{"id":7435,"date":"2015-12-18T04:04:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T04:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=7435"},"modified":"2015-12-24T08:21:38","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T08:21:38","slug":"some-irish-food-vocabulary-from-bridget-breathnachs-article-on-baking-gingerbread-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/some-irish-food-vocabulary-from-bridget-breathnachs-article-on-baking-gingerbread-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Irish Food Vocabulary from Bridget Breathnach’s Article on Baking Gingerbread Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

I’m always on the lookout for short online articles in Irish to recommend to students at an intermediate-ish level.\u00a0 Here I’ll pass on a link to a fun article by Bridget Bhreathnach about baking Christmas cookies (nasc th\u00edos<\/strong>) and provide a little vocabulary help for the learner.<\/p>\n

N\u00ed alt “conas” (a dh\u00e9anamh ) \u00e9 agus n\u00edl oideas <\/strong>(recipe) ann<\/strong>.\u00a0 It’s more a witty commentary on the experience of baking with children and also the ideal suitability of Legos as receptors for sticky bits of dough, especially if you make it “r\u00f3fhliuch<\/strong>” by using “s\u00edor\u00f3ip<\/strong>” instead of “si\u00facra<\/strong>.” I’m sure that readers who really want an oideas<\/strong> for briosca\u00ed<\/strong> can find plenty of them online (1,290,000 hits for “Christmas cookie recipes” on Google)<\/p>\n

The vocabulary will be useful even to complete beginners, at least if you’re interested in words and phrases like the following: Christmas, the smell of spices, cookie (biscuit in Irish\/UK English), flour, egg, and Lego.\u00a0 \u00da\u00faps, bhuel,<\/strong> “Lego” is mentioned in the article, as I noted above, but the word is the same in Irish as in English, n\u00ed nach ionadh<\/strong>.\u00a0 In fact, it’s my guess that it’s the same internationally (eolas agatsa<\/strong>?) although, come to think of it, I wonder how it’s handled in languages that aren’t written in the Roman alphabet, carachtair Sh\u00edneacha, mar shampla, n\u00f3 siollaigh Ion\u00faitise<\/strong>. \u00a0But that’s starting to look like a digression, so … back to our “pr\u00edomh\u00e1bhar<\/strong>.” \u00a0Beag\u00e1in\u00edn eile faoi ch\u00falra Legos\u00a0sa n\u00f3ta “PS” th\u00edos. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

So we’ll go over some of the vocabulary, and then wrap up with a glance back at the seanfhocal<\/strong> that is used in the introduction to the article.\u00a0 That will extend our food vocabulary to include curds and whey, not quite on the beaten \u00a0linguistic path of typical food vocabulary (like uibheacha friochta<\/strong> and gloine bainne<\/strong>) but fun and traidisi\u00fanta<\/strong> as well.\u00a0 An bhfuil a fhios agat c\u00e9n seanfhocal at\u00e1 i gceist?\u00a0 Muna bhfuil, l\u00e9igh leat!<\/strong><\/p>\n

But first, an bunst\u00f3r focal<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Christmas: As you all may remember from the recent blog in this series (nasc th\u00edos<\/strong>), the basic word (fr\u00e1sa, i nd\u00e1ir\u00edre<\/strong>) is “An Nollaig<\/strong>” (The Christmas).\u00a0 The ending of the word changes according to the way the word is used in the sentence.\u00a0 When used to describe something, like Christmas cookies or lights, we drop the “i” so the word really means “of Christmas.”\u00a0 We see this word in two phrases in Bridget’s article: soilse na Nollag<\/strong> (the Christmas lights) and briosca\u00ed Nollag<\/strong> (Christmas cookies).\u00a0 There’s a slight difference in pronunciation, with Nollaig<\/strong> more like “NUL-ik” and “Nollag<\/strong>” more like “NUL-uk.”<\/p>\n

the smell of spices: an boladh sp\u00edosra\u00ed<\/strong> [un BOL-uh SPEESS-ree].\u00a0 The “-dh” of “boladh<\/strong>” (smell) is silent.<\/p>\n

cookie \/ biscuit: briosca<\/strong>, plural: briosca\u00ed<\/strong>.\u00a0 Don’t forget the slender “r” pronunciation.\u00a0 It’s not just “br” as in the English word “brisk” or “brisket,” but it’s like the “br” of the Irish word “bre\u00e1<\/strong>” (fine) as in “T\u00e1 s\u00e9 go bre\u00e1 inniu<\/strong>” (It’s fine today).<\/p>\n

flour: pl\u00far<\/strong>, and as Bridget comments astutely, “C\u00e9 go bhfuil\u00a0Persil non-bio\u00a0<\/em>cos\u00fail le pl\u00far, n\u00ed pl\u00far at\u00e1 ann<\/strong>.” Hmmm, was she looking for some sort of lionach p\u00fadrach<\/strong> (powdery filler) to compensate for “taos r\u00f3fhliuch<\/strong>“?\u00a0 T\u00e1 s\u00fail agam nach raibh<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

egg; the basic word is “ubh<\/strong>” (say “uv”), and in the text, we also see “leathubh<\/strong>” ([ly<\/sup>a-huv]; why a “half-egg”\u00a0 — l\u00e9igh an t-alt le f\u00e1il amach c\u00e9ard at\u00e1 i gceist ag Bridget<\/strong>). \u00a0She also used the plural with the definite article which means there is a prefixed “h,” giving us “na huibheacha\u00ed<\/strong>” ([nuh HIV-ukh-ee]; other speakers might just say “na huibheacha<\/strong>“).<\/p>\n

baker:\u00a0 the standard spelling is “b\u00e1ic\u00e9ir<\/strong>,” but Bridget uses the variation I’ve heard in Conamara Irish: b\u00e1ic\u00e9ara<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And to wrap up (no p\u00e1ip\u00e9ar fillte<\/strong> pun intended), here’s the seanfhocal<\/strong> that introduces thearticle:<\/p>\n

N\u00ed f\u00e9idir \u00e9 a bheith ina ghruth agus ina mheadhg agat<\/strong>. \u00a0The literal translation is, “You can’t have it as curds and as whey.”\u00a0 More loosely, “You can’t have it both ways,” or to use a baking analogy, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” \u00a0And how to pronounce all those lovely lenited letters?<\/p>\n

ghruth<\/strong>: here we’re back to our old friend, the voiced velar fricative for the “gh” sound, followed, of course, by a flapped “r”. \u00a0“Say what?” you might say.\u00a0 Have you heard the phrase “Mo ghr\u00e1 th\u00fa<\/strong>” (I love you)?\u00a0 It has the same “ghr-” sound.\u00a0 And if you say, “Mo ghr\u00e1 th\u00fa, a Ghr\u00e1inne<\/strong>,” you’ve got two voiced velar fricatives in one sweet phrase.\u00a0 Never heard that?\u00a0 Think of the guttural (throaty) “ch” sound of “chutzpah” or “Chanukah,” and then bring it lower down in your throat.\u00a0 Sin \u00e9<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The “-th” of “ghruth<\/strong>” is silent but does give a slight puff of breath sound at the end of the word.<\/p>\n

mheadhg<\/strong>: the basic word\u00a0 is “meadhg<\/strong>” and in our text, it’s lenited, to become “mheadhg<\/strong>.”\u00a0 The initial “mh-” is a “v” sound and the “-dh-” in the middle is basically silent, but does affect the vowel sound, which I’ve noticed as either rhyming with “Tadhg<\/strong>” (in English, a “long i” as in “bike”) or more like “uh-ih” pronounced really quickly.<\/p>\n

By the way, the really literal translation of “N\u00ed f\u00e9idir \u00e9 a bheith ina ghruth agus ina mheadhg agat” <\/strong>js “(It) isn’t possible it to be in its curds or in its whey at you.” \u00a0But translating it that way is just for demonstration purposes. \u00a0Obviously it’s not normal English word order.<\/p>\n

Bhuel<\/strong>, that’s a little st\u00f3r focal c\u00f3caireachta<\/strong> for you, and c\u00fapla focal c\u00e1iseoireachta (gruth, meadhg) leo<\/strong>.\u00a0 So we’ve covered our main goal for today’s blog.\u00a0 And now, a f\u00edn\u00e9ad beag<\/strong>\u00a0from my own taith\u00ed c\u00f3caireachta<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It sounds like Bridget found her baking experiment a little more challenging than she expected.\u00a0 Bhuel<\/strong>, it can happen to all of this.\u00a0 Once, years ago, I followed a complicated recipe in an Irish cooking special in the New York Times magazine, around St. Patrick’s Day.\u00a0 It sounded delicious.\u00a0 The “seabhdar bia mara<\/strong>” called for three different types of seafood, cooked separately (aaarrgghh!) and then combined in one pot.\u00a0 So I made a special trip to a siopa \u00e9isc<\/strong>, to get the freshest ingredients, diligently cooked them all separately for the exact amount of time, then mixed them together and cooked it some more as the recipe specified.<\/p>\n

The result was a thick, grayish-looking \u00a0slurry, texture-less to boot (.i. gan chnapanna blasta gambacha bia mara<\/strong>).\u00a0 I was horrified, especially with about deichni\u00far a\u00edonna<\/strong> coming in a couple hours.\u00a0 At my father’s suggestion, I poured in uachtar<\/strong>, im le\u00e1ite<\/strong>, beag\u00e1in\u00edn si\u00facra<\/strong> (yes, sinking to that cheap taste-bud pleaser) and beag\u00e1in\u00edn salainn le blas a chur air<\/strong>.\u00a0 The soup was salvaged, and I called it a bisque.\u00a0 It tasted good enough, le har\u00e1n donn \u00c9ireannach agus im agus sail\u00e9ad<\/strong>, but still, it was a profound disappointment, which I remember to this day.\u00a0 An ceacht at\u00e1 le baint as an sc\u00e9al sin<\/strong> — don’t trust any recipe that has you cook seafood twice.\u00a0 “Biscuits” may be literally “bis cuit<\/em>” (twice-cooked) and come out pleasantly crispy, but it doesn’t work with fish.\u00a0 The second moral of the story, as I should have known, is never try a new recipe before a dinner party, no matter how tempting it appears when given the professional treatment by food writers and photographers.<\/p>\n

Sin \u00e9 mo sc\u00e9al, hmmm, bia le mo bh\u00e9al?\u00a0 SGF — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

PS: Now that I really got to thinking about the international ramifications of the word “Lego”, I finally got around to checking its origin.\u00a0 Apparently it’s from “leg godt<\/strong>” meaning “play well.”\u00a0\u00a0 C\u00e9n teanga \u00ed sin?\u00a0 Danmhairgis, mar ba Dhanar an fear a bhunaigh an comhlacht “Lego,” Ole Kirk Christiansen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Nasc d’alt Bridget<\/strong>: http:\/\/tuairisc.ie\/ma-ta-fir-sinseir-le-deanamh-biodh-sinsear-agat\/, le Bridget Bhreathnach, 18 M\u00ed na Nollag, 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nasc don mblag Nollag sa tsraith seo<\/strong>: https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/aig-ag-nollaig-no-ag-ag-nollag-when-to-say-nollaig-and-when-to-say-nollag-for-the-irish-word-for-christmas\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) I’m always on the lookout for short online articles in Irish to recommend to students at an intermediate-ish level.\u00a0 Here I’ll pass on a link to a fun article by Bridget Bhreathnach about baking Christmas cookies (nasc th\u00edos) and provide a little vocabulary help for the learner. N\u00ed alt “conas” (a dh\u00e9anamh )…<\/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":[7335,6273,6274],"class_list":["post-7435","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-baking","tag-nollag","tag-nollaig"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7435","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=7435"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7441,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7435\/revisions\/7441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}