{"id":610,"date":"2011-01-13T16:02:18","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T16:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=610"},"modified":"2011-01-27T16:04:56","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T16:04:56","slug":"an-carn-consan-i-ngaeilge-seimhiu-no-gan-seimhiu-cuid-a-haon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/an-carn-consan-i-ngaeilge-seimhiu-no-gan-seimhiu-cuid-a-haon\/","title":{"rendered":"An Carn Consan i nGaeilge: S\u00e9imhi\u00fa n\u00f3 Gan S\u00e9imhi\u00fa (Cuid a hAon)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lately we\u2019ve been practicing lots of phrases that involve \u201cs\u00e9imhi\u00fa<\/strong>\u201d (lenition).\u00a0 Most of the examples shown have involved words that happen to begin with a single consonant (like \u201ccarr<\/strong>\u201d).\u00a0 Here are some more examples, starting with the way to say \u201cone\u201d of the item.\u00a0 That\u2019s the simplest, since no lenition is involved.\u00a0 This will be followed by phrases for two through six of the items, which do involve lenition.<\/p>\n

banana amh\u00e1in, dh\u00e1 bhanana<\/strong><\/p>\n

cat amh\u00e1in, tr\u00ed chat<\/strong><\/p>\n

madra amh\u00e1in, ceithre mhadra<\/strong><\/p>\n

monca\u00ed amh\u00e1in, c\u00faig mhonca\u00ed<\/strong><\/p>\n

carr amh\u00e1in, s\u00e9 charr<\/strong><\/p>\n

What happens if the word happens to begin with a \u201ccarn consan<\/strong>\u201d (consonant cluster), like \u201cbr\u201d or \u201cdr\u201d?\u00a0 In most cases, we still apply lenition at the beginning of the word.\u00a0 A few exceptions, with the letter \u201cs,\u201d will be treated an upcoming blog.<\/p>\n

bratach amh\u00e1in, dh\u00e1 bhratach<\/strong> (one flag, two flags)<\/p>\n

cnoc amh\u00e1in, dh\u00e1 chnoc<\/strong> (one hill, two hills)<\/p>\n

dreancaid amh\u00e1in, tr\u00ed dhreancaid<\/strong> (one flea, three fleas \u2013 of course, normally we see \u201cna c\u00e9adta<\/strong>\u201d of them, ach sin sc\u00e9al eile<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

fleisc\u00edn amh\u00e1in, ceithre fhleisc\u00edn<\/strong> (one hyphen, four hyphens)<\/p>\n

gloine choise amh\u00e1in, c\u00faig ghloine choise<\/strong> (one goblet, five goblets)<\/p>\n

pr\u00e1ta r\u00f3sta amh\u00e1in, s\u00e9 phr\u00e1ta r\u00f3sta (An bhfuil aistri\u00fach\u00e1n de dh\u00edth anseo?)<\/strong><\/p>\n

So that took us from \u201cb\u201d to \u201cp\u201d and from 2 through 6.<\/p>\n

To continue down the alphabet, we\u2019ll go back to 2 and 3, not 7 or 8.\u00a0 Remember why?\u00a0 From 7 through 10, we don\u2019t use s\u00e9imhi\u00fa<\/strong> but ur\u00fa<\/strong> (eclipsis, as in \u201cocht mb\u00e1d<\/strong>\u201d), and that is \u00e1bhar blag eile<\/strong>, or more likely \u00e1bhar c\u00fapla blag eile<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We only have two more letters to work with, since the letters \u201cr,\u201d \u201cv,\u201d \u201cw,\u201d \u201cx,\u201d \u201cy,\u201d and \u201cz,\u201d don\u2019t involve consonant clusters.\u00a0 Very few Irish words actually start with \u201cw,\u201d \u201cx,\u201d \u201cy,\u201d or \u201cz,\u201d and there aren\u2019t many that start with \u201cv,\u201d since these letters were not historically part of the Irish alphabet.\u00a0 Of the words that do exist, like \u201cwigwam<\/strong>,\u201d \u201cx\u00e9inilit<\/strong>,\u201d y\u00f3y\u00f3<\/strong>,\u201d \u201cz\u00f3planct\u00f3n,<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cvitim\u00edn<\/strong>,\u201d most are borrowed from English and they never get lenited.\u00a0 \u201cR\u201d is certainly part of the traditional Irish alphabet, but also does not take lenition.\u00a0 So, only \u201cs\u201d and \u201ct\u201d are left.\u00a0 Here are some samples of \u201cs\u201d and \u201ct\u201d combinations:<\/p>\n

sluasaid amh\u00e1in, dh\u00e1 shluasaid<\/strong> (one shovel, two shovels)<\/p>\n

sliotar amh\u00e1in, dh\u00e1 shliotar<\/strong> (one hurley ball, two hurley balls)<\/p>\n

tligtheoir amh\u00e1in, tr\u00ed thligtheoir<\/strong> (one projector, three projectors; the word \u201ctligtheoir<\/strong>\u201d is actually a dialect variation of the more standard word \u201cteilgeoir<\/strong>\u201d but I used it here so we\u2019d have an initial consonant cluster).\u00a0<\/p>\n

trumpa amh\u00e1in, tr\u00ed thrumpa<\/strong> (one trumpet or jaw-harp, three trumpets or jaw-harps)<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re not done yet, at least not with the letter \u201cs.\u201d\u00a0 More to come, comparing \u201csl,\u201d \u201csn\u201d and \u201csr\u201d to \u201csc,\u201d \u201csm,\u201d \u201csp,\u201d and \u201cst,\u201d and pondering some borrowings like \u201csvaeid<\/strong>\u201d and \u201csfioncs<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 T\u00e1 s\u00fail agam go bhfuil suim agaibh ann.\u00a0 M\u00e1s amhlaidh go bhfuil, feicfidh m\u00e9 i mblag eile th\u00fa<\/strong> (to loosely paraphrase a \u201cmana cl\u00faiteach\u201d<\/strong> from ABC\u2019s Lost).\u00a0<\/p>\n

P.S. Don\u2019t forget, all these rules for \u201cs\u00e9imhi\u00fa<\/strong>\u201d will also come into play when we use the personal number \u00a0\u201cbeirt<\/strong>,\u201d so if you like, you can be thinking ahead about how to say \u201ctwo gluttons\u201d or \u201ctwo slanesmen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately we\u2019ve been practicing lots of phrases that involve \u201cs\u00e9imhi\u00fa\u201d (lenition).\u00a0 Most of the examples shown have involved words that happen to begin with a single consonant (like \u201ccarr\u201d).\u00a0 Here are some more examples, starting with the way to say \u201cone\u201d of the item.\u00a0 That\u2019s the simplest, since no lenition is involved.\u00a0 This will be…<\/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-610","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","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=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4464,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/4464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}