#irish grammar

[an-spideog]

Tá vs Is

Something that a lot of learners struggle with in Irish is when to translate "is/am/are" as "tá" and when to use "is".

Tá is a form of the verb bí in the present tense so anything I say about it applies to all of its forms. Is is something called the "copula" and again what I say about it applies to its other forms.

So for example you would say "Tá mé go maith" for "I am good" but you would say "Is múinteoir mé" for "I am a teacher". This kind of gets across the most basic rule which is that you use is when you're linking together nouns or pronouns:

Is múinteoir é - He's a teacher

Is múinteoir maith é - He's a good teacher

Is múinteoir é an príomhoide - The principal is a teacher

Is mise an múinteoir - I am the teacher

Is é an múinteoir é - He is the teacher

You can probably see above that the syntax can be a little bit complex there, the words aren't always in the same order as english and the structure can change depending on things being definite ("the teacher") or indefinite ("a teacher"). But I won't go into the details of that in this post.

Whereas you can use tá for other things, but not for linking nouns or pronouns together.

Tá sé anseo - He is here (adverb)

Tá sé go maith - He is good (adverb, kind of adjective)

Tá sé ard - He is tall (adjective)

Tá sé ar an mbord - He is on the table (preposition)

Something to note is that you can use the copula 'is' to link nouns and adjectives and nouns/pronouns like you can with tá, but it's less common and is more used for emphasis these days.

Is mór an fear - The man is big

Is láidir na mná - The women are strong

Or in another but more common structure

Is mór an fear é - He is a big man

Is láidir an bhean í - She's a strong woman

Let me know if you have questions about any of this or if you want me to go more in depth with the structure of the copula since I do think it's quite a complex part of the language.

[uritur-infelix]

Learning Irish political vocab so that I can understand more of the documentaries that I'm watching. Now I can say things like "titim an chumannachais" ("the fall of communism"), "réabhlóid" ("revolution") and "dialathas" ("theocracy") in Irish.

Also coming to terms with how "-ach" mostly denotes adjectives, while "-aí" denotes people/nouns:

"daonlathas" ("democracy") "daonlathaí" ("a democrat") "daonlathach" ("democratic")

"sóisialachas" ("socialism") "sóisialaí" ("a socialist") "sóisialach" ("socialistic")

The exception seems to be "poblachtach", which can be either an adjective and noun. The only way to distinguish them seems to be in the nom. pl. ("-aigh" vs "-a"):

"na Poblachtaigh" ("the Republicans")

"dreamanna poblachtacha" ("republican groups")

[scamallach-1]

Today I learned some prepositions as Gaeilge, personal pronouns in combo with ‘Do’. It’s making sense to me so far, though I’m taking small steps. Anyway just wanted to note that for myself here.

[ly0nstea]

Irish Grammar Lesson! Ceachta Gaeilge Grammadaí! Urú or eclipses

The urú is the unofficial partner of the séimhiú, seeing as they both add a letter to the beggining of a word.

When adding an urú, you add one (and with one case two) letters before the first letter.

Each letter which takes an urú takes a different letter. The letters which take an urú ar b, c, d, t, g, p, and f. After the urú, they become mb, gc, nd, dt, ng, bp, bhf.

The way I remember them is a mnemonic I was taught in secondary school which goes, My Brother, Got Caught, Not Doing, Dishes Tonight, Nobody Gets, Blueberry Pie, Before He Finishes. The initial of each words tells you what the urú is.

Thanks to @elodylie for letting me know her mnemonic is Many Boys, Go Camping, Near Ditches, BeHind Fences, No Girls, Back Packing, Down There! Each capital is the letters in the urú (note here the urú for f is one word despite being 2 letters which is why the H is also capitalised).

When pronouncing the word with an urú, you skip the original letter, and pronounce it as if the initial letter was replaced by the urú. With the exception of 'ng' which is closer to the ng sound we see in words like running, walking, etc. in English

Note there is a non-urú eclipse on vowels, when eclipsing a vowel (using all the same rules below) you prefix the eclipsed word with 'n-', e.g. ceol na n-éan, though sometimes the n is added to the end of the previous word like the phrase in éirinn

So when do you add an urú?

When talking about possession, all nouns following a plural pronoun (ár, bhur, a - our, your, their) take an urú. e.g. Cat goes to A gCat (their (pl.) cat). (note that when adding an urú to a capitalised noun, you generally keep the original capitalisation while leaving the urú lowercaseas above)

Eclipsion also happens after the preposition i.

When counting objects 7-10, seven boats are seacht mbád, nineteen boats are naoi déag mbáid.

Words following an in the interrogative tense (not when using an as in the word The) as well as words following nach, and go, as well as dá, sula, mura, and cá.

They are also added after genitive plural nouns following 'na' and dative singular nouns following 'an' though these are a little wordy and technical. The video below explains it well but essentially, if you're saying __ an __ where the first gap is a preposition (ar, ag, faoi, etc.) and the second gap is an eclipsable noun, eclipse it.

Note that adjectives are not eclipsed regardless of the rules above.

This video is also good to learn about the urú.

And like with the séimhiú post, don't sweat it! It isn't that big of a deal if you mess up, even if you only remember the possession rule, you won't run into any major issues with the meaning being changed.

[devilish-parrot]

live

laugh

liom leat leis lei linn libh leo

[sanctus-ingenium]

A certain fisherman [...] went to the same place again to fish, and he put a row of hooks on his heels in case he met the Púca again; he attached them like a horseman's spurs. When evening drew near, he made a halter of the fishing-line for the Púca. The Púca met him the second time. He himself caught the Púca, put the fishing-line over his head like a halter, and started to ride him. He drove him wherever he wanted to go, and he kept putting his heels with the hooks like spurs to the Púca's sides, so that the Púca was shedding blood from the pricks of the hooks.

Excerpt from "The Púca: A Multi-Functional Irish Supernatural Entity" by Deasún Breatnach

buy a print of this piece here :>

[an-spideog]

Thinking of making a post and maybe some youtube videos under the title "a guide to irish sentence structure".

Is this something you'd be interested in? What about irish sentence structure do you have questions about?

[aeolianblues]

Not an easy feat to be in a band with five people, for each to have a distinct personality that adds to the sound and that isn't in the background.

Fontaines comfortably go and do interviews with one member on behalf of the band, and they actually all come across as thoughtful, motivated individuals with musical ideas and direction, you get the sense that every member of this band contributes thematically to the music on the album and it isn't simply about writing guitar riffs and leaving the meaning of the album to Grian to sort out. And that's why any of them can go onto a serious podcast or Radio 1, and talk all about what lies at the heart of a particular piece of work Fontaines have done.

Some songs will come from other members of the band fully. Carlos can talk about Big Shot because he wrote it. Grian can talk about it because he interpreted Carlos' writing, and because he's a good friend of his and has an inkling of what he's thinking about (Rolling Stone interview, Skinty Fia track by track, just before the album dropped). Carlos talking about Horseness and his baby daughter. Curley talking about Sundowner and the shoegazy inspirations, and the guide vocals he laid down for Grian. Carlos and Curley talking about how they jokingly challenged each other to write 'the ballad one' they'd been threatening to do for years and ended up with You Said (most beautiful song on the planet, I do not take opinions on this). Deego being able to talk about basically any song on the album enough to hold down an hour long songwriting podcast interview. Grian talking about Deego's bass work on In ár gCroíthe go Deo, praising Deego's writing as a bassist and the emotion he drew out of the song by deliberately choosing to play just one note. Carlos' 'vacuum cleaner' guitar sounds. The reason why there are no drums on the bridge of I Love You. Tom giving Skinty Fia the album it's very name, Grian using in the title track to talk about warping/mutated family ties and expectations, and on Roman Holiday to talk about Dublin and Ireland. Damnation of the deer. Corruption of the traditional. Everything is deliberate. There is no dead weight in this band; every part of them is so crucial to them sounding, being and making what they do in this band.

It's in the way we know the others in the band as well, it's not just Grian and 'the other guys' as vague background characters you wouldn't recognise. I do admit there will be casual fans who don't know anyone but Grian, but the minute you want to delve a little deeper, the minute you hear or read even a single interview with this band, you get all these different personalities that shine through.

Perhaps it would've broken another band to have such strong personalities in it. Usually when people talk about 'creative differences', they talk about strong and opinionated personalities clashing. But this band's love and dedication to art as the higher cause than personal ideas and petty squabbles is so evident. Their own friendship too, looking out for each other, having known each other since about 18 or 19 presumably, making sure you're in sync with your friends but also allowing them each the space to contribute something of their own that's not just background accompaniment. I think that makes Fontaines special, and long may it continue.

[funfairsundaes]

✨💚☘️💚✨☘️☘️☘️✨💚☘️💚✨

!!! Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh !!!

!!! Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you all !!!

✨💚☘️💚✨☘️☘️☘️✨💚☘️💚✨

[royalthorned]

thinking about catholic northern irish lilly. lilly whose identity has been belittled everywhere she goes. lilly who lives through 2 wars. lilly who's desperate to have a connection to her country. lilly whose sister marry's an English man. lilly who's physically a caricature of the irish. lilly who tries to learn irish. lilly who lives in fear at home and at school. lilly who wants her people, irish and muggleborns to be safe.

[kevin-ar-tuathal]

Leid foghlamtha Gaeilge ☺️🤗

Hey there, this is actually a really good starting point!

I have some information on this, so I hope you don't mind me infodumping here, hopefully with the effect of increased understanding of Irish vowel combinations 🤣😄😁!!

Because of the way the Irish sound system is structured, we (like Ukrainian, and other Slavic languages) need to indicate whether consonants are "slender" (top and bottom lips DON'T touch) or "broad" (the edges of the top and bottom lips touch)*.

While in Ukrainian (and other Slavic languages) they (basically) just use a letter <ь> in written language to indicate whether a consonant is slender or not, Irish uses vowels 🤗.

If a consonant is slender, it WILL be followed and/or preceded by either <i> or <e>, and if it is broad, it'll be followed by either <a> <o> or <u>.

Hence the old adage: "Caol le caol, leathan le leathan" - it's just, no one associates that with spoken language, and think it's simply a spelling rule 🤷 #ILoveTheIrishLanguageCurriculum /s

In any case, this means that many vowel sounds that WOULD technically be the same sound, have different ways of spelling, to indicate whether the consonants before and after then are broad or slender 💡!

For example, "ea" and "ai" are technically the same vowel sound, only "ea" begins with the lips apart and ends with lips touching, to form the consonants around them, and "ai" starts with the edges of the lips touching, and ends with them apart - try saying "bean" (woman) and "caith" (throw, etc.) for example 😁🤗.

The notable exception to this is "ae" - despite ending with an <e>, this vowel combo is all broad - for example, "Gael". In order to 'slenderise' the end, we add in an <i> - as in, "Gaeilge".

(the "all slender" equivalent of this vowel sound is "éi", as in "éin" (birds), and the 'slender start, broad finish' is "éa", as in "tréan" (strong))

Have a play around with all the vowel combos in Irish to see which ones are the same, only indicating how the vowels around them are pronounced 😁✌️

* the difficulty is describing how "broad" and "slender" vowels/consonants are formed when the consonants use both lips anyway, like <p>,<b>,<m>,<f>,<bh>,<mh> - the best way I can describe the difference here is that, when broad, your lips are pursed "bó", whereas as they're spread wide when slender "beo"

While individual letters are straight forward to pronounce in irish, I find that two vowels together can still sometimes trip me up. I've made a non exhaustive list of the vowel combos. Please note that pronunciation is dependent on dialect.

They are each listed as (irish letters)-(english pronunciation)-(example word)

If there's any mistakes please let me know too.

[atlantic-riona]

when you want to try learning Irish again but all of the adult learner textbooks make you want to scream

[finnlongman]

Me having conversations in Irish in person: fine, good, my grammar's shite but no one will notice if we go fast enough, throw in an English word and move on, I'm coasting on a semi-convincing accent and hoping for the best

Me having conversations in Irish in text/online: I am illiterate don't look at me

[an-spideog]

I saw someone saying that "english needs its own version of the modh coinníollach" and if they were joking then that's a banger joke, but I know there's a lot of people who might not realise that english does have an equivalent. For whatever reason, there are some grammar points which - especially when taught in secondary school - are only ever referred to in Irish, which I think makes people more confused about them. But modh coinníollach just means "Conditional Mood", moods are different from tenses strictly, but in practice it's very similar to just having another "tense", or another way to conjugate verbs to provide meaning. And we do have that in English, with "would" Déarfainn - I would say Dhéanfá - You would do An mbeifeá - Would you be? This also happens with the Tuiseal Ginideach, which means "Genitive Case". Now to be fair, to most people "genitive case" isn't much more helpful to most people, but if you have experience with a language like german or latin which has cases, you might understand it quicker.

I've always loved the modh coinníollach tbh. Clearly someone complained about it once and the anti-irish language brigade were just like yeah sure this is the worst thing ever and I'm gonna bring it up whenever someone mentions Irish. But as Irish tenses go it's not that complicated is it. And it unlocks a new way of speaking for you

[wearethekingdom]

Má tá rud amháin is fuath liom níos mó ná aon rud eile tá sé daoine a bhfuil ag déanamh Béarlachas den Gaeilge Mar shampla i teideal féile ná imeacht. Cén taobh a bhfuil tú ar? Agus an bhfuil tú cinnte? Níl sé chomh deacair sinn Samhain nó gluaisteán a litriú, i ndáiríre déann iarracht!

If there's one thing I hate more than anything, it's people who anglicise irish. For example, in a title for a festival or an event. Who's side are you on? And are you sure? It's not that hard to spell Samhainn (November) or gluaisteán (car), seriously, make an effort!

[uritur-infelix]

Ok, note to self:

dar = do/de + ar (indirect relative present copular)

darbh = do/de + arbh (indirect relative past/cond. copular)

dár = do/de + ar (indirect relative used with most past tense verbs)