Irish challenge (4)

This post is the 4^th instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 3 of Teach Yourself Irish.  For previous instalments, please see https://languagemiscellany.com/tag/irish/

Possession, and personal forms of ag

Irish has no transitive verb meaning ‘have’. Instead, use the preposition ag (‘at’), see example 1.
(1) Ta clann ag Síle
      is children at Sheila
     ‘Sheila has children’

Personal forms of ag

Like most prepositions, the preposition ag attaches a personal suffix (table 1), instead of being followed by a personal pronoun.

Table 1. Personal forms of ag (‘to’)

The <ai> in aige / aici is pronounced /e/.

Other personal forms of prepositions already introduced in earlier chapters are dom (‘to me, my’) and duit (‘to you, your’).

To contrast or reinforce the personal forms, add -e after -nn, -sa after broad consonants and -se after slender consonants (examples 2).

(2) Tá Toyota ag m’athair ach tá Ford agamsa
     Is  Toyota at my father but is Ford at me.
    ‘My father has a Toyota but I have a Ford’

Knowing

‘To know’ = ‘to have knowledge’:

• Tá a fhios agam
  ‘I know’
• Níl a fhios agam
  ‘I don’t know’
• Tá a fhios againn é sin
  ‘we know that’

Outside this construction, the ordinary word for knowledge or information is eolas.

Order of noun and adjective

Adjectives usually follow the noun: teach mór (‘house big’ = ‘big house’).

Feminine nouns cause lenition of the following adjective: clann mhór (‘big family’); sráif fhada (‘long street’, ‘long’ = fada).

Lenition and other forms of initial consonant mutation are introduced at https://languagemiscellany.com/2026/05/irish-spelling-and-pronunciation/

A few monosyllabic adjectives precede the noun. One example is sean (‘old’), which causes lenition on the following noun: seanfhear (‘old man); seanbhean (‘old woman).

No lenition occurs in the sequence  N + D: seanduine (old people, often old people) or seandaione (‘old people, bohth men and women’). The text book doesn’t make it clear whether applies generally, or only when the adjective precedes the noun it modifies.

Some other adjectives: óg (‘old’), nua (‘new’), beag (‘small’)

Le referring to past time

In expressions of time, le means ‘for the past’ (example 3) and is sometimes reinforced with anuas (‘from above/ until now’, example 4.)

(3) tá mé anseo le             seachtain
     is I     here   down  (a) week
    ‘I have been here a week’

(4) tá Liam pósta     le            bliain anuas
     is Liam married down  (a) year  until.now
      ‘Liam has been married for a year’ (ie with a year down)

Some other expressions with le in this sense: le tamall (‘for some time’), le mí (in this last month’), le fado (‘for a long time now’)

Féin (‘self / own’)

Féin means:

• ‘self’ following a pronoun
  níl mé pósta (I am not married)
  níl mé féin pósta (I myself am not married)
• ‘own’ following a noun
  mo teach (my house)
  mo teach féin (my own house)

Numbers above 20

Table 2. Number above 20

Examples of numbers above 20: fiche á trí (23); dhá chéad (200); trí chéad (300).

The order of numerals is the same as in German (dreiundzwanzig)and older English (twenty and three), with tens before units. For more on the structure of numbers in Indo-European languages, please see https://languagemiscellany.com/2023/11/structure-of-numbers-in-indo-european/

Age

‘Year’ is bliain. After dhá (‘two’), soft mutation occurs, producing dhá bhliain.

For the numbers 3 to 10, the counting forms bliaina (for 3 to 6) or mbliaina (7 to 10, pronounced /mlíana/) are used (table 3).

Table 3. Numerals for counting years (1-10)

Notes on table 3:

• the textbook doesn’t explain at this point why words for 2 and 4 in this context are dhá and ceithre, rather than dó and ceathair.
• an initial consonant following beirt (‘two’) undergoes lenition.

Numbers 11 to 20

For the numbers 11 to 20, add déag after bliain (11, 12) or bliana (dhá bhliain: ‘12 years’;  trí bliana déag: ‘13 years’). For 11 years, also insert aon, with bliana undergoing lenition (aon bhliana déag: ‘11 years’)

Asking about age and answering

cén aois é Sean / í Máire? How old is Sean / Mary?
Note the pronouns é and í before Sean and Máire

Cén combines cén (‘what kind of’) and an (‘the’)

sé bliana d’aois = ‘6 years of age

D’aois combines de (‘of’) and aois (age)

Counting people

There are special forms for counting people (table 4).

Table 4. Numerals for counting people.

Beirt causes lenition.

Family, children and household

Teaglach (extended family, see tach house) or with a similar meaning Líon tí (‘complement of house’), historically consisting of 3 generations, but now often only 2 generations. Na Teaglaigh Ghaelacha (‘the Gaelic families—a national association for Gaelic speaking families outside the Gaeltacht).

Muintir an tí occupants of the house. Mo mhuintír (‘my folks’ = my parents’).

Table 5. Some family members

tuismitheoir (‘parents’, plural -i)), an leabh (‘the child’, plural, leanaí), an páiste (‘the child’, plural páistí), leanbh óg (‘baby, young child’)

The words for cousin show the distance of the relationship, using the word col (‘degree of kinship’) and a numeral, with no distinction between male and female. First cousins are related by a 4-person chain of kinship (col ceathar). Second cousins are related by a 6-person chain (col seisir).

Clann

Clann (feminine noun): children of a couple or their descendants. After the numbers for people, clann (children, descendants of a family) takes the form clainne: beirt chlainne (‘2 children’), triúr clainne (‘3 children’).

Clann is also used for sons or daughters collectively: a mhac (‘his son’), a chlann mhac (‘his sons’), a hiníon (her daughter’), a clan iníon (‘her daughters’). Mac undergoes lenition after the feminine noun clan.

Clann Cartaigh is the McCarty clan, supposedly all descending from someone called Carthy.

Addressing a person by name

To address a person by name, put a before the name, and:

• the name’s initial consonant undergoes lenition. 
  To call Maire: a Mhaire.
  (remember: <mh> is pronounced /w/)
• in most male names ending in a broad consonant, the consonant becomes slender.
  To call Tomás: a Thomáis

Other useful words and phrases

Nouns: carr (‘car’), rothar (‘bike’), nóiméad (‘minute’)

Adverbs and adverbials: anois (‘now’), fós (‘still’), ar scoil (‘at school’), amháin (‘only’)

is fíor (‘true)’ / ní fíor (‘false’)

cád fútsa (‘what about you?’)

comhghairdeas (‘congratulations’)- according to wiktionary from  comh- (co-) +‎ gairdeas (‘joy’).

go maith (‘good’ great’), go hiontach (‘great’)

Conas tá cúrsai?  ‘how are things?’

Source

Teach Yourself Irish, Diarmuid Ó Sé and Joseph Sheils (1993)