Today I'm going to talk about a couple of my favorite Irish words. I've already discussed "craic," but that particular word has entered Hiberno-English and is widely used even by those who have no Irish.1 The words I'm discussing today are just a couple that I have come across in my Irish class that struck my fancy.
Glas: this word is commonly translated as either "green" or "gray," depending on the context. This might strike an English-speaker as being a little odd-- these two colors are so different that it's strange there would be only one word for both. However, that definition is a little vague. More accurately, glas means "the color of the sea." The fact that different languages divide the spectrum differently fascinates me, and the fact that Irish has a word specifically for sea-color says a lot about the Irish relationship with the ocean.
Cailleach: the most common translation I've seen of this word is "hag." However, while "hag" has a negative implication in English, there isn't anything implicitly bad about being a cailleach, unless maybe you're using the term on a little girl. It is also used to mean "old woman," "witch," and in older contexts, "nun." As a concept, it's really something more like "wise woman" or "crone," describing an older woman of great knowledge that deserves respect.2
Sasana: the Irish word for "England." This amuses me greatly, because the derivation of Sasana is "Saxony." Someone from Sasana is a Sasanach-- a Saxon. Also, on a related note, the word danar. I have seen this word used, especially in resistance poetry from the 18th and 19th centuries, to mean "invader" or "foreigner"-- but it literally means "Dane," and comes from the Viking days. (Sometimes, in resistance poetry, the English are referred to as danar, essentially casting them in the role of the pillaging Vikings.)
1: One of the distinctions about Hiberno-English is the use of the word "have" to mean "know," especially in the context of a language. You don't know Irish, you have Irish.
2: For example, my mother! ♥
3 comments:
"Craic" is actually an old English word. I know most people think that it is an Irish word, but it isn't actually.
It may have Old English etymology (I've not heard that, but it's definitely possible,) but "craic" is still an Irish word. Today, it is only used productively in Irish or a very specific dialect of English (Hiberno-English, and even then it's not ubiquitous.) So my point stands. :-)
in reference to footnote 2: I know Ayla's mother and she is a "boni"fied lovely cailleach.
TDC
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