{"id":8942,"date":"2017-02-22T06:34:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T06:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=8942"},"modified":"2017-03-06T14:45:43","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T14:45:43","slug":"design-your-own-neach-neamhshaolta-and-describe-it-in-irish-or-whats-the-gaeilge-for-i-have-two-antennae-or-three-eyes-or-four-opposable-thumbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/design-your-own-neach-neamhshaolta-and-describe-it-in-irish-or-whats-the-gaeilge-for-i-have-two-antennae-or-three-eyes-or-four-opposable-thumbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Design Your Own ‘Neach Neamhshaolta’ and Describe It in Irish, or, What’s the Gaeilge for ‘I Have Two Antennae, or Three Eyes or Four Opposable Thumbs’?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>One of our recent blogposts (nasc th\u00edos<\/strong>) had a fun segue between “neacha neamhshaolta<\/strong>” and “clocha sneachta<\/strong>,” normally a rather unlikely combination.\u00a0\u00a0 Why so “neamhghn\u00e1ch<\/strong>” (unlikely)?<\/p>\n

Bhuel<\/strong>, “neacha neamhshaolta<\/strong>” means “aliens” (in the outer-space sense) and “clocha sneachta<\/strong>” means “hailstones,” normally unconnected.\u00a0 You may remember the photo (an nasc c\u00e9anna, th\u00edos<\/strong>) of the eerily luminescent (lonrach<\/strong>) and semi-transparent (leath-thr\u00e9dhearcach<\/strong>) hailstone which to my wondering eye looked like the brain (inchinn<\/strong>) of some alien species, a type with translucent skin so you could see their brains working.\u00a0 I’m sure I’ve seen such beings in some scann\u00e1n ficsean eola\u00edochta<\/strong> (science-fiction film) or other.\u00a0 Normally, a hailstone is fairly smooth (m\u00edn<\/strong>) and spherical (sf\u00e9ar\u00fail<\/strong>), but the one in the photograph used to illustrate the recent blog was an aggregate (comhbhailithe<\/strong>) one, so the surface reminded me of the ridges (iomair\u00ed<\/strong>, or anatomically, g\u00edris<\/strong>) and grooves (eitr\u00ed<\/strong>, or anatomically, sulcais<\/strong>) of a brain.\u00a0 Inside the hailstone, you could see the smaller irregularly shaped hailstones that had clumped together.<\/p>\n

Anyway, describing aliens from outer space is always good language practice, since it stretches the limits of our imagination.\u00a0 So here are some possibilities and you may want to think of some more features for the neach neamhshaolta<\/strong> that you design yourself.<\/p>\n

These sentences are all written in the first person (I have two antennae, etc.), using “agam<\/strong>,” as if the “neach<\/strong>” were speaking him or herself, or, given that we’re talking about sp\u00e1s amuigh<\/strong> (outer space), maybe I should add, “or whateverself.”\u00a0 But if you want to adjust them, you can easily use\u00a0words like:<\/p>\n

aige<\/strong> (at him), for “he has”<\/p>\n

aici<\/strong> (at her), for “she has”<\/p>\n

acu<\/strong> (at them), for “they have”<\/p>\n

The sentences below are based on the pictures in the illustration above.\u00a0 Of course, there are a great many varieties of denizens of outer space, ranging from Ambassador Kollos, a Medusan, from Star Trek<\/em>‘s “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” (1968) to Jaba the Hutt, Wookies, and the adorable Ewoks (Star Wars<\/em>) , not to mention the cunning\u00a0Kanamits (Twilight Zone<\/em>), the dangerous Daleks (Doctor Who<\/em>), the and the far-from-naive Na’vi (Avatar<\/strong>), plus, of course, the old standbys, the Martians and the Venusians.\u00a0 As far as describing muintir an sp\u00e1is amuigh<\/strong> goes, no holds are barred and the world (an domhan<\/strong>), or should I say the multiverse (an ilchruinne<\/strong>) is your oyster (oisre<\/strong>), to blatantly borrow an English idiom.<\/p>\n

Good luck describing Ambassador Kollos, by the way! \u00a0Anyone who looked upon him was supposed to go insane, which is why he traveled totally contained in a box, with his companion, Miranda to guide his travels.<\/p>\n

And here are some sample sentences:<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 dh\u00e1 aint\u00e9ine ghlasa agam<\/strong>.\u00a0 I have two green antennae.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 tr\u00ed sh\u00fail agam<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0I have three eyes.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 ceithre ord\u00f3g agam ar f\u00e9idir iad a chur i gcoinne na m\u00e9ar<\/strong>.\u00a0 I have four opposable thumbs.<\/p>\n

Got a favorite alien from outer space, or extraterrestrial?\u00a0 Feel free to write a description in Irish here\u00a0 — I’m sure other followers of this blog would enjoy reading it, and perhaps picking up a some interesting new vocab.\u00a0 \u00a0Some of the features you might describe are dath agus tr\u00e9shoilseacht an chraicinn (m\u00e1 t\u00e1 craiceann i gceist), cruth an chinn, infheictheacht na hinchinne, an modh cumars\u00e1ide, an airde, su\u00edomh na s\u00fal (ar ghais n\u00f3 sa cheann), srl.\u00a0 \u00a0SGF — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

nasc:\u00a0<\/strong>Cine\u00e1lacha Frasa\u00edochta (Irish Terms for Types of Precipitation: Rain, Snow, Sleet, Hail)<\/a>Posted by r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a> on Feb 16, 2017 in Irish Language<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) One of our recent blogposts (nasc th\u00edos) had a fun segue between “neacha neamhshaolta” and “clocha sneachta,” normally a rather unlikely combination.\u00a0\u00a0 Why so “neamhghn\u00e1ch” (unlikely)? Bhuel, “neacha neamhshaolta” means “aliens” (in the outer-space sense) and “clocha sneachta” means “hailstones,” normally unconnected.\u00a0 You may remember the photo (an nasc c\u00e9anna, th\u00edos) of the…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":8944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[474892,304896,474899,1926,474901,273402,474900,474896,474897,474894,474895,306971,298566,474888,111665,474891,474898,207247,6940,172872],"class_list":["post-8942","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-ainteine","tag-ambassador","tag-amuigh","tag-beauty","tag-box","tag-domhan","tag-ilchruinne","tag-in-truth","tag-insane","tag-kollos","tag-miranda","tag-neach","tag-neacha","tag-neamhshaolta","tag-oisre","tag-ordog","tag-spais","tag-spas","tag-star-trek","tag-suil"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8942","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=8942"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8950,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8942\/revisions\/8950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}