{"id":5681,"date":"2014-09-15T15:44:22","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T15:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=5681"},"modified":"2014-09-16T15:51:27","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T15:51:27","slug":"how-to-say-yes-and-no-in-irish-let-me-count-the-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/how-to-say-yes-and-no-in-irish-let-me-count-the-ways\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Say \u2018Yes\u2019 and \u2018No\u2019 in Irish \u2013 Let Me Count The Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Actually I can\u2019t really count the number of ways. As I mentioned in a recent blog, there are thousands of ways to say \u2018yes\u2019 or \u2018no\u2019 in Irish. Remember, almost every verb in Irish can be used to formulate a yes- or no-answer. And the good<\/em> news is \u2026 some of them are used a lot more frequently than others. These include:<\/p>\n

Forms of the verb \u201ct\u00e1<\/strong>\u201d (an briathar substainteach): t\u00e1, n\u00edl, t\u00e1im, n\u00edlim, bh\u00ed, n\u00ed raibh or its variant \u201ccha rabh\/robh,\u201d beidh, n\u00ed bheidh, bheadh, n\u00ed bheadh, bh\u00edodh, n\u00ed bh\u00edodh, srl. (that\u2019s just a sampler)<\/p>\n

Forms of the verb \u201cis<\/strong>\u201d (an chopail): \u2018sea, n\u00ed hea, \u2018s\u00e9, n\u00ed h\u00e9, \u2018s\u00ed, n\u00ed h\u00ed, \u2018siad, n\u00ed hiad, b\u2019ea, n\u00edorbh ea, b\u2019\u00e9, n\u00edorbh \u00e9, b\u2019\u00ed, n\u00edorbh \u00ed, b\u2019iad, n\u00edorbh iad (again, just a sampler)<\/p>\n

Samples with \u201can chopail<\/strong>\u201d plus an \u201caidiacht<\/strong>\u201d: is maith, n\u00ed maith, ba ch\u00f3ir, n\u00edor ch\u00f3ir, srl.<\/p>\n

And then the wide world of verbs in general, with just the tiniest tip of the iceberg represented here, bouncing around with positive\/negative, tenses, persons, number, and mood, in other words, a stream-of-consciousness sampling of verbs that might answer a wide range of questions: \u00e9ir\u00edm, castar (daoine vs. cnoic), n\u00edfidh, bhris (the eternal fuinneog question), buaileann (an t-asal bocht!), n\u00ed itear (re: that memorable \u201cfeoil capaill\u201d comment in the classic textbook, Progress in Irish<\/em>), agus d\u2019\u00edosfaid\u00eds (quoting De Bhaldraithe on the same topic, although he calls it \u201cfeoil chapaill,\u201d with lenition).<\/p>\n

Tuilleadh sampla\u00ed uait?<\/p>\n

fuair, n\u00ed bhfuair (le hur\u00fa; n\u00ed sh\u00e9imh\u00edtear \u00e9), n\u00ed sh\u00e9imh\u00edtear, n\u00ed bhfaighidh, n\u00ed fhaca, n\u00ed d\u00fairt (gan s\u00e9imhi\u00fa, ach s\u00e9imh\u00edtear leagan eile de seo: n\u00edor dh\u00fairt, scr\u00edofa amanna mar \u2018n\u00edor \u2018\u00fairt), n\u00ed fhoghlaimeoidh, rinne, l\u00e9im, d\u2019imir, d\u2019ith, ph\u00e9inte\u00e1il, agus cheann\u00f3inn. And once again, that\u2019s just a random sampling. Well, as random as anyone\u2019s subconscious will allow.<\/p>\n

Getting back to the introductory qualification for this blog, why did I say almost<\/em> every verb in Irish can be used to answer \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d?<\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s \u201carsa<\/strong>\u201d and its variation \u201car<\/strong>\u201d (not \u201car,\u201d the word meaning \u201con,\u201d but \u201car,\u201d the variation of \u201carsa\u201d). \u201cArsa,\u201d which means \u201csays,\u201d \u201csay,\u201d or \u201csaid,\u201d is a (so-called) \u201cdefective verb,\u201d meaning it doesn\u2019t have full complement of forms for all tenses and moods and persons. The term may not be very PC (de r\u00e9ir na dtuairim\u00ed \u2018cearta\u2019 poibl\u00ed) today, but it still seems to be in use. I remember learning it in Latin, so I guess that gives it some precedence.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the point here is \u201carsa\u201d can\u2019t be used to ask questions or answer them, so it can\u2019t be used for \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno.\u201d It\u2019s only used for quoting direct speech. Come to think of it, how about \u201cquoth\u201d in English? Defective? We can\u2019t use \u201cquoth\u201d in the present tense or with \u201cwill,\u201d etc. Did it just split off from \u201cquote? Is there something about the nature of reporting direct speech that causes us to create specific verbs for just that purpose? Bhuel, sin \u00e1bhar machnaimh a deirim, but more than we can deal with here.<\/p>\n

There are a handful of other similar (“defective”) verbs in Irish, i.e. verbs that are not fully conjugatable. But that doesn\u2019t change our basic point \u2013 there almost as many ways to answer \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d in Irish as there are verbs in the language, whether they are down to earth (rinne, \u00edosfaidh) or a little more esoteric (phostal\u00e1idigh, mionsaothr\u00f3idh).<\/p>\n

So from this very brief sample, we can see that there are many, many ways to answer \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d in Irish. Almost every verb in the language can be used. And with the \u201cyes\/no\u201d theme very prominent right now, because of the Scottish Referendum, we can see that not only is the Independence question itself important, but from a Gaelic language viewpoint (Gaeilge and G\u00e0idhlig being very similar in many ways), answering \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d gives us a good grammar workout as well.<\/p>\n

Ag tn\u00fath leis an nuacht ar l\u00e1 an Reifrinn. \u2013 R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

P.S. This blog included a lot of yes\/no answers. If any volunteers would like to send in a question or two answerable by some of these \u201cfreagra\u00ed,\u201d we could have a great practice session for all and discuss the topic further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) Actually I can\u2019t really count the number of ways. As I mentioned in a recent blog, there are thousands of ways to say \u2018yes\u2019 or \u2018no\u2019 in Irish. Remember, almost every verb in Irish can be used to formulate a yes- or no-answer. And the good news is \u2026 some of them are…<\/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":[4318,5302,5667,11974,111335,13022],"class_list":["post-5681","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-beidh","tag-gaelic","tag-irish","tag-no","tag-ta","tag-yes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681","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=5681"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5685,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681\/revisions\/5685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}