{"id":9691,"date":"2017-09-28T10:40:18","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T10:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=9691"},"modified":"2017-10-16T03:04:29","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T03:04:29","slug":"whose-beret-bairead-an-fhrancaigh-no-bairead-an-fhrancaigh-no-bairead-an-phudail-showing-possession-in-irish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/whose-beret-bairead-an-fhrancaigh-no-bairead-an-fhrancaigh-no-bairead-an-phudail-showing-possession-in-irish\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose beret?\u00a0 Bair\u00e9ad an fhrancaigh n\u00f3 bair\u00e9ad an Fhrancaigh?\u00a0 N\u00f3 bair\u00e9ad an ph\u00fadail?\u00a0 (Showing possession in Irish)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

Let’s take a short break from the actual vocabulary we’ve been working on for “An P\u00edobaire Breac<\/strong>,” Se\u00e1n \u00d3 D\u00farois’s translation of Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (nasc agus eolas foilseach\u00e1in th\u00edos<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

With rats as the inspiration, as you can see in the graphic above, I thought it would be fun to work on the Irish way to show possession, using forms from “an tuiseal ginideach<\/strong>” (the Irish language term for “the genitive case”).\u00a0 \u00a0The good news is we’ll just be looking at one category of noun, so there’s no real change in the pattern.<\/p>\n

The graphic shows a beret (bair\u00e9ad<\/strong>), a rat (francach<\/strong>), and a Frenchman (Francach<\/strong>), and both the francach<\/strong> and the Francach<\/strong> are wearing berets (now that involved a lot of graphics manipulation!).\u00a0 For good measure, I also threw in a p\u00fadal<\/strong>\u00a0 — if any dog should be wearing a beret, surely this is the p\u00f3r<\/strong> (breed).\u00a0 Although, come to think of it, the “bullad\u00f3ir Francach<\/strong>” would also be a good choice.<\/p>\n

What happens to these words when we want to say “of the rat,” “of the Frenchman,” or “of the poodle”?<\/p>\n

Two basic changes, one at the beginning of each word (called “lenition) and the other at the end, called “slenderization.”<\/p>\n

If we start out with “an francach<\/strong>,” we’ll get “an fhrancaigh<\/strong>” for showing possession,\u00a0 The “fh-” is silent and the “gh” at the end is essentially silent and the “-ai-” is like “ee,” giving us a sound like “RAHN-kee.” \u00a0Except in Cork or Kerry, where it might be “rahn-KIG,” with the “gh” pronounced like\u00a0 a hard “g” (as in “girl”). \u00a0So, “the beret of the rat” (or “the rat’s beret”) is “bair\u00e9ad an fhrancaigh<\/strong>.””<\/p>\n

Capitalized or not, the pattern and pronunciation are the same, “bair\u00e9ad an Fhrancaigh<\/strong>” (the beret of the Frenchman), which is pronounced the same as “the beret of the rat.”<\/p>\n

Wanna try the plural? \u00a0“Bair\u00e9ad<\/strong>” becomes “bair\u00e9id<\/strong>” and “of the rats” becomes “na bhfrancach<\/strong>.”\u00a0 The “bhf” is pronounced like “v” and the final “ch” is like the German “Buch<\/em>” or the Welsh “bach<\/em>.” The phrases are “bair\u00e9id na bhfrancach<\/strong>” and “bair\u00e9id na bhFrancach<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

“P\u00fadal<\/strong>” follows the same basic pattern.\u00a0 First, lenition, so the “p” changes to “ph,” pronounced “f.”\u00a0 And there is slenderization at the end, but without so drastic a pronunciation change as “-ach” becoming “-aigh.” The “-al” becomes “-ail,” with the letter “l” like the “l” in “lisp,” not like the “l” of “Louisville.”\u00a0 \u00a0So we end up with “bair\u00e9ad an ph\u00fadail<\/strong>” [… un FOO-dil].\u00a0 And if we wanted to include the “bullad\u00f3ir Francach<\/strong>,” we’d have to adjust the adjective “Francach<\/strong>” as well as “bullad\u00f3ir<\/strong>” itself:\u00a0 bair\u00e9ad an bhullad\u00f3ra fhrancaigh<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Mh’anam!\u00a0 T\u00e1 an t-aguis\u00edn daoibhse, a Pepper, a Peaches, a Asia agus a Koji, a Gary, a Popeye, agus a Gypsy Rosa!\u00a0 C\u00e9 leo na bullad\u00f3ir\u00ed francacha seo?\u00a0 In ord na n-ainmneacha: le Reese Witherspoon, le Hilary Duff, le Lady Gaga, le Carrie Fisher nach maireann (C\u00e9 at\u00e1 ag tabhairt aire don mhaidr\u00edn anois, an bhfuil a fhios ag \u00e9inne?), le Eva Longoria, agus le Madonna.\u00a0 Is cl\u00faiteach na bullad\u00f3ir\u00ed iad sin, agus a n-\u00fain\u00e9ir\u00ed freisin.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plural, anyone?\u00a0 Bair\u00e9id na bp\u00fadal<\/strong> and bair\u00e9id na mbullad\u00f3ir\u00ed Francacha<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

BTW, the one time I had a French exchange student in my Irish class, he just chuckled over the whole rat\/Frenchman thing, so I hope everyone takes it in stride.\u00a0 The most plausible explanation I have heard for this linguistic interchange assumes that rats were unknown in ancient Ireland and that they came over in French ships, hence the “luch fhrancach<\/strong>” concept, mentioned in previous blogposts.\u00a0 I’ve also heard the same thing about coin\u00edn\u00ed<\/strong> (rabbits), the main difference being that we usually consider rabbits to be cute attractive animals, and take steps to attract and protect them.\u00a0 Rats, not surprisingly, are not generally looked upon in such a favorable light.\u00a0 Bhuel, sin \u00e9 don bhlagmh\u00edr seo.\u00a0 SGF — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nasc: How to say \u2018rat\u2019 in Irish and an additional glossary for reading \u2018An P\u00edobaire Breac\u2019 (an t-aistri\u00fach\u00e1n le Se\u00e1n \u00d3 D\u00farois) (Cuid 1 as 2)<\/strong><\/a>Posted by\u00a0r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a>\u00a0on Sep 23, 2017 in\u00a0Irish Language<\/a><\/p>\n

Eolas foilseach\u00e1in<\/strong>: \u00d3 D\u00farois, Se\u00e1n.\u00a0 An P\u00edobaire Breac agus d\u00e1nta eile do ph\u00e1ist\u00ed<\/em>.\u00a0 Binn \u00c9adair, Baile \u00c1tha Cliath, 2004.\u00a0 Gan ISBN sa ch\u00f3ip at\u00e1 agamsa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) Let’s take a short break from the actual vocabulary we’ve been working on for “An P\u00edobaire Breac,” Se\u00e1n \u00d3 D\u00farois’s translation of Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (nasc agus eolas foilseach\u00e1in th\u00edos). With rats as the inspiration, as you can see in the graphic above, I thought it would be fun…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":9692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[5240,287,489813,307069],"class_list":["post-9691","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-francach","tag-french","tag-frenchman","tag-rat"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691","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=9691"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9729,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691\/revisions\/9729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}