Rising Roads and Other Rants and Ramblings

March 17 is almost upon us! St. Patrick’s Day is wildly popular here in the U.S. (we love an excuse to party!) and, by mid-February, you can hardly walk through a supermarket or drug store without being nearly smothered in green glitter. In fact, just about anything that can conceivably be tinted gets the green treatment — from bagels to beer, and even rivers and fountains.

Even now, just a few days after Lá ‘le Bríde and less than a week before Valentine’s Day, you’ll see plenty of green peeking through the pink, red, and white at places such as Target and Walgreens. And the offensive Facebook memes have already started.

Yes, this is also the time of year when Irish stereotypes good and bad (many having to do with drunkeness) come crawling out of the woodwork. If I never see that “Irish yoga” meme again, it will be too soon!*

A lot of stereotypes and other oddities that we see around St. Patrick’s Day, however, are not offensive — just based on ignorance and misinformation (and usually perpetuated by Hallmark and yes…more internet memes).

Fortunately, you have your very own geek to set you straight (or to help you set your friends straight)!

*If you haven’t seen this meme (yet!), first, aren’t you the lucky one? Inebriated young women passed out in various awkward poses and surrounded by empty bottles, captioned as “Irish Yoga.” It pops up in my Facebook feed every year, despite numerous complaints to the powers that be.

Focus on language

While misconceptions and misattributions are rife at this time of year (don’t get me started on sugary sweet English rhymes masquerading as traditional Irish sayings, and definitely don’t get me started on leprechauns!), given the usual topics I write about, I’ve decided to focus over the next few weeks on a few things related directly to the Irish language, starting with one that sets my teeth on edge every time I hear it. Can you guess which one that is?

(Of course you can. You’ve read the title of this post.)

No road elevations, please!

It’s everywhere. On tea towels and commemorative plaques. On greeting cards and posters. In modern “folk” songs and schmaltzy choral arrangements. On coffee cups, and even on pub walls! The first time I heard it was in the mid ’70s at the end of each and every episode of the old CBC Wednesday-evening Irish Rovers TV show (Usually appended with a bunch of “Oirish-y” sayings and ending with “and may you be a half hour in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead.” I think I was in my 30s before I realized that wasn’t actually a part of the blessing!)

Yep…you guessed it. It’s the The ubiquitous, unavoidable, so-called “ancient Irish blessing.”

You know the one I mean:

“May the road rise to meet you”*

People absolutely love it. I’ve seen people argue vociferously for its validity, even inventing detailed (and wrong) analysis to explain exactly what “May the road rise to meet you” means.

“The ancient Irish believed that…”. [No, they didn’t]

“The road rising is a metaphor for…”. [No, it isn’t]

Nope. None of that. This famous (infamous?) blessing is based on a mistranslation by someone who either didn’t understand Irish idioms or didn’t know that translating word for word from one language to another can be a recipe for disaster.

*Sometimes rendered as “May the road rise up to meet you” or “May the road rise with you.”

Good news: It actually IS Irish

One positive thing about this saying: Unlike a lot of things that appear on greeting cards, etc., it is actually Irish…in fact, it’s the first line of a blessing IN Irish:

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat

Further, it’s clearly based on a misunderstanding of Irish (and possibly even English) idiom, rather than on someone attempting to write something “Celtic-like” (way too much of that out there!) You can see how, if a person weren’t familiar with the often subtle ins and outs of translation, they could have gotten to this point. I mean, if you really are going word for word, it’s obvious, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Go n-éirí — May rise
an bóthar — the road
leat — with-you (singular)

The problem is, while that may be the literal reading, the phrase doesn’t actually say that. It’s a matter of idiom.

Idioms, idioms!

Before we break this down, let’s take a look at one of the primary definitions of “idiom,” with help from Merriam-Webster.com:

IDIOM 1: an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself, either grammatically (such as no, it wasn’t me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as ride herd on for “supervise”).

English has a lot of idioms for which the meaning can’t be derived from the meanings of its elements (in other words, can’t be taken literally, word for word). For example:

“I ate a ton of chips last night!” (No, I didn’t actually eat 2,000 pounds of chips, though it may have felt like it!)

“It’s raining cats and dogs!” (No, domestic animals aren’t actually falling from the sky!)

What a different a preposition makes!

It should come as no surprise that Irish is rife with idioms too. Most (perhaps all) languages are.

One interesting feature of the language is that certain verbs change meaning when paired with certain prepositions. One classic example is Buail, the basic meaning for which is “hit/strike/beat”:

Bhuail mé Seán aréir: “I hit Seán last night.” (Seán bocht!)

When you pair Buail with the preposition le (with), however, its meaning changes. It becomes “meet”:

Bhuail mé le Seán aréir: I met Seán last night.

You would never translate that sentence as “I hit with Seán last night” (Though I’d love to see the analysis breakdown for that one! “The ancient Irish believed”…no, they didn’t!)

Another word that changes meaning when combined with the preposition le is éirigh — the root form of éirí in the phrase in question.

While the basic meaning of éirigh IS “rise,” in most cases (and this is one of them), éirigh combined with any form of le* means “succeed.”

*Leat is an inflected form of le, and it’s what’s known as a prepositional pronoun. It combines the concept of “with” with the singular form of the word for “you” — tú. For more on prepositional pronouns, see my post from January 2020 — “The Modest Preposition.”

Exceptions, exceptions

Of course there are exceptions. This is a language we’re talking about (and a living language at that!) — there will ALWAYS be exceptions!

In most cases, however, the exceptions are clear cut, and mostly common sense. Éirigh le can mean “rise by/along with/with the aid of,” for example (from Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla):

Éirí leis na héin — Rise/get up with the lark

D’éirigh an leanbh le cos na cathaoireach — The child got up with the aid of the chair leg.

This sentence doesn’t fall into that category, however. The road isn’t rising with your aid (and, given the construction, neither are you rising with the aid of the road). It falls into the much simpler category — “succeed/pass/manage.” Again, with the aid of Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla:

D’éirigh leis — he succeeded

D’éirigh léi imeacht — she managed to get away

And an even closer example:

Má éiríonn an scrúdú leo — if they pass the test (i.e., if they are successful with the test).

Put bóthar (road) in the place of scrúdú (test) above, and substitute leat (with-you) for leo (with-them), and you can see what’s happening here:

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat: May you succeed [on/along] the road

But what about that road? (or what does IT really mean?)

Are we speaking of a literal road here? We could be, certainly. If I were wishing someone a safe drive on California’s Highway 17, for example (a truly hairy road!), I might say “go n-éirí an bóthar leat!”

In Irish, however, as in English, the word “road” can also be a metaphor for a journey, and often particularly for a journey through life. Think of these English expressions, for example:

As you travel on the road of life…

It’s a long and a dusty road, it’s a hard and a heavy load*

In fact, it’s a pretty common metaphor, and it’s the generally accepted interpretation among Irish speakers of bóthar in this sentence.

So what it comes down to is:

May you succeed (or prosper) on your journey [through life]

In essence, it’s an Irish bon voyage!

*Lyric from “I can’t help but wonder where I’m bound” by Tom Paxton

Putting it all together

It’s nice (and helpful!) to see things like this in context. In case you haven’t heard/seen the entire blessing in Irish, here it is in full*:

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat,
Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl,
Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d’aghaidh,
Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna,
Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís,
Go gcoinní Dia i mbos a láimhe thú.

May your journey through life be successful/prosper,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rain fall softly upon your fields,
And until we meet together again,
May God keep you in the palm of his hand.

Isn’t it much nicer when you know what you’re saying? And when it’s correct?

Now, the next time someone wishes you a rising road, YOU can set them straight! (Or just point them to this post!).

*There are several Irish language versions of this, all of which would be translated in the same way.

Coming up next…

This is the first of a few St. Patrick’s Day language posts I have planned for the lead-up to March 17, 2024. Stay tuned for the next installment: “The Saint and the Shamrock”.

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

A Little Piece of…Oh Hell No!

For an American Irish speaker, it’s fun, and rather exciting, to find Irish in unexpected places. Well, usually. At least at first.

It can crop up in all kinds of places — novels, jewelry, songs, TV shows and movies…even tattoos. Sometimes it’s even spelled right (or, in the case of a movie or a song, pronounced correctly) and says exactly what it purports to say. Sometimes.

Often, though, the initial rush of glee is followed by a groan (Or, in my case, a shriek of “Oh hell no! Not again!” I tend to be a little dramatic. Stop laughing…), because the sad reality is that, outside of Ireland (and sometimes even inside of Ireland) the Irish is often just horribly, unjustifiably wrong.

Merry Christmas!

I was thrilled this past Christmas morning to discover a couple of boxes from The Irish Store under the tree (thanks, Tony!). This company carries some beautiful stuff, and I’ve long admired their Irish-themed jewelry.

I do have to say that I’m thrilled with my gifts. I wear the Trinity necklace almost every day, and the Claddagh necklace and earrings are slated to make their debut with the outfit I’ve already chosen for St. Patrick’s Day (Yes, I like to plan ahead. Way ahead.).

The presentation boxes they came in though? Not so much. Irish speakers will have already noticed the problems in the photo above I’m sure, but those of you who don’t speak the language, or who are newer learners (or who just want to see how I’m going to dissect this), read on.

A lovely sentiment, but…

Just in case you can’t see the photo, here’s what is inscribed inside the lid of the box:

In big letters, and all caps:

“A LITTLE PIECE OF IRELAND ESPECIALLY FOR YOU”

That’s certainly a lovely sentiment, and particularly apt because many of their products feature Connemara marble — literally a piece of Ireland!

It’s the Irish “translation” in smaller letters below that inscription that’s problematic:

Piósa beag de Éireann speisialta duites

Yeah. It’s got problems. Lots of problems.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day*

There is actually one word in that six-word phrase that’s 100% correct: beag.

The word beag does mean “small/little.” It’s spelled correctly, is in the correct orientation to the word it’s describing, and is correctly configured to modify a masculine noun (for more on masculine and feminine nouns, see my post on “Making Sense of Irish Gender”)

Yay for correct choices! A good teacher always praises the little things. Unfortunately, it’s about the only one in the phrase.

*Unless you have a 24-hour clock, of course, in which case it’s only right once a day!

Starting at the beginning

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (and again and again): Accent marks matter. Put one in the wrong place, or leave one off where it’s needed, and the word is misspelled, will not be pronounced correctly, and, in some cases, will become a different word entirely.

I wrote a post about this in 2017 that tells you a little about accent marks in Irish (and how to type them on your computer or other device):

Are You a Fada-less Child?

Whoever translated this inscription, however, apparently didn’t get the memo. The very first word of this phrase is meant to be píosa: a word that means “piece/a piece,” and is pronounced PEE-suh (that’s what the accent on the “i” tells you). Unfortunately, what’s written is “piósa” — not an Irish word at all (and God only knows how it would be pronounced. “PYOH-suh,” maybe? Still not a word).

A smaller problem

The next issue with with the preposition de. Fortunately, it’s just a little problem, which befits a little word. *

The good news is they chose the correct preposition here. De means “of/from” in a sense that denotes removal or separation, and that suits the desired meaning perfectly.

The problem is that, before a vowel, as it is in this phrase, de becomes d’.

As a friend of mine put it, this kind of mistake isn’t a capital offense. It’s easy enough to make, especially given that some speakers do articulate such words fully in front of a vowel, even though they wouldn’t write them that way. So I’ll cut them a little slack (but only a little!).

The bigger problem is the word following de: Éireann.

• It’s still a problem, though.

A different case

Most English speakers are blissfully unaware of the issue of grammatical case. In fact, for most of us, the first time we encounter the concept is when we learn another language (if you really want to grapple with case, try Latin).

Irish is usually a relatively easy language in this regard, as typically the only special forms one has to wrestle with are the genitive (which shows possession, or relates one noun to another) and the vocative (used in direct address). There are exceptions though, and guess what one of those is?

Yep…that’s right. The name of the country itself.

If you’ve ever seen an Irish postage stamp, you probably already know that the name of the country in Irish is Éire. So far so good, but that name has two other forms depending on how it’s used in a sentence:

Éireann — the genitive case, used to show a special relationship between nouns, such as possession. When genitive nouns are translated into English, the translation often includes the word “of,” for example Tuisceart Éireann — The North of Ireland, aka Northern Ireland

Éirinn — the dative case, typically used after a preposition.

That’s right — the person who did this translation chose the wrong form. It should be píosa beag d’Éirinn.

You can see what probably happened here, yes? Whoever did the translation probably assumed that the genitive was called for because Éireann is often rendered as “of Ireland” when translated into English, forgetting (or not realizing) that the presence of the preposition de already supplied the “of,” and that the correct form to use was actually the dative Éirinn.

Well, either that or they’d just seen Éireann at some point and decided to run with it, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Especially for you

I have no idea how this one happened, because even Google Translate gets it right. Speisialta doesn’t mean “especially.” It means “special”. While there are some constructions in which it can be construed to mean “especially” (for example tá sé speisialta — “it is especially good”), which have more to do with the way English functions than with Irish, that is not the case here. If you want to say “especially” in this context you need the prefix go — go speisialta, or, as I would prefer, go háirithe.

I’m anticipating someone asking “Well, can’t this be construed to mean ‘A special little piece of Ireland for you?” Sorry…you can’t fix it that way. In that case, speisialta would come after beag: píosa beag speisialta.

The final word

Yes, even the very last word in this phrase is wrong (I have to say again, I’m a bit blown away by how the translator managed to get five words wrong in a six-word phrase!)

What they were aiming for was the emphatic form of the prepositional pronoun duit, meaning “to/for you,” which would have been perfectly appropriate here. Unfortunately, the emphatic form of duit is duitse, not “duites.”

In Irish, when you want to make something emphatic, you add the suffix “se” or “sa” to the word. I don’t know if the “translator” didn’t know that and thought it looked wrong, if they made a typo (and didn’t proofread…grrr!), or if this was the fault of some bizarre form of autocorrect, but whatever the case, “duites” is just plain wrong.

For more on prepositions, and the vital role they play in Irish, see here.

Summing it all up

To sum all this up in one handy place, the inscription on the box reads:

Piósa beag de Éireann speisialta duites

What it needed to be is:

Píosa beag d’Éirinn go speisialta (or go háirithe) duitse

Post script

A couple of people have pointed out that, in the picture, it looks like there’s an accent over the second “i” in speisialta. Fortunately, that’s just a trick of the light. It’s correct on the box itself. Good eyes, though, and the people who pointed this out are correct — if there had been an accent there, it would have been a misspelling.

Why I do this (and why it matters)

Sometimes people ask me why I feel the need to tear apart bad translations such as this one. Some say it’s petty, and quote the proverb Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Bearla cliste (“Broken Irish is better than clever English”).

Well, I have three main reasons, all of which are pretty important to me.

First of all, as a copy editor by profession, it offends me when companies put things out there that they haven’t bothered to have properly translated or verified. It’s really not that hard. There are professional translators out there who would be happy to fix it for you (For a small fee, yes, but when you’re running a business, you have expenses. Such is life). If you don’t want to pay a professional, there are websites out there such as The Irish Language Forum, where there are plenty of folks who will work with you on getting a solid translation (just wait for three to agree!).

Second, these poor translations are injurious to the Irish language. Seriously. Irish is an endangered minority language, and every bad translation out there is harmful to it, especially as poor translations get perpetuated and assimilated. This is especially true when bad translations appear in places where one would expect them to be accurate, such as products from Ireland.

Finally, I see these as an opportunity to teach. Well, to teach and to learn (does that make it four reasons?). When I first started learning Irish, I learned a lot about how the language works by watching experienced speakers dissect translations on “The Irish Gaelic Translation Forum.” Sometimes the best way to really grasp how a language works is to see examples of how it doesn’t. And writing these posts requires me to learn…to ask questions of fluent speakers and learners more experienced than I (even after 20 years, I am, and will always be, a learner).

And as far as Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Bearla cliste goes, I agree, to a point. People who are learning the language should feel comfortable speaking it or writing it without worrying about their mistakes being ridiculed (or even pointed out, unless they’ve asked for input). That’s how you learn. God knows I make my share of mistakes. But when something is put out there by a company or government entity that should know better, or represented as fact in a tattoo or a book, or, even worse, put out there by a company that publishes learning materials, that saying no longer applies, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Yes, I’m back! (again!)

It’s been a busy (and sometimes rough) few years. COVID. New jobs. COVID. Wild fires. Family losses and tons of stress. Exploding toilets (don’t ask!). Oh, and did I mention COVID?

I’ve got several posts lined up, though, and hope to finally get back into the swing of things! If you have something you’d like to see me address here, give me a shout!

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

(The) Rest in Peace

Of all the translation travesties out there, bad translations on tombstones and memorial markers make me the saddest. Someone wanted to honor a loved one or a respected individual with this engraving, didn’t do adequate research, and now their heartfelt sentiment is a laughing stock on the Internet.

The really sad thing is that this particular translation travesty is all OVER the Internet (not only on this person’s memorial), presented as the way to say “Rest in Peace” in Irish.

I guess I don’t need to tell you that it’s horribly, sadly wrong. But you know me — I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s horribly, sadly wrong.

So what’s wrong with it?

As you’ve probably guessed from the title of this post (and from the fact that this is a picture of either a tombstone or some form of memorial marker), whoever commissioned this intended it to say “Rest in Peace.”

Unfortunately, what they have there is not “rest” as in “sleep/repose.” It’s “rest” as in “remainder” (e.g., “I’ll eat the rest of the cookies”).

If that weren’t bad enough, they didn’t even get that right. “The rest” in Irish is “an chuid eile” (literally “the other portion”). Without the definite article “an” (“the”) it’s nonsense. To add insult to injury, “chuid” [sic] is misspelled. Without the definite article, it’s “cuid.”

And then there’s that idiom thing

Wrong word choices and spelling aside, another thing that’s wrong with this is that it’s not how you’d express this sentiment in Irish. Whoever came up with this attempted a direct, word-for-word translation from English, and if you follow this blog you already know that that just does not work.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (and again and again): Languages are not codes for one another.

(I stole that line from someone long ago, and I can’t remember who, but it’s a good one, so I think I’ll keep it.)

Word-for-word translations rarely work between languages, especially not when the languages are as grammatically and culturally different as Irish is from English.

To begin with, “síocháin,” which means “peace” as in “the absence of conflict,” while not wrong per se, is probably not the word that would be used to express this sentence in Irish. A more usual choice would be “suaimhneas“– “tranquility/rest/repose.”

In addition, when we wish a particular state or emotion on a person, we don’t say they’re “in” that state, we say that state is “on” them: “Suaimhneas air/uirthi/orthu” (“Peace/rest on him/her/them”).

This brings up yet another point: In many cases, when translating to Irish, you need to know what pronoun to use. Irish loves pronouns, and will happily use them where a verb might be used in English. If you’re speaking of a person or animal you often need to know either the gender (or the preferred pronouns, in the case of a person) to translate correctly.

“Air” = “on him”

“Uirthi” = “on her”

“Orthu” = “on them

A phrase that you will see on Irish tombstones is “Suaimhneas Síoraí Air” or “Go Raibh Suaimhneas Síoraí Air” — “Eternal Rest be Upon Him” (apply correct pronoun as required). This is the closest you can get in Irish to a direct translation of “Rest in Peace.”

Another phrase you’ll see frequently is “Ar dheis Dé go Raibh a Anam/a hAnam/a nAnam” — “May his soul/her soul/their souls be at God’s right hand.”

How did it get this way?

When we see a terrible translation such as this, the first impulse is to blame machine translation, which doesn’t handle Irish well at all.

With that in mind, I checked Google “translate” to see what it would make of the English phrase “Rest in Peace.” Depending on the capitalization (Google “translate” is weirdly case-dependent), it returned:

Rest in Peace: No translation

Rest in peace: No translation

rest in peace: scíth a ligean — “to take one’s rest/ease”

I’m guessing that, if machine translation was used to produce this, it wasn’t Google.

The horrifying thing, though, is if you plug “Chuid Eile i Síocháin” into Google seeking an English translation, it does give you “Rest in Peace.” Even more horrifying is the fact that you can’t change it. It gives you a chance to “offer a better translation,” but not to say “this makes absolutely no sense.

It’s possible someone used a different machine translator to arrive at this. It’s also possible someone asked a friend/relative who grossly misrepresented their facility with the language.

It’s also possible that the person attempted a word-for-word “translation” from an English-Irish dictionary and (predictably) got it wrong. We may never know for sure.

It’s even likely that whoever commissioned this stone found this “translation” on the Internet. There’s a lot of really bad Irish on the Internet, which underscores the lessons to be learned from this and all other bad Irish translation:

Do not — I repeat, DO NOT — attempt to translate from English to Irish yourself unless you’re fluent in the language. Do not simply use something you found on the Internet (or in a book, or in a song, etc.) without verifying it with an expert. Finally, if you’re not using a paid human translator (which you really should do, if possible), make sure at least THREE PEOPLE AGREE, on the correct translation before doing anything permanent with it. Preferably three people from different sources.

I, and the Irish language, will thank you.

P.S.: I don’t know who took the photo above or to whom the memorial is dedicated. If anyone does know who took the picture, please let me know so I can give them credit.

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

Of all the translation travesties out there, bad translations on tombstones and memorial markers make me the saddest.

March Madness

Ah, spring! Flowers are blooming, birds are singing, St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, and ridiculously bad Irish T-shirts, memes, and posters are cropping up everywhere.

I’m not talking about the offensive, racist stuff one sees at this time of year, though there’s certainly plenty of that (Repeating for those in the back of the class: Things that portray Irish people as drunks, as always spoiling for a fight, as country bumpkins, or as leprechauns are OFFENSIVE. Just don’t do it. Please.)

This is also the season when even people who don’t speak, or plan to learn, Irish seem to like to trot out the cúpla focal, even if it’s the painfully anglicized “Erin go Bragh”*

The shirt pictured came across my desk recently, shared by my friend and fellow Gaeilge geek Michael von Siegel, and it’s just so egregiously awful, I have to dissect it.

* This phrase is a corruption of “Éire go brách” or, as they say it in Munster, “Éirinn go brách.”

But what does it mean?

Short answer: It means absolutely nothing. It’s an ungrammatical mess. But what we really want to know is what the designer intended for it to say, right?

As nearly as I can tell, what was intended was “Kiss me I’m Irish and you are beautiful.” News flash: That’s not what it says.

If we want to get literal (and why not?), what it LITERALLY says is “Kiss ME me/I the Irish language and are you beautiful [?]” (I added the question mark because somehow it seemed even dumber without it).

So, what’s wrong with it?

Let’s start with the first phrase: Póg mise:

Póg does mean “kiss,” and can be used either as a noun or as a verb, so initially it doesn’t look like there’s too much wrong here. Technically you CAN say “póg mé” (we’ll deal with mise in a moment). It’s grammatically sound enough. There’s only one problem:

That’s not how an Irish speaker would normally say “kiss me.”

A very important facet of learning a language is understanding that, even if something is in the dictionary and/or is grammatically correct, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s actually something a speaker of that language would say.

Irish as a language leans more toward noun phrases for this kind of expression. To an Irish speaker, “póg mé,” while understandable, sounds rather rude and abrupt. It’s a command, not a friendly invitation, and it just doesn’t feel natural in this context.

So how would an Irish speaker say “kiss me”? The usual approach would be something along the lines of “tabhair póg dom” — give me a kiss.

Another strange aspect of this phrase is the use of the emphatic form of mé (“me/I”): mise.

When Irish speakers want to emphasize a word, instead saying it more loudly or forcefully, they use what’s called an “emphatic form,” which usually involves adding the suffix -se or -sa. Some words change more significantly, though, and mé is one of them. So, essentially what we have here is “ME” rather than “me” (Or, to sum the whole phrase up, “Kiss ME (dammit!) not that person over there!”)

Tarzan meets the Irish language

Moving on to the next phrase: Mé Gaeilge. 

This phrase has so much wrong with it, it’s hard to know where to start. It even took me a couple of moments to realize that the “designer” meant mé to go with the second line of text, it’s just that weird.

As I mentioned above, mé means “me/I,” so it’s clear, upon reflection, that the designer was going for “I’m Irish.” Aside from the Tarzan-esque nature of this phrase (note the lack of a verb: “Me/I Irish”), this is absolutely NOT the way you would say “I am [something].”

If you’re an Irish learner, or if you happened to read my most recent grammar post, I Am, or Copulating in Irish (yes, it’s a bit cheeky), you already know that the way you say “I am [something]” in Irish is with that little semi-verb known as “the copula”:

Is  _________ mé:  I am ___________

That’s bad enough, but the thing that has Irish speakers rolling in the aisles (or perhaps just rolling their eyes) is that Gaeilge doesn’t mean “Irish” as in “an Irish person.” It’s the name of the Irish language. And no…you can’t just swap them out for each other.

If you’re speaking of an Irish person, you would either use Éireannach or Gael (Éireannach would be understood more as someone actually FROM Ireland — an Irish citizen — whereas Gael can be used to denote Irish heritage).

So, if you want to say “I’m Irish” you have two choices:

Is Éireannach mé

Is Gael mé

Are you beautiful? (asking for a friend)

The third and final phrase on this shirt — agus an bhfuil tú go hálainn — actually gets two things right. Agus does mean “and,” and go hálainn does mean “beautiful.” Even a broken clock is right two times a day.

The problem is with the form of the verb used. An bhfuil is an interrogative, or “question,” form of the verb bí/tá (“to be”). Unlike English, which simply switches word order and uses a rising inflection to ask a question, Irish uses a specialized verb form.

English: Are you beautiful? You are beautiful!

Irish: An bhfuil tú go hálainn? Tá tú go hálainn!

Putting it all together

So, putting this all together, how would you say “Kiss me, I’m Irish, and You’re Beautiful” in Irish?

Tabhair póg dom, is Éireannach/Gael mé, agus tá tú go hálainn

As with any language, there can be many different ways to say a particular thing, but this is pretty straightforward, and will be widely understood.

So how did it get this way?

There are many, many roads to a bad translation, and it can often be difficult figuring out exactly which one led to any particular catastrophe.

Some methods would-be translators try include pulling words out of an Irish dictionary and plugging them into English syntax; asking a “friend” or relative who claims to know Irish (but really doesn’t); using something from a book, song, or piece of jewelry without verifying it first; or trying machine translation. All of these are recipes for disaster.

Often when we see something like this, the first impulse is to blame it on Google Translate (or, as we sometimes call it, “Google Trashlate”) or some other form of machine translation, and with some justification. Machine translation has an abysmal record with the Irish language, and it hasn’t improved much, if at all, since I wrote this post for Bitesize Irish back in 2012.

Given that, one of the first things I do when I’m trying to work out where a bad translation came from is try to replicate it in Google Translate.

This is actually easier said than done, as Google is both case- and punctuation-sensitive, and can deliver vastly different results based on how you capitalize or punctuate your request.

Google also is inconsistent in back-translating. You can enter, for example, a phrase in English and get one Irish “translation” (for better or for worse), but often, if you try to check your result by entering the Irish translation and seeking a translation back to English, you’ll get something very different.

Here are some of the attempts I made with this phrase:

Kiss me I’m Irish and you’re beautiful: Póg mise Tá mé Éireannach agus tá tú go hálainn

Kiss me, I’m Irish and you’re beautiful: Póg dom, is Gaelainn mé agus tá tú go hálainn

Kiss me, I’m Irish, and  you’re beautiful! Póg dom, is Éireannach me, agus tá tú go hálainn!

All of these have serious errors in them, but none of them replicates the errors on the T-shirt. When I enter the phrase exactly as it appears on the shirt, however — Póg Mise mé Gaeilge agus an bhfuil tú go hálainn, and ask Google to translate it to English, it does return “Kiss me I am Irish and you are beautiful.”

Given that, and given that the sites that manufacture such shirts and similar items often do use machine translation, I’m willing to bet that this is the culprit, even though I can’t reproduce the error going from English to Irish. Maybe you’ll have better luck!

Bonus mistake

If the bad translation weren’t enough, the symbol in the middle of the shirt is not a shamrock. Shamrocks have three leaves. Yes, always. Four-leafed clovers are thought of as lucky in many countries because of their rarity, but they have no particular association with Ireland, and are not an Irish symbol.

Summing it all up

I don’t want to discourage anyone from using Irish, on St. Patrick’s Day or any other day. It’s a great way to show your connection to the culture, IF you do it properly, and with respect for the language.

Some options for getting a good translation (or verifying one you’ve found) include:

• Find a professional translator. A Google search can help with this (be sure to use the parameters “Irish language” or “Gaeilge,” not just “Irish”), but do your due diligence. Get references.
• Visit an Irish Language forum. The one I usually recommend is the Irish Language Forum (ILF). Old school forums work better for this kind of thing, because it’s easier to keep track of the process, and to tell who the more expert people are. Remember the very important “Rule of Threes”: Wait to proceed with a translation until at least three people from that site agree.
• Don’t use anything you’ve found in a book, in a song/poem, or on-line without verifying it first. A forum is a good place to do that as well. You don’t want to end up like this poor guy.
• Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use Google Translate or any other machine translation app. Trust me, it will not go well.

Most important of all, approach the language with curiosity and respect. It’s a fascinating language, and learning even a little bit of it is a wonderful way to celebrate your Irish heritage.

Le meas,

GG

P.S.: Yes, the heading above the pictured shirt is wrong too, and by now you can probably figure out why!

 

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

“I am,” or Copulating in Irish

Ha ha…made you look!

If you’re new to Irish, you may be wondering if The Geeky Gaeilgeoir has been hacked by a porn site (Don’t worry. It hasn’t). If you’ve been studying Irish for a while, you’re most likely either giggling or rolling your eyes (it’s an old, old joke).

This post is not X-rated, or even R-rated (though some of the language I’ve heard from people trying to sort out this subject would definitely earn an R rating!). It has to do with one of the most fundamental aspects of Irish (or pretty much any language) — the correct use of what is, in English, the verb “To Be.”

Two “To Be’s” (and They Aren’t Synonyms)

Irish has two verbs that correspond to the English “to be” — bí (the present tense, tá, is more commonly encountered by beginners, so I’ll use that to refer to this verb from here on out) and “the copula” —  is (pronounced to rhyme with “kiss,’ not as “iz” or “ish”).

The thing is, they aren’t interchangeable. Each has its own function, and using one when the other is called for is a serious grammar mistake (often referred to by learners as a “tá sé fear” error — TSF for short — for reasons that will, hopefully, become clear further on).

Figuring out when to use the copula and when to use tá can drive beginners a little bit crazy, and the way it’s usually taught doesn’t often help. We’ll talk about that in a second, but first…

What’s a copula?

“Copula” may sound a little like some kind of disease, but it’s actually just a grammatical term for what is sometimes called a “linking verb.” Here’s what Webster has to say about it:

Definition of linking verb

: a word or expression (such as a form of be, become, feel, or seem) that links a subject with its predicate

It is related to the words “couple” and — yes — “copulate.” In Irish, “is” is the only copula, and it has a very specialized function, as we’ll see here in a bit. It’s really not as scary as it seems at first.

(But if you want to refer to it as “that copulating copula,” be my guest. It’s been called worse.)

Permanent vs. Impermanent

Typically, when new learners are first introduced to this concept, they are told to use is when talking about things that are permanent and tá when talking about things that are impermanent. Unfortunately, this explanation breaks down pretty quickly.

I was chatting with an advanced beginner at the San Francisco Deireadh Seachtaine Gaeltachta (Irish immersion weekend) some years back, when the subject of vegetarianism came up. I gave her the word for vegetarian (feoilséantóir — literally “meat denier”) and asked if she could use it in a sentence (always teaching!).

She hesitated for a second and then said “I guess it would be “Tá mé feoilséantóir,” because I haven’t always been a vegetarian and I might not be one forever, so it’s not a permanent state.”

Unfortunately, the practice of teaching the copula as something used to indicate a permanent state is a set-up for exactly this kind of mistake. You can’t say “Tá mé feoilséantóir.” It’s a TSF error. You say “Is feoilséantóir mé.“

(I do have to say, for the record, that there ARE times when you would use “ta” to describe a new, transitory, or future state, but that requires a special construction using “i” — “in” — that I won’t go into here. Maybe in a later post.)

When you think about it, there is very little about people, animals, or things that is truly permanent. “The tree is tall” — until it’s been topped. “John is alive” — until he’s dead.

In addition there are things that are, more or less, permanent — for example “She is smart” or “Donegal is beautiful” (it is!) — for which we wouldn’t use the copula, at least not in this kind of simple construction. So clearly this isn’t a very useful distinction.

Nouns vs. Adjectives

At one point, when I was an intermediate learner, I overheard a teacher working with beginners offering this distinction:

“Use is when describing something using a noun. Use tá when describing something using an adjective.”

This distinction actually worked pretty well for me for quite a while, because it’s more or less true: If  you want to say “X is [noun]” you use the copula and if you want to say “X is [adjective]” you use tá. Easy peasy, right?

It broke down in practice, however, when I started teaching beginners myself.

Aside from the fact that I often had to explain the grammatical terms, there are too many instances for which this distinction is just too broad.

For example, what if you have a sentence that includes both a noun AND an adjective (“He is a tall man,” for example)?

What about tá sentences that don’t include an adjective (“Tá an madadh ag ithe”: The dog is eating.  “Tá an pláta ar an tábla“: the plate is on the table”)? Maybe they even include an adverb (“Tá an madadh ag ithe go mall”: The dog is eating slowly)!

And what about those “is” idioms indicating likes and preferences that are often among the first phrases we learn (“Is maith liom tae”: I like tea. “Is breá liom fíon dearg”: I love red wine)? In this case, there are adjectives (“maith”: “good” and “breá“: “fine”) directly following the copula.

Tell it Like it is (or Tell Us What it is)

Here’s the method I finally settled on for teaching about the difference, and it holds up pretty well:

• If you want to say something ABOUT something or someone, use tá.
• If you want to say WHAT something or someone IS, use the copula.

You use tá say what something or someone is like: its appearance, its state or condition, its location, what it’s doing, etc. Some examples:

Tá an madadh dubh: The dog is black.

Tá an múinteoir ard dáthúil: The teacher is tall and handsome.

Tá Máire sa chistin: Máire is in the kitchen.

Tá na daoine ag rith: The people are running.

You use is to say what someone or something IS. Some examples:

Is madadh dubh é sin: That IS a black dog.

Is cócaire í Máire: Máire IS a cook.

Is é Seán an múinteoir: Seán IS the teacher.

Is iad na daoine atá ag rith: They ARE the people who are running.

(If you like grammatical terminology, these are called “identification” and “classification” sentences).

You also use the copula in certain basic set phrases, mostly having to do with likes, dislikes, and preferences (there are a few others as well, but you’ll pick those up as you go along):

Is maith liom: I like

Is breá liom: I love (as in “I love New York,” not as in “I love you, my darling”)

Is fearr liom: I prefer

Is fuath liom: I hate

Is cuma liom: I don’t care

There are more of these set expressions, but these are the ones you’re most likely to encounter early on.

It’s not really all that hard at all now, is it?

Is that all there is to it?

Of course, this isn’t the entire story. For instance, both verbs have negative forms, interrogative forms, a past tense, and a conditional mode. Tá also has a continuous mode and a future tense (Is doesn’t need a conditional mode, and doesn’t have a future tense, which is when that special construction using “in” that I mentioned above will come in handy).

But this WILL help you sort out the basic nuts and bolts of when to use tá and when to use the copula, and will help you build the foundation upon which everything else having to do with the verb “to be” in Irish will be built.

With enough practice, you’ll soon be copulating with the best of them!

(Oh, stop rolling your eyes!)

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

The Modest Preposition

A while back, I wrote a Facebook post lamenting the loss of the preposition “from” in the phrase “to graduate from college.” Apparently, in increasingly common usage, one no longer graduates from college, one “graduates college.” (There are lots of reasons why this oddly truncated phrase doesn’t work, which I’ll let Grammar Girl describe in detail. To me it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.).

This led to a discussion about prepositions in general, with predictable side trips into regionalisms/colloquialisms, prescriptivism vs. descriptivism, language evolution (or devolution), etc., but what it all boiled down to was that prepositions are little words and, in English at least, are sometimes easily tossed aside.

(That said, I’ll challenge anyone who defends “graduate college” to explain why he doesn’t also “go school” or “sleep night”).

Me being me (yes, the geek is back!), this got me thinking about the vital role the humble preposition plays in the Irish language.

Little Word, Big Job

First let’s talk about the basic function of a preposition. Here’s what Merriam-Webster has to say about it:

Prepositions show direction, location, or time, or introduce an object. They are usually followed by an object—a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun. The most common prepositions are little and very common:

at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to, with

Further…

Prepositions typically show how the noun, noun phrase, or pronoun is related to another word in the sentence.

a friend of mine

the dress with the stripes

hit by a ball

no one except me

That’s a lot of work for a bunch of small words!

And how they work can vary greatly from country to country and from region to region, as this article demonstrates:

Prepositions: The super-handy and horribly confusing widgets of language, by James Harbeck.

Still, useful and perplexing as they are in English, prepositions take on a whole new job when it comes to Irish. They can take the place of verbs.

Let me explain

Perhaps the above needs a little explanation. It’s not that Irish doesn’t have verbs. Irish has plenty of verbs, and conjugating them drives new learners crazy (Though I’m not sure why. Irish verb construction is really very simple. More on that in another post).

English, however, is much more reliant on verbs to convey meaning. We have a dedicated verb for just about every conceivable action. Give us a concept and we can verb it (see what I did there?).

Irish, on the other hand, often favors a preposition, supported by some form of the verb “to be” to convey the same concepts. For example, in English we have (verbs in bold):

• Seán has a new car
• Máire is sick
• Gráinne loves chocolate
• Síle loves Sinéad
• Éamonn hates tomatoes

The same sentences in Irish (verbs underlined; prepositions in bold):

• Tá carr nua ag Seán. (Literally “Is car new at Seán”)
• Tá tinneas ar Mháire (Literally “Is sickness on Máire”)
• Is maith le Gráinne seacláid (Literally “Is good with Gráinne chocolate”)
• Tá grá ag Síle do Shinéad (Literally “Is love at Síle for Sinéad”)
• Is fuath le Éamonn trátaí (Literally “Is hatred with Éamonn tomatoes”)

“Tá” and “Is” are both words that correspond to the verb “to be” in English (they’re not used interchangeably, but that also is a subject for another post…or maybe a book…or perhaps a small library).

But wait…there’s more!

An interesting thing about Irish prepositions (and a feature of Celtic languages in general) is that they have a special affinity with another class of small words that begins with “P” — pronouns. Irish conjugates prepositions by joining them with pronouns, in a form that is formally called a “prepositional pronoun.”

Knowing how prepositional pronouns work is integral to learning and speaking Irish (unless you want to sound like Tarzan).

Meet the pronouns

You probably remember from school that a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun (which saves us from having to say such things as “Audrey drives Audrey’s car to Audrey’s office every morning. Audrey gets out of Audrey’s car and unlocks the door to Audrey’s office and then goes to Audrey’s desk and checks Audrey’s email” which would be a pretty tedious and cumbersome way to talk, you have to admit).

These are the pronouns in English:

I/me
You
He/him
She/her
We/us
They/them
It

These are the pronouns in Irish:

Mé
Tú/thú
Sé/é
Sí/í
Muid or sinn (“sinn” is primarily used in Munster)
Sibh
Siad/iad

Because all nouns in Irish, animate or inanimate, have grammatical gender, Irish doesn’t have an equivalent of the neuter inanimate pronoun “it.” Also, unlike contemporary English, Irish has singular and plural forms of “you”: tú/thú for singular and sibh for plural.

Putting it all together

In Irish, you can’t just put a pronoun next to a preposition. You must combine the two into a “prepositional pronoun.” For example, you can’t say:

Ag mé

You have to say:

Agam

Here’s the full conjugation of “ag” (“at):

Agam (“at me”)
Agat (“at you” – singular)
Aige (“at him”)
Aici (“at her”)
Againn (“at us”)
Agaibh (“at you” – plural)
Acu (“at them”)

Here are the sentences I used earlier, each with one noun replaced with a prepositional pronoun:

• Tá carr nua aige. (Literally “Is car new at him,” i.e., “He has a new car”)
• Tá tinneas uirthi (Literally “Is sickness on her,” i.e., “She is sick”)
• Is maith léi seacláid (Literally “Is good with her chocolate,” i.e., “She likes chocolate”)
• Tá grá ag Síle di (Literally “Is love at Síle for her,”i.e., “Síle loves her”). Or, if you want to replace both nouns: Tá grá aici di (Literally “Is love at her for her”).
• Is fuath leis trátaí (Literally “Is hatred with him tomatoes,” i.e., “He hates tomatoes”)

What this all comes down to is that, when translating many common phrases from English to Irish, you need to know at least three things:

1) Is this an instance that requires a preposition rather than a dedicated verb?
2) If so, which preposition is required?
3) If I want to use a pronoun, how does that pronoun combine with the preposition?

(There are actually a few more things you have to know, such as “how does the preposition affect a word that follows it?” but we’ll deal with that somewhere/time down the road).

Bad news for wannabe translators

There are myriad reasons why a person who isn’t reasonably fluent in Irish (or in any other language not their own) shouldn’t attempt translations for anything permanent or public. This is one of the biggies. Idioms involving prepositions and prepositional pronouns are integral to the language. There’s just no getting around that. And if you don’t know how to use them, you’re going to get it wrong — guaranteed.

And if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times YOU CANNOT RELY ON GOOGLE TRANSLATE. Seriously. Just don’t. If you need an example or two of how just how badly Google handles Irish, check out this post I wrote for Bitesize Irish a few years back:

Bitesize Irish – Irish Translators

I’m sorry to say it hasn’t improved much in the intervening seven-plus years.

Translator’s bane, learner’s boon

If you’re learning Irish, or contemplating doing so (maybe as a New Year’s resolution!), this may seem a bit daunting. Don’t let it worry you.

The fact that these idioms are so integral to Irish means that you will begin encountering them from your earliest lessons, and the more common ones will become familiar very, very quickly. These include the kinds of sentences you will use over and over again, such as:

• Those involving possessions
• Those involving physical attributes
• Those involving desires, likes, and dislikes
• Those involving health/physical condition

It won’t take you long to begin to get a feel for the patterns. And when you need help, this is one case in which your favorite dictionary can be really useful.

Most dictionaries, whether print or on-line, have extensive entries on prepositions, which will not only give you the prepositional pronoun forms, but lots of examples of usage. Here’s an example from Teanglann.ie:

Ag (at) in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla

You’ll get it — I promise! And faster than you might think.

The Geek is back!

You may have noticed that I haven’t been around for a while (You have noticed, haven’t you? Please tell me you noticed! Actually, if you haven’t, don’t tell me!). Adjusting to working full time after 20+ years of working from home, as well as dealing with some health issues, put a cramp in my style for a bit.

I’m back now, though, and I made two resolutions for 2020:

1. To get this post finished and posted by the end of New Year’s Day (nailed it!)
2. To write more frequently in 2020 (I’m aiming for publishing fortnightly, if possible. Hold me to it!)

If you think of something you’d like me to write about regarding Irish and/or translation, please let me know! You can say it in the comments below or message me via WordPress.

Athbhliain faoi rath is faoi mhaise daoibh! (A lovely and prosperous New Year to you all!)

Le meas, GG

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

Oh, What an Idiom!

Definition of idiom (Thank you, Webster!)

1: an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself, either grammatically (such as no, it wasn’t me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as ride herd on for “supervise”).

2a: the language peculiar to a people or to a district, community, or class :DIALECT

b: the syntactical, grammatical, or structural form peculiar to a language.

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature

Idioms are so much a part of our language — of ANY language — that it can be hard for learners or translation seekers to understand that they may not make sense when translated directly into another language.

We deal with idioms day after day, though we may not be aware of them. Consider these:

• You take a bath
• You make money
• It’s raining cats and dogs

You don’t think about these phrases…they’re just part of how you speak. To you they sound perfectly logical. But imagine how they sound to a learner of your language:

• You’re removing a bathtub from one place to another
• You’re printing your own money
• Dogs and cats are literally falling from the sky

A challenge for would-be translators

Many pitfalls await for people who try to do their own translations without actually knowing the language into which they’re translating. Assuming that idioms can translate literally across languages is one of the most common.

While this can be true for any language, the further you get from familiar English structures and culture, the less likely it is that your idiom will make any sense at all once “translated.”

This is what happened with the shirt on the poor fellow in the photo above (His face and his Twitter handle are obscured to save him from embarrassment, as I doubt he’s the originator of this mistake. It’s been going around the internet for quite a while. He looks sad because he’s just learned that his shirt is wrong).

Whoever “translated” the words on his shirt assumed that the common American English slogan “Go [sports team]” could be expressed literally in Irish.

By now, I probably don’t have to tell you that this is not the case.

Just go

There are two problems here, and the first (and most fundamental) issue is one of idiom.

What the shirt is intended to say is “Go Blue” — a slogan you’ll hear shouted enthusiastically at games by students and alumni of the University of Michigan (whose color is, of course, blue).

Irish has a couple of words that mean “go,” depending on context. The one used here is the verb téigh (Yes, I know that nothing on that shirt looks like “téigh.” More on that in a moment). Another common one is imigh.

Between the two of them, they encompass most of the usual uses of “go” (téigh is more of a general-use “go,” while imigh is more “go” as in “leave/depart”): “Go home,” “Go away,” “Let’s go to grandma’s,” “The road goes ever on,” “Does this bus go to Dublin?” “I go to work every day,” etc., etc.

And, of course, there’s always this one:

Neither of them, however, is used as a rallying cry.

When you want to express something like this in Irish, you use the word abú, which means, roughly, “onward.” And it comes AFTER whatever you’re cheering for.

GORM ABÚ!!!! GO BLUE!!!!

A matter of grammar

The other issue with this “translation” is that, even if “Go Blue” could have been rendered using the verb téigh, the “translator” chose the wrong form of the verb.

Dul is a form known as the “verbal noun,” which, depending on context, corresponds to the infinitive (“to go”) or the present participle (“going”).

Ba mhaith liom dul abhaile: I would like to go home.

Tá mé ag dul abhaile: I am going home.

What was wanted is the imperative — the form of the verb that is used for giving an order or direction.

In Irish, the root form of the verb is the singular imperative, so to tell one person or entity to “go,” you’d simply use téigh.  For multiple people or entities, you’d use téigí. A sports team is a singular entity, so even if this could have been translated literally, the verb form should have been téigh, not dul.

Téigh abhaile: Go home.

The point of all of this

The point of this (and of other similar posts in this blog) isn’t to ridicule the University of Michigan or other groups/individuals who make these very public mistakes. It’s to emphasize the fact that, if you don’t speak a language, you can’t translate into it. You can’t even verify a translation given to you by someone else.

That’s why you absolutely must verify your sources. Check, re-check, and then check again. Even if you get a translation from a close friend or family member, get it verified. Get a minimum of three RELIABLE sources in agreement before proceeding.

Translation is both an art and a science, and it takes more than you might realize to get a correct translation.

New year, new price

Inflation affects the best of us…even translators. The price for both The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook and The Scottish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook will be going up sometime this month. If you’ve been thinking about buying a copy of one or both of them, act now! Both books are available from Amazon and from Barnes & Noble, or from your local bookstore via special order.

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

An Modh Coinníollach, or The Monster of What May (or May Not) Be

Dá mbeinn chomh saibhir is a bhí mé anuraidh
Thógfainn tigh mór ar an chnoc údai thall,
Fíon agus ór ‘siad a bhéarfainn do mo stór,
Is bheinn ag gabháil ceoil le mo chailín rua.

The Monster in the Living Room

I just have to say it. Ever since I started learning Irish, I’ve heard people speak with dread and loathing of the modh coinníollach (pronounced, roughly “mohg kun-EE-lukh”).

“It’s too difficult!” “I’ll NEVER get it!” “Why do we have to have this in the language?” “Can’t we just get rid of it?” (this latter group usually wants to do away with the tuiseal ginideach — the genitive case — as well).

As I’m sure you can imagine, by the time I was an advanced student, I’d built the modh coinníollach up into a terrible monster in my mind!

And I wasn’t alone! I’ve even seen an entire class of advanced students turn white as sheets when the teacher suggested doing a drill on the modh coinníollach. I swear, you’d have thought he’d asked us to rappel down Sliabh Liag using dental floss!

Irish-American comedian Des Bishop had a similar experience:

Des Bishop on An Modh Coinníollach

Meet the Monster

So what is this terrible thing that has been terrorizing Irish students for generations? Well, if you listened to the above video (And you should. Des Bishop is hilarious!), you already know: It’s simply the conditional mode of a verb. 

Furthermore, if you’re a student of Irish, it’s likely that you’ve been using the modh coinníollach from some of your earliest lessons.  Does any of this sound familiar?

Cad é ba mhaith leat?: What would you like?

Ar mhaith leat cupán tae?: Would you like a cup of tea?

Ba mhaith.:  Yes (“I would”)

Níor mhaith: No (“I wouldn’t”) 

Ba, ar, and níor are, in this case, conditional forms of the copula is.

In my case, I’d unknowingly encountered the modh coinníollach even before I started seriously studying Irish, in one of my favorite songs: An Cailín Rua (“The Red-Haired Girl”), the last verse of which is at the beginning of this post:

If I were (dá mbeinn) as wealthy as I was last year,

I would build (thógfainn) a big house on the hill over yonder,

Wine and gold I would give (bhéarfainn) to my love,

And I would be (bheinn) making music with my red-haired girl.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

A Matter of Condition

I suspect one reason the modh coinníollach worries people is that they’re not sure how or when to use it.

Formal grammar terminology can be intimidating if you’re not familiar with it (and sometimes even if you are!). And “modh coinníollach” certainly is a mouthful, even in English (“conditional mode/mood”).

But it’s really not all that bad. Let’s break it down:

Modh = “Mode” or “Mood”:  A distinctive form, or set of forms, of a verb.

Coinníollach = “Conditional”: Something that is dependent on certain conditions.

So, put reasonably simply (or hilariously, if you listen to Des Bishop’s monologue), the modh coinníollach is a verb form you use when you’re talking about something that might or might not happen, depending on other factors (“conditions”):

“If I were rich, I would buy a Ferrari.”

“If I had the time, I would write more blog posts.”

“If it weren’t raining, I would go for a walk.”

The first part of the sentences above tells you what would need to happen (more money, more time, no rain) to make the second part happen (buying a Ferrari, writing more blog posts, going for a walk).

Of course, you can also flip such conditional sentences around:

“I would buy a Ferrari, if I were rich.”

“I would write more blog posts, if I had the time.”

“I would go for a walk, if it weren’t raining.”

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

Another way to keep track of when to use the modh coinníollach, at least if English is your first language, is to link it in your mind with certain English words:

Should

Would

Could

Were (Not as in the past tense — “the boys were playing” — but in the subjunctive — “If I were rich.”).

Don’t be intimidated!

But perhaps the issue isn’t so much knowing when to use the modh coinníollach as knowing how to form it.

The thing is, it really isn’t difficult. It’s certainly no more difficult than other Irish verb forms (which, because of the relative lack of irregular verbs in Irish – there are only 11 – aren’t all that difficult at all).

If you can learn the future and past tenses, you can learn the modh coinníollach, and I’m going to give you some basics to get you started.

Days of future past

With a nod to The Moody Blues*, then, let’s get started.

(*And yes…I know the name of the CD is actually “Days of Future Passed.” But this always pops into my head when I think about the modh coinníollach – you’ll see why in a moment – so I think the band will allow me a little leeway).

If you know how to form the past tense and the future tense of regular Irish verbs, you’re more than halfway to knowing how to form verbs in the conditional mode.

First, change the beginning

For independent verb forms* in the modh coinníollach, the beginning of the word is the same as it is in the past tense. Let’s review those:

1. If it begins with a lenitable consonant, lenite it. Shín sí: “She stretched.”

2. If it begins with an unlenitable consonant, leave it alone: Lean sé: “He followed.

3. If it begins with a vowel, put “d’” in front of it. D’éirigh siad: “They arose/got up.”

4. If it begins with “f,” first you lenite it and then, because “fh” is silent, you also put “d’” in front of it. D’fhan sé: “He stayed.”

* Independent verb forms are those that don’t “depend” on a particle: “an,” “ar,” “nach,” etc. 

Next, broaden your future

The future tense of the verbs above are as follows:

Sínfidh

Leanfaidh

Éireoidh

Fanfaidh

To form the conditional mode, after you change the beginning, if necessary, you make those slender endings (i.e., “i” or “e”) broad:

Shínfeadh sí: She would stretch

Leanfadh sé: He would follow

D’éireodh siad: They would arise/get up

D’fhanfadh sé: He would stay.

Not too bad, is it?

Exceptions, Exceptions

One way in which the conditional mode differs from other verb forms is that the first- and second-person singular  are formed a little differently.

The first- and second-person singular forms in the modh coinníollach always incorporate the pronoun into the verb itself (if you speak a dialect that uses táim and táimid instead of tá mé and tá muid, you’re already familiar with this concept). Technically, these are referred to as “synthetic” verb forms.

For first-person singular, that means that the verb ends in “-inn” (Yeah, I know that seems a little odd.  If it helps you to remember, just pretend that “nn” is an “m.” It kind of looks like an “m” in sans serif fonts anyway.)

For second-person singular, that means the verb ends in “-fá.” I have no mnemonic for you for this one. It’s just one you’ll have to learn. But it’s unusual enough that it’s actually pretty easy to remember.

So, for the verbs we’ve been talking about:

Shínfinn: I would stretch.
Shínfeá: You would stretch.

Leanfainn: I would follow
Leanfá: You would follow

D’eireoinn: I would rise/get up
D’éireofá: You would rise/get up

D’fhanainn: I would stay
D’fhanfá

See how easy it is? Just follow the pattern!

It’s a bit of a struggle at first to remember not to add a pronoun after the word (for example, it’s just shínfinn, not shínfinn mé, because the pronoun is already incorporated into the ending), but it’s just a bit of practice…nothing insurmountable.

First- and third-person plural

First- and third-person plurals are also different, and require a little bit of memorization. The ending for first-person plural is “-mis.” For third-person plural, it’s “-dís.”

Shínfimis: We would stretch
Shínfidís: They would stretch

Leanfaimis: We would follow
Leanfaidís: They would follow

D’éireoimis: We would arise/get up
D’éireoidís: They would arise/get up

D’fhanfaimis: We would stay
D’fhanfaidís: They  would stay

Again, these are synthetic verb forms, so don’t stick a pronoun on the end…it’s already there.

Is that all? Of course not!

Some time in the future (when I have time to sit down and write again) we’ll explore the negative and dependent forms of the conditional mode. In the meantime, spend some time practicing what I’ve given you here.

Really, the point of this post is not to make you an overnight expert, but to minimize the angst that seems to surround what really is a very basic and simple verb form.

Don’t shy away from it! It really is no more difficult than any other verb form. Why it’s developed its fearsome reputation I have no idea, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you avoid it.

You would be much happier, and you could find yourself much more comfortable with conversational Irish, if only you would let go of your fear!

An modh coinníollach abú!

The featured picture at the top of this post was taken on midsummer eve in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare. The cottage is in a little holiday village where I and some friends stayed for a week, making music and seeing the sights. © 2008, by Audrey Nickel.

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

O Say, Can You Say…?

In the 14+ years I’ve been learning Irish, I’ve noticed that, among learners (including myself), there’s a particular pattern of what I call “freakoutage” — i.e., things that make you clutch your hair and moan “Oh no! I’ll never learn this!”

It’s a very particular pattern, and it goes like this:

• Freaking out about pronunciation
• Freaking out about dialects
• Freaking out about the use of tá vs. is.
• Freaking out about how to answer “yes/no” questions
• Freaking out about Irish verbs in general
• Freaking out about certain verb forms

And it’s not just beginners! Far from it! In fact, I was once part of a class of advanced learners — people who can chat fairly comfortably on a wide variety of topics — who froze in wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror when the teacher cheerfully suggested “Let’s practice the modh coinníollach!”

(The modh coinníolach is the conditional verb form — would, could, should, etc. — and for some reason that I really don’t understand it strikes terror into the hearts of Irish learners everywhere).

At some point I hope to talk about each of these in this blog, but for right now, let’s start with the most basic.

The elephant in the room: pronunciation

Once you’ve cracked the code, it can be hard to believe that you ever struggled with Irish pronunciation.

For an absolute beginner, however, the first time you look at an Irish word and then hear it pronounced (and realize that nothing that came out of the speaker’s mouth sounded remotely as you’d assumed it would), the prospect of actually learning to speak the language can seem pretty overwhelming.

The truth is that Irish spelling and pronunciation are surprisingly regular, particularly when compared with English (the language that gives us “through,” “though,” and “tough,” to name just a few of English’s inconsistencies!).

You can learn it. You CAN crack the code. And I’m going to tell you how.

First, forget all you think you know

Usually the first thing I hear when I pronounce an Irish word for someone is “How can that possibly make those sounds?” 

People tend to assume that letters have more or less absolute values, and that, perhaps with a few exceptions, they should sound more or less in one language as they do in another.

Language learners learn fairly quickly that that’s not always the case. Some letters and letter combinations in Irish sound like their counterparts in English, but many do not. Sometimes the difference is subtle and sometimes it’s quite marked.

Irish words also often seem to have more letters than they could possibly need.  One reason for this is an Irish spelling convention that dictates that a vowel on one side of a consonant or consonant combination must be matched with a vowel of the same type on the other side.

This rule is referred to as caol le caol agus leathan le leathan (“slender with slender and broad with broad”).  The “slender” vowels are i and e, and the broad vowels are a, o, and u. Often, when you find three vowels together in Irish, one of them is there simply to satisfy this spelling rule.

Add this to the fact that consonants and consonant combinations often make very different sounds to their counterparts in English, and you can find just about everything you know about spelling turned upside down.

If you go in without the expectation that things will “sound like they’re spelled” (a phrase I’ve come to hate, as they DO sound like they’re spelled…if you speak Irish! English is not the arbiter of the alphabet!), you’ll have an easier time right from the start.

Next: Forget Phonetics

It is so very tempting, when you hear an Irish word, to write it out using English phonics, or to ask the teacher to do so for you. So it may come as a surprise to you when I say that this is one of the WORST things you can do if you truly want to learn to read Irish as written.

There are a lot of reasons why writing things out “phonetically” is a bad idea. Here are just a few of them:

• The sounds of Irish cannot be accurately represented by English phonics.* Consider the word gaoth (wind) for example. When people attempt to write it with English phonics, it usually gets set down as “gwee.” The problem is, while there is a sound in there that sounds a little like an English “w,” it’s not precisely equivalent. You can hear it pronounced in the three major dialects here:
  
  Gaoth
  

• Phonetic renderings impose an extra step between your ear, your eye, your mind, and your mouth. When you use English phonics to describe Irish sounds, you’re not really learning to associate the sounds with the Irish spelling, which can make learning to read and pronounce Irish doubly difficult.

• Phonetic renderings can quickly become a crutch. I’ve known several people who never have learned to pronounce Irish as written, even after years of study, because they haven’t been able wean themselves off their English phonetic renderings (and at least one guy who claims it’s “impossible” to learn how to pronounce Irish as written and is trying to promote a new, English-based Irish spelling system. How sad is that?).

* Someone here is bound to mention IPA. Yes, the International Phonetic Alphabet is capable of representing pretty much any sound. It also takes just about as much time to to learn as Irish phonics, and presents the same problem as using English phonetics when it comes to putting a barrier between you and the written language. Save the IPA for another day.

See it; hear it; say it

So how do you learn to pronounce written Irish? The answer is so simple you’re going to think I’m pulling your leg. So simple, and yet so vital:

• You see the word or phrase
• You listen to a recording of the word or phrase
• You say the word or phrase

What you need to do is establish a link between the word as it appears, the word as it sounds, and the word as it’s said. There is absolutely no substitute for this kind of practice if you want to learn to read Irish as written.

Don’t sit there and think to yourself “How can this possibly be pronounced like that?” Just accept that it is and learn it. It really is just that simple, and you’ll be surprised at just how quickly it works.

Of course, there are details

They say the devil is in the details, and if you want this method to work well for you, you need to give that devil his due. If you go about this randomly, at best it will take much longer to learn and at worst you may find yourself so confused that you give up.

Here are a few words of advice:

• If you don’t have a teacher, pick ONE self-teaching method that has both a written and an aural component and stick with that one until you’ve finished it. This is important advice for learning Irish in general, and especially important if you want to get a solid grasp on how to read it as written. Don’t worry about dialects at this point. You’re just trying to get the basics, without confusing yourself too much. Once you’ve got those down, you can adjust your pronunciation as needed. I list several good resources in my blog post “Beyond Duolingo.”
• If you do have a teacher, ask him or her if you can make a recording of vocabulary words and phrases/sentences from the unit you’re working on.
• For now, avoid YouTube “pronunciation” videos. Yes, all of them (unless, of course, they’re part of the self-teaching method you’re using or of the program your teacher is using). Some of them are good, some are “meh,” and some are outright horrible. You don’t want to confuse yourself, and you certainly don’t want to establish bad habits right from the start! Those videos can wait until you’re a little farther along.
• Practice daily, or more frequently if possible. Spend at least a few minutes every day working with your recordings. Look at the word or phrase you’re learning while you play the recording and again while you try to emulate the recording. See it; hear it; say it. Some self-learning programs, such as “Enjoy Irish!,” even have apps available for your phone, so you can spend a few minutes practicing during your lunch break (or on the bus or train if you don’t mind people looking at you funny!).
• Every so often, reverse the order: Look at the word or phrase first, try to say it, and then compare what you said to the recording. This will allow you to assess your progress. When you get to the point where you’re pronouncing things correctly most of the time, and it’s just a matter of refining pronunciation rather than trying to work out how all the letters sound, you’ll know you’ve cracked the code.

Practice makes perfect

It may be a cliché, but it’s true nevertheless. If you work like this a little each day, pronunciation of written Irish will come to you more quickly than you may have dreamed possible when you first began.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there, get a good learning method (if you don’t have one already) and start practicing!

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day! Lá ‘le Pádraig sona daoibh!

Happy Learning!

GG

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In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of  The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada.  For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.