\u00a0 There are several related words in different parts of speech (fad\u00f3, i bhfad, srl.<\/strong>)\u00a0 but most of them go back to the basic concept, “fad<\/strong>” (length).\u00a0 \u00a0The Maori element is “roa<\/em>,” which also means “tail.”<\/p>\n

white: b\u00e1n<\/strong>, or sometimes “fionn<\/strong>” (white, bright, fair) and sometimes “geal<\/strong>” (bright, white) which is interesting because the “long white cloud” connected to Aotearoa is sometimes described as “bright.”\u00a0 Hmm, if a cloud is bright, would it ever be any color other than white?\u00a0 The Maori element is “tea<\/em>” (white).<\/p>\n

cloud: “scamall<\/strong>” is probably the most typical word, with “n\u00e9al<\/strong>” as an alternate.\u00a0 And then there can be “ceo<\/strong>” as in “ceo deannaigh<\/strong>” (a cloud of dust) and “p\u00fair<\/strong>” as in “p\u00fair deataigh<\/strong>” (a cloud of smoke). \u00a0\u00a0But those latter two examples don’t really apply here.\u00a0 \u00a0Both “scamall<\/strong>” and “n\u00e9al<\/strong>” have nice recognizable cognates: cumulu<\/em>s and nebula<\/em><\/p>\n

Now all that’s left to do is to string these words together in the right order, check for initial mutations (lenition), and throw in the word for “the” (but, remember, no ‘of” as such”).<\/p>\n

Let’s see what you come up with.\u00a0 And if there could be several correct answers.<\/p>\n

By the way, I did look online to see if there was a pre-existing official Irish translation of the Maori “Aotearoa” and found nothing, not even in Wikipedia, which would be the most likely candidate for such a phrase<\/p>\n

I did find it in French: \u00a0Le pays du long nuage blanc<\/em><\/p>\n

Agus<\/strong> sa Ghearm\u00e1inis<\/strong>: das\u00a0Land der langen wei\u00dfen Wolke<\/em><\/p>\n

Sa Phortaing\u00e9ilis<\/strong>: A Terra da Grande Nuvem Branca<\/em><\/p>\n

Sa Tag\u00e1laigis<\/strong>: Ang Lupain ng Mahabang Puting Alapaap<\/em><\/p>\n

San Indin\u00e9isis<\/strong>: Tanah Awan Putih Panjang<\/em><\/p>\n

Sa Hav\u00e1is<\/strong>: ao-kea-loa<\/em> (sin “scamall b\u00e1n fada,” san ord sin, gan “t\u00edr”<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

Of course, translations like these and our Irish version to come would normally only be used as background information, for the etymologically curious, since, basically, “Aotearoa” is “Aotearoa,” much as “Hawai’i” is “Hawai’i” and “Manitoba” is “Manitoba.”\u00a0\u00a0 It could be a blast to find the Irish equivalents of the translations of indigenous names around the world, and it could be quite a challenge, good for vocabulary expansion, and often, for genitive case practice.\u00a0 But that’s way, way, way more than one blog’s worth.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe one of these days we’ll tackle Sagarmatha<\/em> aka Chomolungma<\/em> aka Zhumulangma<\/em>.\u00a0 Linguistically only, that is, at least for me, since I’m not really a mountain-climber, though, as a young teen, I did enjoy reading A Yak for Christmas<\/em>, by Louise Hillary, who, tragically, died in 1975, predeceasing her husband Sir Edmund by over 30 years.\u00a0 And then there are the renowned cases of Denali and Uluru, where the indigenous name finally became official.\u00a0 All worth looking into.\u00a0 Some day.\u00a0 Some blog.\u00a0\u00a0 SGF and looking forward to seeing what you come up with to translate “Aotearoa.” — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

P.S. And the saga doesn’t really stop here because there’s another indigenous name, Te Ika Nui A Maui<\/em> (The great fish of Maui), but I think one concept is enough, for one blag, at any rate.\u00a0 Translating “great fish” could be fun though — “olliasc<\/strong>” or just “iasc m\u00f3r<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Food for thought!<\/p>\n

Naisc:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aotearoa: http:\/\/www.teara.govt.nz\/en\/1966\/aotearoa agus http:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Aotearoa<\/p>\n

Na Scamaill: grianghraf le\u00a0Kenneth Dwain Harrelson,\u00a0<\/strong>http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cloud#mediaviewer\/File:Lenticular_Cloud_in_Wyoming_0034b.jpg (8 Feabhra 2008)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blag faoin Nua-Sh\u00e9alainn sa tsraith seo<\/strong>: https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/agus-muid-sna-fritiortha-while-were-in-the-antipodes\/ (31 Bealtaine 2014)<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) So what was that d\u00fa-shl\u00e1n [DOO-hlawn] mentioned in the last blog (nasc th\u00edos).\u00a0 Gaeilge a chur ar Mhaorais (to translate Maori to Irish)?\u00a0 Bhuel, c\u00e9n f\u00e1th nach nd\u00e9anfa\u00ed sin (Well, why not, lit. why wouldn’t that be done)?The hitch is, here, that I’m just going to set out the vocabulary in this blog…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":5339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[331993,4268,331991,331987,331982,5125,289961,331985,331996,331997,332000,331980,2214,5927,331998,331983,331966,331965,331986,192234,331995,331959,331967,331984,331990,331994,331989,331988,32950,331999,331992],"class_list":["post-5330","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-aotearoa","tag-ban","tag-chomolungma","tag-denali","tag-edmund","tag-fada","tag-geal","tag-great-fish","tag-havais","tag-hawaiian","tag-hillary","tag-iasc-mor","tag-indigenous","tag-long","tag-long-white-cloud","tag-louise","tag-maorais","tag-maori","tag-maui","tag-native","tag-neal","tag-new-zealand","tag-nua-shealainn","tag-olliasc","tag-sagarmatha","tag-scamall","tag-te-ika-nui-a-maui","tag-uluru","tag-white","tag-yak-for-christmas","tag-zhumulangma"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5330","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=5330"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5342,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5330\/revisions\/5342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}