Category: Irish (Gaeilge)

Summer schools

By Simon

I had a wonderful time in Ireland last week, which is why I keep going back every summer. This year was my ninth visit to Oideas Gael and my seventh time at the summer school. Gleann Cholm Cille is beautiful, the people are great, and there’s a lovely, friendly, helpful, supportive atmosphere there. Everyone is happy to help one another with the Irish language, with music and with whatever else is needed. People from many different countries go there, so I have opportunities to use a variety of languages – this year I got to speak not just Irish and English, but also French, German and Japanese, and a bit of Czech and Portuguese.

With many local and visiting musicians, singers and dancers musical mayhem can break out anywhere at any time – in pubs, in restaurants and cafés, in car parks, and on the beach – I even played a few tunes on my low whistle at the bus stop while waiting for the bus on Saturday morning. I’ll certainly go back next year, and maybe will spend two weeks there, as there’s a harp week before the summer school, and I’ve wanted to learn the harp for a long time.

There are a few similar summer schools in Ireland and Scotland, and I’ve been looking for others in other countries. I know that some language schools offer combinations of language courses and cultural activities, like dancing, cooking, etc., but I haven’t found any like Oideas Gael. Do you know of, or have you been on, any similar ones? Are there any other places where spontaneous musical mayhem is likely?

Unexpected languages

By Simon

My course in Gleann Cholm Cille finished yesterday and I’m on my why home. I’m staying in Dublin tonight and continuing my journey to Bangor tomorrow. The hostel I’m staying in tonight is full of people from all over the world – so far I’ve heard French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and a Scandinavian language being spoken, and well as various varieties of English. I keep thinking that people are speaking Irish when I only half hear them as that’s the language I’m expecting to hear with my brain in Irish mode. So far though, I haven’t heard any Irish at all.

I had a wonderful time at Oideas Gael, met lots of interesting people, and spoke lots of Irish, as well as a few other languages. I’ll certainly be going back there next year. I just need a few days to recover from the late nights, especially from last night, when I was dancing, singing, playing music and talking to people until 3am.

On Thursday during a tea break one of the other students, an Irish woman, came over and starting talking Japanese to me, which was very unexpected. She worked in Japan for four years and speaks Japanese well, and when she heard that I speak Japanese she decided to speak it to me. As I was in Irish mode and the last thing I was expecting to hear was Japanese, it took me a few moments to realise what language she was speaking. Then when I tried to speak to her in Japanese I found that Irish words were coming to me first and I had to suppress them to let Japanese ones bubble to the surface.

I’m more used to switch between other languages, such as English, Welsh, French and Irish, but this was the first time I’d needed to switch between Irish and Japanese. I’m sure if I needed to do this regularly I would become better at it.

If someone speaks to you in a language you know, but are not expecting to hear, are you able to switch straight into that language?

Gleann Cholm Cille

By Simon

This week I’m in Gleann Cholm Cille in Donegal in the north west of Ireland taking part in the summer school in Irish language and culture at Oideas Gael. There are about 100 people here for the summer school and we have Irish language classes in the mornings and can choose from a variety of activities in the afternoons including singing, dancing, hill walking, drama and cooking. I’m doing the sean-nós singing in the afternoons and am really enjoying it.

In the evenings there are concerts, talks and other events. Last night, for example, there was a concert featuring songs and stories in Irish, hip hop in English (with a strong Dublin accent), and songs in Choctaw, as well as sean-nós dancing. It was a very unusual combination, but worked very well.

My Irish has definitely improved since I was here last year. My focus on Irish this month has helped a lot – I’m still writing something every day on my other Multilingual Musings blog while I’m here.

As well as hearing and speaking a lot of Irish, I’ve also had opportunities to speak German, French, Scottish Gaelic, Czech and Portuguese. People come here from all over the world and speak, and have studied / are studying, a variety of languages, so it’s a kind of paradise for polyglots.

Focus

By Simon

This month I’ll mainly be focusing on improving my Irish (Gaelic). This is mainly because I’m going to a summer school in Irish language and culture at Oideas Gael in Donegal at the end of this month, as I’ve done every year for the past six years, plus two years going there in June. I plan to write something in Irish every day on my other blog, Multilingual Musings, which I set up as a place to practise using my languages, and will make recordings of the posts. I will also listen to Raidió na Gaeltachta (Irish language radio) every day and maybe find things in Irish to read as well.

I think the writing practice will be most useful – I’ve been doing the listening and reading fairly regularly anyway, but rarely write in Irish and often have to check my spelling and grammar. Doing the recordings will be a good exercise as well.

At the end of August I’ll be going to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye, to do a course in Skye Gaelic Songs and Traditions with Mary Ann Kennedy, so will be focusing on improving my Scottish Gaelic in August.

I will also be keeping my other languages ticking over and learning a bit more Breton and Russian every day.

Do you have any particular language projects or goals for this summer?

Archerien

By Simon

An interesting word that came up in my Breton lesson today is archerien, which means police. It caught my attention because it has no obvious connection to the word police, and because it is completely different to the equivalent words in other Celtic languages:

– Welsh: heddlu (“peace force”)
– Cornish: kreslu (“peace host”)
– Irish: gardaí (síochána) (“guards of peace”); póilíní
– Manx: meoiryn shee (“peace keepers/stewards”); poleenyn
– Scottish Gaelic: poileas

The English word police comes from the French police (public order, administration, government), from the Latin polītīa (state, government), from the Greek πολιτεία (politeia – citizenship, government, administration, constitution). It is shares the same root as policy, politics, politician and various other words [source].

Many languages use variants on the word police, e.g. Politsei (Estonian), პოლიცია (polits’ia – Georgian), Polizei (German), पुलिस (pulis – Hindi), پلیس (pulis – Persian), Booliis (Somalia), Policía (Spanish), Pulis (Tagalog), but some do their own thing:

– Bavarian: Kibara
– Chinese: 警察 (jǐngchá); 公安 (gōng’ān)
– Faroese: Løgregla
– Greek: Αστυνομία (Astynomía)
– Hungarian: Rendőrség
– Icelandic: Lögregla
– Japanese: 警察 (keisatsu)
– Korean: 警察 (gyeongchal)
– Thai: ตำรวจ (tảrwc)

Are there other examples of languages with a word unrelated to police for police?

Tag questions, innit!

By Simon

Tag questions or question tags are interrogative fragments (tags) added to statements making them into sort of questions. They tend to be used more in colloquial speech and informal writing than in formal writing, and can indicate politeness, emphasis, irony, confidence or lack of it, and uncertainty. Some are rhetorical and an answer is not expected, others invite a response.

In English they come in various forms, for example:

– I like coconut, don’t I?
– You’re tall, aren’t you?
– He’s handsome, isn’t he?
– She said she’d be here, didn’t she?
– It’ll rain tomorrow, won’t it?
– We were away, weren’t we?
– You’d gone, hadn’t you?
– They’ll be there, won’t they?

A simpler tag question used is some varieties of English in innit, a contraction of isn’t it, which could be used for all the examples above. Other English tags include right? and eh? – do you use any others?

Tag questions in Celtic languages can also have quite complex forms which depend on the verb and the subject in the main clause, particularly in Welsh.

Manx
– T’eh braew jiu, nagh vel? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Hie ad dys y thie oast riyr, nagh jagh? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Bee oo goll magh mairagh, nagh bee? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Irish
– Tá sé go breá inniu, nach bhfuil? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Chuaigh siad go dtí an teach tábhairne aréir, nagh ndeachaigh? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Beidh tú ag dul amach amárach, nach bheidh? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Scottish Gaelic
– Tha i brèagha an diugh, nach eil? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Chaidh iad dhan taigh-òsta an-raoir, nagh deach? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Bidh thu a’ dol a-mach a-màireach, nach bi? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Welsh
– Mae’n braf heddiw, on’d ydy? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Mi aethon nhw nhw’n mynd i’r dafarn neithiwr, on’d wnaethon? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Fyddet ti’n mynd allan yfory, on’ fyddet? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

I’m not sure about how tag questions work in Breton and Cornish.

In other languages things can be simpler:

– Czech: že?
– French: n’est-ce pas? non?
– German: nicht wahr? nicht? oder?
– Italian: no? vero? (positive), non è vero? (negative)
– Polish: prawda? (positive), nieprawdaż? (negative)
– Russian: да? (da?)
– Spanish: ¿no? ¿verdad?

Can you provide other examples?

Grammar and usage

By Simon

Last week a friend suggested that it is grammatically correct to say “I go to the bar now”, even if it’s more usual to say “I’m going to the bar now”. We suggested that in English as spoken in the UK the first would be considered wrong, even though it’s understandable. My friend insisted that this is down to usage rather than grammar; that the first version is grammatically correct, and that in varieties of English spoken in Uganda and other parts of East Africa, the first version is more common. We then had quite a discussion about the differences between grammar and usage.

For me grammar is a description of how a language is used, rather than a set of rules on how a language should be used. Rules in a descriptive grammar arise from usage and can change as usage changes, whereas in prescriptive grammar the rules are seen as absolute and unchanging and are based on a theoretical ideal of the language that few people actually use. What is your view on this?

The simple present tense in standard English is often used to indicate a habitual action, e.g. “I go to the pub every Thursday night”, while the continuous present tense is used for current action, e.g. “I’m going to the pub on Thursday night” (a specific instance). I hadn’t thought much about this distinction until I learnt Irish and found that there are different tense for habitual and non-habitual action: “Tá sé ag dul go dtí an teach tábhairne ar oíche Déardaoin” (He’s going to the pub on Thursday night); “Bíonn sé ag dul go dtí an teach tábhairne ar oíche Déardaoin” (He goes to the pub on Thursday night). The second version might be rendered as “He does be going to the pub on Thursday night” in Hiberno-English.

If you have learnt English as a second/foreign language, do you find the differences between the simple and continuous tenses difficult to grasp? This is likely to depend on whether there is such a distinction on your native language.

Selective attention

By Simon

The other day an English guy who has lived in Wales for many years and who doesn’t speak Welsh told me that when he listens to people speaking Welsh, he hears lots of English words, words derived from English, and words from French or Latin, so he believes that Welsh is made up mainly of such words.

I suggested that such words just seemed to be prominent and ubiquitous because they are the only ones he understands, and that the majority of Welsh words are completely different, though they share the same ultimate roots as words in most other European languages.

He wasn’t convinced, and when asked for examples, could only think of a few: parcio (parking) and ffenestr (window) and pont (bridge).

I can understand why he’s convinced that there are lots of words of English, French and Latin origin in Welsh – selective attention. It’s like if someone says that you don’t see many yellow cars around, you will start to notice ever yellow car and might become convinced that they are more common than they really are.

Have you any mistaken impressions of languages you don’t know?

When I first heard spoken Irish I thought it was mainly made up of the occasional English word, plus lots of agus (and), and mumbling in an Irish accent. Now I know better.

Yezhoù, kanaouennoù ha sonerezh

By Simon

The Breton couchsurfers arrived yesterday, with an Austrian friend, and we’re having a great time. They’ve taught me a bit of Breton, we’ve also talked in French, English, Welsh, Irish and German – I love having opportunities to use my languages like this. I’ve learnt more about Brittany and Breton and have shown them round Bangor – they particularly like the older parts of the university.

Last night we did some silly singing at the crazy choir – a small group of us who get together every other week to improvise songs and harmonies and generally be silly. After that we went to a folk music session at a nearby pub. Tonight we’re going to a cèilidh, which will the first time they’ve been to one, though they do have something similar in Brittany – fest-noz.

Labhair Gaeilge liom

By Simon

I just watched a video of an interview in Irish that Benny Lewis did on Raidió na Life, the Irish language radio station in Dublin. Benny mentions that he has had a t-shirt made with “Labhair Gaeilge liom” (Speak Irish with me) on it and that people who see the shirt speak Irish to him, if they can, even in places where he didn’t expect to find Irish speakers.

What a good idea, I thought. In Ireland you can’t tell if someone speaks Irish just by looking at them, so you never know who to speak Irish to, and people don’t know if you speak Irish either. A t-shirt like Benny’s clears up both uncertainties. The same is true in Wales, Scotland and other places where minority languages are spoken – you don’t know who speaks them. Similar clothing or badges could be useful for other languages as well.

It would be interesting to wander round London, for example, wearing a t-shirt with “Labhair Gaeilge liom” and/or “Siaradwch Gymraeg â fi” (Speak Welsh with me) to say how many Irish and/or Welsh speakers you could find. Or I’m sure you’d get a lot of interest if you wore a badge saying “你可以跟我说汉语” (You can speak Chinese to me).

Have you tried this for any languages?

Could you give me translations of this phrase in various languages so I can put together a new phrases page?