First of all, I would like to wish my mother a very happy Mother's Day! It's Mother's Day in Ireland today, though I realize that we've a couple months to go before the U.S. version... I love you, mumsy!
Anyway, this past weekend was our MA group's second trip to Carraroe, or An Ceathrú Rua, in the Connemara gaeltacht, or Irish-speaking region. It went over much better than the last trip. The classes this time around were helpful, and really pushed us to use our Irish. My speaking was not very good, but I was surprised by how much I could comprehend. I probably understood about half of what was being said, just from the words I did know. We also weren't given a lot of pointless activities-- we watched some Irish language short films, got a tour of Raidió na Gaeltachta (the Irish-language radio station), and went to a concert. The concert, put on by the school, had quite a variety of acts, including a couple of folk/rock musicians, button accordian trad, sean-nós singing, and sean-nós dancing. The sean-nós dancing in particular was cool, and I think several of us (myself included) left the concert determined to take a class before leaving Ireland.
Of course, as before, the best part of the weekend was the socializing and bonding with our group. Our Bean an Tí made delicious food for us and I think I ate my weight in biscuits and tea over about 36 hours. Each evening, of course, ended up in An Cistin, one of Carraroe's three pubs, with a lot of laughter and music-- ceol agus craic.
Unfortunately I'm back in the real world, which means I have plenty of reading I wasn't able to do over the weekend. Still, it was nice to get away for a little bit.
Showing posts with label Gaeilge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaeilge. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Sunday, November 18, 2007
cúpla focal
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! ♥
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! ♥
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Dia duit! Ayla is ainm dom!
This past weekend, my MA program organized a trip for our whole class to the gaeltacht-- the Irish-speaking region of Ireland. Half of the class is Irish, and therefore learned the language in school at least, but the rest of us have only been studying it since the beginning of the semester. I was a little apprehensive about it, as my Irish at this point is mostly limited to the title of this entry (Hello! My name is Ayla!), but it turned out very well.
The town we stayed in is called An Ceathrú Rua, or Carraroe. We stayed in two houses-- four in one and eight in the other. I was in the house with eight: Grace, Katie, Duíbhir, Jeremy, Beth, Megan, Jen, and I took up four rooms. (And one bathroom. Showering was quite an ordeal of scheduling.) Our Bean an Tí, or "woman of the house" (house mother), was a young woman named Maíre. She had a year-and-a-half old son, James, who was our entertainment the first day. He toddled around and responded to spoken Irish, but not spoken English. She and her mother fed us dinner and breakfast and gave us sandwich fixings to make Saturday's lunch. It was all wonderfully filling food, topped off with delicious tea. Everyone in the house spoke English but preferred to speak Irish, so we just pushed Duíbhir, Katie, and Grace to the front and had them speak and translate for us. I confidently thanked people, though-- "Go raibh maith agat" was the phrase I used most often during the weekend. I figure, if you only know one phrase in the language of an area you're visiting, "thank you" is a good one to have. Even if you can't speak their language, you can at least be polite.
We had a program of classes and activities scheduled. The activities were, for the most part, entertaining. The classes, as far as us non-Irish students were concerned, were very juvenile, which annoyed me. I may be a beginner but I'm also a grown-up. (A grown-up who, incidentally, has a double bachelor's degree in English and Linguistics and has, at one point or another, studied Spanish, Latin, and Italian.) I can handle a real textbook, I don't need a children's book. Still, I feel that my confidence and grasp of Irish improved from the weekend, just by being surrounded with it and listening to it. I was able to see it in use and get a feel for how the language really sounds.
The activities were things like singing, set dancing (think Riverdance, only done by clumsy tired grad students,) a short hike, a day tour, and a scavenger hunt. The singing was probably my favorite, followed by the hike. The weather was beautiful this weekend, and we got to see some of the beautiful desolate bogland of Connemara. I would post pictures, except I forgot my camera. (I'm pretty annoyed by this.) Other people took pictures, though, so eventually I might steal some of theirs to show. The landscape there was unlike anything I've seen before-- and this is only an hour's drive from Galway. I sometimes wish I had a car here, so I could drive around and get a real feel for the countryside. And then I remember that I'd have to drive on the other side of the road (not to mention the other side of the car) and I'm dissuaded. (Though I would like to try driving here some time, if only to see if I could manage a stickshift with my left hand. Most people here drive manual-transmission cars.)
Overall, the biggest thing I took away from the weekend was a much deeper appreciation of the Irish language. So far, I've been studying it in much the same way I studied Latin: with an emphasis on translation, little to no speaking, and no practical application. This weekend, I got to see people who use it as their first language, to communicate every day, and I was struck by just how cool it really is. My MA coursework includes Irish classes, but I think that (if I get into the PhD program here!) I am going to continue taking classes next year. Irish is a beautiful language, and I would really like to be able to speak it.
The town we stayed in is called An Ceathrú Rua, or Carraroe. We stayed in two houses-- four in one and eight in the other. I was in the house with eight: Grace, Katie, Duíbhir, Jeremy, Beth, Megan, Jen, and I took up four rooms. (And one bathroom. Showering was quite an ordeal of scheduling.) Our Bean an Tí, or "woman of the house" (house mother), was a young woman named Maíre. She had a year-and-a-half old son, James, who was our entertainment the first day. He toddled around and responded to spoken Irish, but not spoken English. She and her mother fed us dinner and breakfast and gave us sandwich fixings to make Saturday's lunch. It was all wonderfully filling food, topped off with delicious tea. Everyone in the house spoke English but preferred to speak Irish, so we just pushed Duíbhir, Katie, and Grace to the front and had them speak and translate for us. I confidently thanked people, though-- "Go raibh maith agat" was the phrase I used most often during the weekend. I figure, if you only know one phrase in the language of an area you're visiting, "thank you" is a good one to have. Even if you can't speak their language, you can at least be polite.
We had a program of classes and activities scheduled. The activities were, for the most part, entertaining. The classes, as far as us non-Irish students were concerned, were very juvenile, which annoyed me. I may be a beginner but I'm also a grown-up. (A grown-up who, incidentally, has a double bachelor's degree in English and Linguistics and has, at one point or another, studied Spanish, Latin, and Italian.) I can handle a real textbook, I don't need a children's book. Still, I feel that my confidence and grasp of Irish improved from the weekend, just by being surrounded with it and listening to it. I was able to see it in use and get a feel for how the language really sounds.
The activities were things like singing, set dancing (think Riverdance, only done by clumsy tired grad students,) a short hike, a day tour, and a scavenger hunt. The singing was probably my favorite, followed by the hike. The weather was beautiful this weekend, and we got to see some of the beautiful desolate bogland of Connemara. I would post pictures, except I forgot my camera. (I'm pretty annoyed by this.) Other people took pictures, though, so eventually I might steal some of theirs to show. The landscape there was unlike anything I've seen before-- and this is only an hour's drive from Galway. I sometimes wish I had a car here, so I could drive around and get a real feel for the countryside. And then I remember that I'd have to drive on the other side of the road (not to mention the other side of the car) and I'm dissuaded. (Though I would like to try driving here some time, if only to see if I could manage a stickshift with my left hand. Most people here drive manual-transmission cars.)
Overall, the biggest thing I took away from the weekend was a much deeper appreciation of the Irish language. So far, I've been studying it in much the same way I studied Latin: with an emphasis on translation, little to no speaking, and no practical application. This weekend, I got to see people who use it as their first language, to communicate every day, and I was struck by just how cool it really is. My MA coursework includes Irish classes, but I think that (if I get into the PhD program here!) I am going to continue taking classes next year. Irish is a beautiful language, and I would really like to be able to speak it.
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