Amateur De Langues

french/english fluent! wishlist: gaelic, spanish, russian & more

[linguinibeanie]

English words derived from Scottish Gaelic

English really is the bastard tongue, so much of it comes from so many places. Of course there’s the obvious ones like jalapeño, spaghetti, déjà vu, etc. Even for Scottish Gaelic we use cèilidh which most know is borrowed, but there are some hidden ones! Thought I’d share cause I find this stuff p cool

Galore - Comes from Scottish Gaelic ‘gu leòr’ (or Irish ‘go leór’) which means sufficient or enough. Funny how it came to mean abundance lol

Whiskey - This one I already knew a while ago, but it derives from ‘uisge-beatha’ which meant water of life. It was then shortened to whikseybae and now, whiskey

Clan - This one isn’t too surprising, but still interesting. It comes from ‘clann’ in Scottish Gaelic which meant children. It’s easy to imagine the context of the Fraser Clann becoming the Fraser Clan we know today

Slogan - Now this one was a shock! Slogan is from ‘sluagh-ghairm’, a battle cry or word-for-word, army shout. It evolved from a designated expression for an army to one for a political party, and today for anything really

[linguinibeanie]

Random gàidhlig mnemonics

sgian [knife f.] - sounds like the verb ‘to skin’. Knives can be used to skin things and other similar uses

sgillin [penny f.] - so similar to shilling! I’m going to assume that’s the origin till I google the etymology

not [pound] - sounds like note $$$

latha [day] - sounds like long if you were to yawn and exhale while saying it, which makes me think of someone coming home from work and yawning “long day”. A bit of a reach but it clocks in my mind lol

stais [moustache f.] - this is literally just ‘stache

mac [son] - mac!! Like in last names mac! Macgreggor, Macdonald, Macmillan…. Equivalent to Robertson, Stevenson, Johnson

leabhar [book] - like the french word livre

[linguinibeanie]

So we don’t actually need the words yes or no. They’re just shortcuts. Can’t believe I only just realized this because Scottish Gaelic doesn’t have em

[learninglanguagestothrive]

Country Names in Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic)

All translations found in “The New English-Gaelic Dictionary” by Derick S. Thomson. Let me know if you have any translations to add! 

Africa : Afraga

America : Ameireagaidh

Asia : An Aisia

Australia : Astràilia

Austria : An Ostair

Belgium : A’Bheilg 

Britain : Breatainn 

Canada : Canada

Chile : An t-Sile 

China : Sìna 

Cornwall : A’Chòrn 

Denmark : An Danmhairg 

Egypt : An Eiphit 

England : Sasainn

Ethiopia : An Aetiòp

Europe : An Roinn Eòrpa

Finland : Suòmi

France : An Fhraing

Germany : A’Ghearmailt

Greece : A’Ghrèig

Greenland : A’Ghraonlainn

Hungary : An Ungair

Iceland : Innis Tile

India : Na h-Innseachan

Indonesia : An Ind-Innse 

Iran : An Iarain 

Iraq : An Iarac 

Ireland : Eirinn

Isle of Mann : Eilean Mhanainn

Israel : Iosrael

Italy : An Eadailt

Jamaica : Siameuca 

Japan : An t-Seapan

Jordan : Iòrdan 

Kenya : A’Cheinia 

Korea : Korea

Latvia : An Laitbhe

Libya : Libia 

Luxembourg : Lucsamburg

the Netherlands : An Isealtìr

Norway : Lochlann 

Pakistan : Pacastan 

Palestine : Paileastain 

Poland : A’Phòlainn

Portugal : A’Phortagail

Romania : Romàinia

Russia : Ruisia

Scotland : Alba 

Spain : An Spàinn

Sweden : An t-Suain

Switzerland : An Eilbheis

the United Nations : Na Dùthchannan Aonaichte

United States : na Stàitean Aonaichte 

Wales : A’Chuimrigh

[mathan-na-mara-deactivated20231]

Tip for those learning Celtic languages:

SING SOME GODDAMN SONGS

No seriously, learn how to sing songs in your language. It doesn’t even matter if you comprehend the lyrics, the main goal is picking up the phonetics! The bardic tradition is a huge part of Celtic identities, especially for the Gaels of Scotland, Ireland, and Nova Scotia through the ceilidh. There’s also a pretty strong tradition in Wales through Eisteddfod. So by learning your language through song you’re learning pronunciation and flow whilst maintaining an ancient tradition!

[inlanguagewedontsay]

In Scottish Gaelic we don’t say “You’re welcome” we say “se do bheatha (shay doh veha)” which means “It’s your life” as in “Your life depended on it of course I helped you” and I think that’s beautiful.

Submitted by @fluidpuck

[youchangedmedean]

Can I interest you in a Gàidhlig Sea Shanty?

[linguinibeanie]

Just learnt that scottish gaelic has cases :,)

[linguinibeanie]

Okay okay okay but so the first one is simple! Vocative is when you’re adressing someone, so the noun (person) changes and gets an ‘a’ before it if the first letter is a consonant, to my understanding. Cool

[linguinibeanie]

Just learnt that scottish gaelic has cases :,)

[linguinibeanie]

Highlights of a spanish conversation with my friends from today as practice, somehow we reached the topic of cereal

Bonus gàidhlig:

[linguinibeanie]

First time getting back into gaelic since a while, did a lil revising and realized that ‘muc’ sounds a lot like muck lol. Imma be using that from now on 🐽

[linguinibeanie]

Me and my friend went on a sudden tangent needless to say,,

[linguinibeanie]

I can’t express how much of an idiot I looked like jumping around in the dairy section because I recognized bó as cow from knowing it in Scottish Gaelic

[linguinibeanie]

Messy, but I’ve been feeling inspired to learn Japaness recently. Just found out another friend of mine started taking classes too!

Useful link with a list of animals:

Japanese Animals Words and Vocabulary

Learn how animals are called in this Japanese animals words and vocabulary with hiragana, katakana, romaji and kanji given.

https://www.learn-japanese-adventure.com/japanese-animals.html

[language-noodles]

Basic Gáildhig Sentences #1

(“Gáildhig” is the native word for Scottish Gaelic)

Currently on my 43 day streak on Duolingo, and thought I’d post some basic sentence patterns for Gáildhig (gah-lik). When I first started studying Japanese what got me through a lot of conversations was learning sentence patterns (which were heavily emphasized by the podcast I was listening to), that I could pop new words into when I learned them, instead of learning a lot of vocabulary I would forget easily.

So here’s the sentences I’m seeing most commonly, mostly from Duolingo and LearnGaelic! And some words to fit into them for the absolute beginners.

–Words in parentheses are pronunciations of the previous word–

“This is”, “Is”, and “It isn’t”.

Seo _____ (shoh _____) // This is _____. 

Tha _____ (hah _____) // It is _____, or _____ is _____

Chan eil_____ (hahn eel_____) // It isn’t ______, or ______ isn’t _____

Seo is translated to “This is”, since they are both demonstrative pronouns. Seo cofaidh (shoh cawfee) means “This is coffee”. You, in this situation, are demonstrating that this is, indeed, coffee. 

Tha is usually translated as “Is” or “It is”. It can be used similarly to Seo, but is a personal pronoun rather than demonstrative. It is a third person pronoun much like ‘he’ or ‘she’ (which in Gáildhig is e (eh) and i (ee) respectively). Tha  gràindeag (ha granyak) is “It’s a hedgehog”. Tha gràindeag stampa (hah granyak stahm-puh) is “The hedgehog is cute.”. In the last sentence, rather than being “It is”, it functions more like “is”. 

Finally, Chan eil is the negative form of the previous two. Chan eil uisge-beatha (hahn eel ooshka beh-heh) means “This is not whiskey” or “It is not whiskey”. 

And… that’s it! Here’s ten more phrases to practice your Gáildhig! 

Dulich (doo lichk) // Sorry

Hálo (hah loh) // Hello 

Tìoraidh (cheerie) // Goodbye

Cimar a tha sibh? (kimahr a hah shiv) // How are you?

Tha mi gu math (hah mee goo mah) // I’m fine

Tapadh leat OR Tapadh leibh (tahpah let OR tahpah leiv) // Thank you (casual and formal, respectively)

Mas e do thoil e (mass e doo holl eh) // Please (if using in a sentence, it comes after whatever you are requesting. Pasta mas e do thoil e is “Pasta, please”. And yes, pasta is pronounced the same

a h-aon (ah hoon) // One

a dhà (ah ghaa) // Two

a trì (ah tree) // Three

[moshyandme-blog]

Some basic Gaelic questions

I was doing a little bit of prep for my beginners Gaelic group tonight and thought I’d share some of the questions that we’ve covered over the past few months. I will do the answers, but we’re going to go over them all together tonight, so I thought I’d just post these for now as I may not have time to type everything up for a few days.

Here they are:

Dè an latha a th’ann an-diugh? What day is it today?

A bheil e fuar an-diugh? Is it cold today?

Cò tha seo? Who is this?

Dè an aois a tha thu? What age are you?

Ciamar a tha an t-sìde an-diugh? What is the weather like today?

A bheil peansail agad? Do you have a pencil?

Dè an t-ainm a th’ort? What’s your name?

Dè tha thu ag iarraidh? What do you want?

Dè tha seo? What is this?

Ciamar a tha thu/sibh? How are you?

Dè an dath a tha seo? What colour is this?

An toil leat a’ dannsadh? Do you like dancing?

A bheil piuthar agad? Do you have a sister?

Càite a bheil do chluas? Where is your ear?

A bheil peata agad? Do you have a pet?

[linguinibeanie]

Woooo! Muchas palabras hoy. A bit messy, but I wanted to jot everything down for this chapter.

There are quite a few mistakes (why is ‘mi’ in adjetivos?? Complete chaos in what’s considered a whiteboard) but at least it’s still legible lol.