Category: Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig)

Cuddies

By Simon

An interesting Scots word I came across this week was cuddy which means coalfish or donkey and featured in the English translation of a Gaelic song. From the context I knew it was some kind of creature, but which one I wasn’t sure.

According to the Scots Language Centre website cuddy is a Scots word meaning donkey, a foolish person, a saw horse or a vaulting horse. A Scotch cuddy is a pedlar.

Another word that came up that was new to me was gaberlunzie /ɡæbərˈlʌnji/, an old Scots word for a licensed beggar who would seek fees to pray for the souls of other people [source].

Have you come across these words before?

Scottish adventures

By Simon

I’ve been in Scotland since last Saturday, mainly at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye. I’m doing a course in Gaelic mouth music (puirt à beul) and waulking songs (òrain luaidh) with Christine Primrose, and am having a wonderful time.

There are eight of us in the singing class – some from Scotland, some from England, one from Japan and one from Sardinia. The ones from Japan and Sardinia are both professional singers, and earlier today we were treated to some lovely songs from Okinawa, which sound quite similar to Irish traditional songs.

I’ve been speaking quite a bit of Scottish Gaelic, and find that I can now understand most of what I hear in Gaelic and have relatively complex conversations – so my Gaelic has improved a lot since I was last here four years ago. When I don’t know how to say something in Scottish Gaelic I try saying it in Irish and it’s usually understood, though not always.

I’ve also spoken some French, German, Czech and Welsh here, and quite a bit of Japanese. My Japanese is very rusty, but it’s starting to come back. It’s great to have opportunities to speak so many languages 🙂

Spòg

By Simon

I came across the Scottish Gaelic word spòg (foot) in a song I learnt today and it caught my attention because I heard it a couple of weeks ago when I was in Ireland being used to mean foot in English. I thought it might be a Irish word, but didn’t get round to checking.

In Scottish Gaelic spòg /sbɔːg/ means claw, talon, hand, radius, spoke, paw or leg. It is also used for the hands of a clock: spòg an uaireadair.

I can’t find spog in any of the Irish dictionaries I’ve checked, so maybe it’s a word used in Hiberno-English, but which is no longer used in Irish. The usual word for foot in Irish is cos, which also means leg.

Have any of you come across the word spog before?

Gleann Cholm Cille

By Simon

I returned to Bangor from the Isle of Man yesterday after a very enjoyable week at Yn Chruinnaght. I spoke and sang lots of Manx, and heard all the other Celtic languages, except Breton, being spoken and/or sung. I also spoke a bit of French and German, and even some English.

I was even inspired to write a new song while I was there, which is even sillier than my previous efforts.

Today I arrived in Gleann Cholm Cille for the Summer School in Irish language and Culture at Oideas Gael, so am now switching to Irish mode. During the week I’m here blog posts, up-dates on Omniglot and replies to emails might become somewhat sporadic.

Sonic the happy Manx hedgehog

By Simon

Arkan sonney (hedgehog)

Arkan sonney is a Manx expression I came across today that means hedgehog, or literally “happy sucking pig”. Arkan is a diminutive form of ark (piglet), and sonney means ‘affluent, lucky, fortunate, happy’, and sounds a bit like sonic, hence the little of this post.

Another Manx word for hedgehog is graynoge, which is related to the Irish and Scottish Gaelic words for hedgehog: gráinneog and gràineag. The root of these words is gráin (abhorrence, disgust), so they mean ‘the abhorrent/disgusting one’. The Welsh word for hedgehog, draenog, possibly comes from the same root.

According to Wikipedia, arkan sonney, means literally ‘lucky urchin’ or ‘plentiful pig’, and in Manx folklore it refers to a type of supernatural creature that looks like a long-haired pig. It was said that if you caught an arkan sonney or ‘lucky piggie’, which tend to run away from people, you’ll be lucky and will find a silver piece in your pocket.

Sources: On-line Manx Dictionary, Irish Dictionary Online and MacBain Dictionary

Yn Chruinnaght

By Simon

Tomorrow I’m off to the Isle of Man for Yn Chruinnaght (‘the gathering’) – a celebration of Manx and Celtic music and culture featuring performers and participants from the Isle of Man, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. I’m really looking forward to it as it’s a great opportunity to see old friends and make new ones, and to hear, speak and/or sing in quite a few different languages – last year at Yn Chruinnaght I heard all six modern Celtic languages being spoken and sung, and spoke in four of them, and also in French and English.

I’ll be in the Isle of Man for a week, then I’m off to Gleann Cholm Cille in Donegal in Ireland for a summer school in Irish language and culture.

True sisters

By Simon

The word for sister in Irish is deirfiúr /dʲɾʲəˈfˠuːɾˠ/, and it has always puzzled me why this word is so different from the words for sister in the other Gaelic languages: piuthar /pju.ər/ in Scottish Gaelic and shuyr /ʃuːr/ in Manx.

Yesterday I discovered that deirfiúr is in fact a combination of deirbh /dʲɾʲəv/ (true) and siúr /ʃuːɾˠ/ (sister). The word siúr originally meant sister in Old Irish, but came to mean kinswoman. To distinguish sisters from other female relations, deirb (true) was added to it, so the Old Irish word for sister was derbṡiur, which eventually became the Modern Irish deirfiúr – the s at the beginning of siur became f after mo (my), do (your) and a (his), and this mutation became fixed.

In Scottish Gaelic the word for sister came from Old Irish as fiur, which became piur and eventually piuthar.

The Old Irish word siur (sister) comes from the Proto-Celtic *swesūr, from the Proto-Indo-European *swésōr, which is the root for the word for sister in many European languages.

The Irish word for brother, deartháir /dʲɾʲəˈhaːɾʲ/, has a similar history: it is a combination of deirbh (true) and bráthair (brother) and used to be written dearbh-bhráthair or dearbhráthair. It comes from the Old Irish derbráthair, from the Proto-Celtic *brātīr, from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr. In Modern Irish bráthair means brother as in a male member of a religious community or monk. In Old Irish it meant brother, kinsman or cousin.

Sources: Blas na Gàidhlig: The Practical Guide to Scottish Gaelic Pronunciation, by Michael Bauer
and Wiktionary

Obrigados / Obrigadas

By Simon

According to someone who wrote to me today, the words obrigados/obrigadas are only used in Portuguese to mean ‘obligated’, and are not used to thank more than one person. However, according to João Rosa, who wrote the article Obrigado – how to express your gratitude in Portuguese, these words are used to mean ‘thank you’ when talking to groups of people.

Can anybody throw any light on this?

In the Gaelic languages there are different versions of thank you for singular and plural:

Irish: go raibh maith agat (sg), go raibh maith agaibh (pl)
Manx: gura mie ayd (sg), gura mie eu (pl)
Scottish Gaelic: tapadh leat (sg), tapadh leibh (pl)

The plural forms in Manx and Scottish Gaelic are also used when thank one stranger.

Zulu, Swahili and related languages have different forms of thank you for singular and plural, e.g. Ngiyabonga kakhulu (sg) Siyabonga (pl) – Zulu.

Do other languages have different forms of thank you that change depending on who you’re thanking?

Hunting haggis

By Simon

I’ve just finished a new video using Xtranormal – it’s in Scottish Gaelic and features Hamish and Helen (Seumas & Eilidh). Hamish is from Harris in the Hebrides and hunts haggis as a hobby with his haggis hound Hector (who doesn’t appear in the video), and also farms ostriches. Helen is a translator from Beijing who lives in Glasgow and translates between Scottish Gaelic and Chinese. Subtitles are available in English, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Manx and Welsh.

I wrote the dialogue in Scottish Gaelic using basic phrases, plus a few more complex constructions, and translated into the other languages as I went along. While there’s no mention of hovercrafts, or even eels, there is some discussion of whether the haggis is a real creature or not. I also recorded the dialogue as Xtranormal doesn’t support text-to-speech in Scottish Gaelic.

I plan to make similar videos in the other Celtic languages I know, changing some of the details but keeping the same basic structure.

One question that puzzled me somewhat while making this video was what is the plural of haggis? Is it haggis, haggises or even haggii?

Wikitionary gives the plural haggises.

The Haggis Hunt states that the plural is “haggii, although under certain grammatical circumstances it can be haggises or even ‘wee yins’.”

This blog gives the plural as haggis.

Collins English Dictionary gives haggises as the plural.

So it seems that there is no general agreement on the plural – I know not all these sources are equally reliable, but the less than reliable ones are interesting.

Another question is the etymology of the word haggis. The OED states that the origins of the word are unknown. In Scottish Gaelic the word for haggis is taigeis /tagʲɪʃ/, which becomes thaigeis /hagʲɪʃ/ in some contexts. This comes from the Scots word haggis, according to MacBain’s Etymological dictionary – I thought that the Scots word might come from Gaelic, but it seems not.

Purses and sporrans

By Simon

The word purse has an interesting history, I discovered today. It comes from the Old English word purs, from the Late Latin word bursa, which had a number of meanings of the centuries, including skin or leather; (money) bag; scrotum; exchange; and scholarship, allowance, and comes from the Greek word βύρσα (hide, leather).

bursa is also the root of bursar, bursary, purser and reimburse; and of words for purse in the Celtic languages: sparán (Irish) sporan (Scottish Gaelic), sporran (Manx), as well as the French word bourse (grant, purse, stock market, stock exchange), the Spanish word bolsa (bag, exchange, stock exchange, pocket, purse), and of similar words in quite a few other languages.

In British English purse usually refers to a small container used, mainly women, to keep their money, credit cards, etc in – British men generally carry their money in their pockets and/or in a wallet. What do Americans carry their money in?

In American English purse generally refers to a bag used to keep money, keys and other essentials in, especially by women – also known as a pocketbook (?). The British English equivalent the American purse is a handbag.

Sources: OED, Dictionary of Word Origins, Cambridge Dictionaries Online