{"id":8705,"date":"2016-12-16T16:51:01","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T16:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=8705"},"modified":"2018-04-16T11:43:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T11:43:55","slug":"nuair-a-bhuaileann-clog-when-a-bell-rings-zuzus-christmas-quote-translated-into-irish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/nuair-a-bhuaileann-clog-when-a-bell-rings-zuzus-christmas-quote-translated-into-irish\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuair a bhuaileann clog … (When a bell rings …): Zuzu’s Christmas Quote Translated into Irish"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Continuing with our “It’s A Wonderful Life” theme, today’s blogpost looks at Zuzu Bailey’s famous quote from the movie, and her father’s response.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t seen the movie — and is there anyone out there who hasn’t? — these lines come at the very end of the movie.\u00a0 Seo m’aistri\u00fach\u00e1n.\u00a0 T\u00e1 an bunleagan th\u00edos.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zuzu: F\u00e9ach, a Dhaid\u00ed.\u00a0 Deir M\u00fainteoir go bhfaigheann aingeal a sciath\u00e1in gach uair a bhuaileann clog.<\/strong><\/p>\n

George Bailey: T\u00e1 sin ceart, t\u00e1 sin ceart … (ag amharc i dtreo na bhFlaitheas)<\/em> … Maith th\u00fa, a Chlarence!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The graphic above explains some of the vocabulary, but, as always, a few more vocabulary and pronunciation notes will probably not go amiss.<\/p>\n

F\u00e9ach, a Dhaid\u00ed<\/strong> — fairly straightforward to translate. “F\u00e9ach<\/strong>\u00b4 is in the command form (“Look!”) and “a Dhaid\u00ed<\/strong>” is in direct address.\u00a0 The “dh” is a sound we’ve discussed previously in many of these posts — nothing like the “dh” of Hindi\/Sanskrit “Dharma,” by the way.\u00a0 And the sound is virtually non-existent in English, except in a few borrowed words.\u00a0 For now, just a technical note — it’s the voiced velar fricative, and if you search back through previous posts in this blog, you’ll find numerous guides to pronouncing it.\u00a0 In a nutshell, it’s a deep gargling sound that seems to rise up from the bottom of the throat.\u00a0 If that sounds like a challenge, well, it may be for native English-speakers, but one can’t speak Irish fluently without it.\u00a0 We need this sound to say such basic things as “Haigh, a Dhaid\u00ed<\/strong>” (Hi, Daddy), “dh\u00e1 mhadra<\/strong>” (two dogs), and, since “gh” often has the same sound, we need it for \u00a0“mo ghaird\u00edn<\/strong>” (my garden) and “Mo ghr\u00e1 th\u00fa<\/strong>” (I love you).<\/p>\n

Deir<\/strong> (says), followed by indirect statement, which is why “faigheann<\/strong>” (gets) changes to “go bhfaigheann<\/strong>” (gets).\u00a0 Now this “gh,” by the way, is silent, because it’s flanked by “dh\u00e1 ghuta chaola<\/strong>.” And that’s a nice workout of two voiced velar fricatives in a row, followed by a voiceless one, the “ch,” which might be more familiar to most readers, since it is reasonably well known from “Chutzpah” and “Challah” in English, “Buch<\/em>” in German, and “Bach<\/em>” or “Fach<\/em>” in Welsh.<\/p>\n

Sciath\u00e1n<\/strong> (wing) appears in the plural (sciath\u00e1in<\/strong>) in the quote.\u00a0 The final “n” now has a “tenser” sound because of the inserted “i.”\u00a0 I find that if you put your mouth in a smiling position, you get this “n caol<\/strong>” (slender “n”) sound naturally.\u00a0 \u00a0And it’s not a bad outlook on life!<\/p>\n

One nice point about “a sciath\u00e1in<\/strong>” — it can actually mean “his wings” or “her wings” or “their wings,” so it avoids the gender bias that English often has.<\/p>\n

The phrase “gach uair<\/strong>” is followed by single-letter word “a<\/strong>” in our sentence.\u00a0\u00a0 This “a<\/strong>” has no real meaning to be translated (it’s simply the “relative particle,” so it has function but no real definition).\u00a0 The “a<\/strong>” causes the word “buaileann<\/strong>” to get the inserted “h” and the pronunciation changes.\u00a0 It becomes “bhuaileann<\/strong>” (WOO-ul-yun\u00a0 OR\u00a0 VOO-ul-yun, depending on dialect).<\/p>\n

As for George’s comment to Clarence (the angel), I was thinking of saying “Togha fir<\/strong>!” for “Maith th\u00fa<\/strong>!” since in normal, mortal-ish circumstances it would work just as well.\u00a0 If we’re addressing a man, that is, since “fir<\/strong>” is a form of “fear<\/strong>,” man.\u00a0 But I got kind of hung up on whether I should say “Togha fir<\/strong>!” or “Togha aingil<\/strong>!” — so I decided to stick with “Maith th\u00fa<\/strong>!”\u00a0 If anyone has any other suggestions for “Attaboy,” that would be most welcome (agus GRMARR<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Astute observers might have noticed that I “flipped” the direction the speakers are facing in the graphic above so we could see clearly that Zuzu is speaking first.\u00a0 In the original publicity still, George Bailey is on the viewer’s left, so if I had put the caption there, it would look like he was speaking first, then Zuzu.<\/p>\n

Hope this was both fun, useful, and seasonal.\u00a0 — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

Agus seo an bunleagan B\u00e9arla:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zuzu: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.<\/p>\n

George: That’s right, that’s right.\u00a0 [Looks heavenward] \u00a0Attaboy, Clarence!<\/p>\n

N\u00f3ta: GRMARR, go raibh maith agat roimh r\u00e9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) Continuing with our “It’s A Wonderful Life” theme, today’s blogpost looks at Zuzu Bailey’s famous quote from the movie, and her father’s response. If you haven’t seen the movie — and is there anyone out there who hasn’t? — these lines come at the very end of the movie.\u00a0 Seo m’aistri\u00fach\u00e1n.\u00a0 T\u00e1 an…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":8707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[455448,359425,474726,5354,255678,255675,390609,474705],"class_list":["post-8705","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-angel","tag-bailey","tag-clarence","tag-george","tag-is-iontach-an-saol-e","tag-its-a-wonderful-life","tag-wings","tag-zuzu"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8705","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=8705"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10410,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8705\/revisions\/10410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}