BS: Gaelic word.

Subject: BS: Gaelic word.
From: GUEST,Monoglot.
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:14 AM

A friend wrote a word in an E-Mail, and thinks it's Gaelic (I don't know whether Scottish or Irish etc). I couldn't find it in a Dictionary; the word was "Fuinseog" (which might have been supposed to be "Fuinse Og"?) Can anyone help?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:19 AM

Fuinseog is ash tree. (I looked it up)

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Emma B
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:19 AM

Crann fuinseog is the ash tree

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:22 AM

Beat ya Em! hee hee

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: GUEST,Monoglot
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:53 AM

Okay, it was a very small Dictionary that I used! Thanks for quick response; could some one now please oblige by giving a phonetic pronunciation? Would it be "Foon-shock", say, or "Finn-shoch" or what?

Subject: BS: Pronunciation of a Gaelic word
From: GUEST,Monoglot
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:56 AM

Just in case Sorcha or Emma don't read my last posting to the thread they already answered, could they or anyone else please help with a phonetic pronunciation of "Fuinseog", the Ash Tree? Is it, say, "Finn-shoch", or "Foon-shock", or what? Many thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Declan
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 11:18 AM

Pronounced roughly as Fwin (i.e Win with an f sound before it) Shogue (rhymes with Brogue, Pogue).

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: GUEST,Monoglot
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 11:20 AM

Thanks, Declan; very clear.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 03:40 PM

Was it the Christian Brothers in Ireland who invented the impossible spelling for Gaelic, and was it done on purpose to promote Latin?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: ard mhacha
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 04:12 PM

I hear they also invented the long-winded German words.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 06:44 PM

litriú dodhéanta ? cé dó ?

Le gach dea-mhéin,

Micheal Mhor

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 06:58 PM

Bill Bryson reckons the Irish language was invented by two commities. One for the spoken language and one for the written. And the two never met:-)

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 03:11 AM

There are no long-winded German words. Never. We merely leave out the blanks between the successive words if they stand for a single concept,
so where you have to write "the winner of the world championship in ice hockey" and the French even have to use nine words after the article to express "le vainqueur du championat du monde en hockey sur glace", the Germans instead of writing the long-winded "der Sieger der Eis Hockey Welt Meister Schaft" simply write
Eishockeyweltmeisterschaftssieger.
And we write no long-winded sentences either.

Wolfgang (:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: ard mhacha
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 05:08 AM

Good on you Wolfgang,I have no problem with that Hockey `clothes line` word, I er think. Now as for long-winded sentences there lived not too long ago a little mustached German, who went on and on and on.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Declan
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 06:34 AM

It might not seem so, but the spelling of Irish was actually considerably simplified in the middle of the last (20th) century by the introduction of the Caighdeán Oifigiúl do litriú na Gaeilge. Before that it was much more complex.

The title translates as the Official Standard for spelling of Irish (Gaelic). It is pronounced (sort of) like Ky-John If-ig-ool de lit-roo nah Gay-leg-eh.

If I am not mistaken this work was carried out by the early Irish Government rather than the Christian Brothers although the CBs probably had a hand in it somewhere. My experience of a CB School was that there were many who loved the Irish language even more so than Latin. We had one particular Brother who used to throw you out of the classroom for speaking English - even during the English Lesson.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 07:02 AM

Wolfgang

I've been known to claim that I abandoned my attempts at learning German when, on holidays in Austria many years ago, I spotted the cap badge worn by our bus-driver. It had just one word on it: fremdenverkehrsverbandwagenfuehrer ! I tried to imagine writing poetry in such a language - and failed!

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: ard mhacha
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 03:03 PM

fremdenverkehrsverbandwagenfuehrer, wasn`t Ward Bond a wagon master, never mind Wolfgang, Berlin was brilliant,the people were helpful and friendly, well worth a visit.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 03:12 PM

I look forward to visiting Berlin at some stage. On a recent vist to Croatia I found myself having to delve in the depths of my memory to produce some German - given that both Croat and Italian are terra incognita to me (Latin pedants please keep off!)

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 07:12 PM

And no long-winded sentences do you write, surely?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 08:10 PM

Frequently! But I try to keep the words themselves short and to the point!

Regards

p.s.I take the serious point that complexity can be introduced at more than one level.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 09:54 PM

"the impossible spelling for Gaelic"
How about English?
Phlugh = fluff (PH as in phone; Gh as in enough) "fluff"

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: GUEST,guest12
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 03:57 PM

hi everyone, my brother and I are looking at getting a tatto with the irish gaelic word for brothers which we think is dearthaireacha also if this is the right word how would it look in the irish gaelic alphabet, thanks for your help.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: MartinRyan
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 05:36 PM

If you'd like to do it in the "old" Gaelic script (controversy alert!), both "h"'s will be replaced by a dot over the previous consonant. You'll also need an accent ("fada" in Gaelic) over the SECOND "a".

I think I have details somwhere of a site that provides the old script. I'll see if I can find it.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: MartinRyan
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 12:08 PM

There's an account and some samples in Wikipedia

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 12:21 PM

How do German dictionaries cope with that approach to word making? I mean with newly bolted together big words, do they just put in the bits, like fuhrer and bandwagen and leave it to the reader to make sense of the agglomeration?

As for Gaelic, it'd be a lot simpler if something more like the Manx Gaelic spelling conventions had been applied in the Irish and Scottish variants. Too late for that though.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Newport Boy
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 12:36 PM

Ah, Wolfgang - you don't understand. :-)

I tried to imagine writing poetry in such a language - and failed!


Poetry is as much about the words you don't use, as those you do. One of my favourites is Herbsttag, by Rilke.

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gieb ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

No long compund words, a wonderful selection of images, and hardly a harsh guttural in sight. German is a beautiful language.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: MartinRyan
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 12:51 PM

Wolfgang understands very well! It's poor, confused Martin, out in the Celtic mist, who's struggling! ;-)

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Gaelic word.
From: Newport Boy
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 01:13 PM

Thanks, Martin - sorry, Wolfgang. I must be more careful when quoting.

Phil