dancing in the moonlight

[lawicstudies]

Something interesting came up in my Irish class today when we were learning about family terms - the word for 'brother' in Irish has an interesting origin and had changed over time. I got curious and just had to look it up. Here's what I found (I love making these little etymology charts):

So I found this interesting explanation online about how this split happened because of Ireland's strong monastic tradition - apparently there were so many monks that people needed to distinguish between "brother" meaning a monk and an actual sibling.

But I have another theory too. In Old Irish, bráthair could mean not just "brother" but also "kinsman" or "cousin", kind of like how you might call fellow clan members "brother" (or like how nowadays we sometimes say "brother/bro" for close friends?). Maybe people started needing a way to specify "actual brother" versus "brother-in-arms" or "distant cousin"?

The etymology is fascinating either way - the 'derb-' prefix comes from the same root as English 'true' (both from PIE *drewh₂- meaning "firm/steady") and in Modern Irish it actually evolved into prefix dearbh- — real, blood-.

So nowadays these two words have distinct meanings in Modern Irish: bráthair has an ecclesiastical meaning, while deartháir specifically means a blood brother.

[lawicstudies]

The poem "Pangur Bán"

For my Old Irish class, I had to do a word-by-word translation of the poem “Pangur Bán”, breaking down each word's grammatical form, identifying cases, and explaining various linguistic features like lenition and nasalization. Here's my translation:

Me and white Pangur, each of us two at his particular art. His mind is fixed on hunting, while my mind is at my special craft.

I love stillness, better than any fame, at my little book in diligent understanding. Not envious of me is white Pangur, he loves still his little play.

When we are thus, a tale without weariness, in our house in our solitude, we have unlimited accomplishment, against which we bring our victory.

At usual times in valorous attacks he catches a mouse in his net; while I, I catch in my net meanwhile a difficult assertion with firm meaning.

He sharpens against the wall's boundary his eye, this bright one complete. I sharpen meanwhile against knowledge's keenness my clear eye, though it be dim.

He rejoices with swift movement, when he catches a mouse in his sharp claws. When I understand a difficult beloved question, while I besides am joyful.

Though we are thus at all times, none disturbs his fellow. Good with each of us two is his craft, he rejoices in his solitude.

He himself is master to him in the way he works each day; to bring the difficult to clarity upon my way while I am me.

The poem was discovered in the library of an ancient monastery in the Eastern Alps, in southern Austria. Written in the margins of a manuscript by an anonymous Irish monk, the poem dates to the early 9th century. It was found in what scholars believe was the monk's working notebook, where he would practice his translations and annotations.

"Pangur Bán" offers us a uniquely personal glimpse into monastic life. The name "Pangur" is likely the cat's actual name, while "Bán" means "white" in Old Irish. The poem draws a charming parallel between the monk's scholarly pursuits and his white cat's hunting activities, suggesting both are engaged in their own form of hunting - one for knowledge, the other for mice.

Some interesting observations:

I was struck by how the poem creates a ring composition, starting and ending with me-sse' (which parallels French 'moi' rather than just English 'me')

This was my first real encounter with Old Irish emphatic particles in practice — forms like 'menmae-som' (his mind) and 'fáilid-sem' (he rejoices). While we covered these in class, seeing them in an actual text made their usage much clearer

The verb 'to be' (át-ta) appeared in more forms than I expected. We had covered the basics in class, but the poem showcases its rich variety of forms

I enjoyed spotting the diminutive forms like lebrán (little book) from lebor (book) — they add such a personal touch to the monk's writing

The compound words were particularly fascinating. Beyond the common ones we'd learned, I discovered some lovely new combinations: saindán (sain + dán = special art), saincheirdd (sain + cheirdd = special craft), and my favourite, dronchéill (dron + ciall = firm sense)

The word 'subaigthius' puzzled me until my professor mentioned it contains the passive suffix. I knew it came from 'subaigidir' (to rejoice), but the ending was new to me

[bestiarium]

The Fetch [Irish/Scottish folklore]

Imagine unexpectedly meeting a dear friend, who seemingly crossed paths with you by pure coincidence. But something’s wrong: the friend is acting weird and you get the feeling that you’re not talking to someone you’ve known for a long time, but rather an exact copy of that person. This, in old Irish folklore, is the Fetch: an enigmatic being that copies a living person down to the smallest details.

While the Fetch was always regarded as an omen of sorts, John O’ Hanlon made an important addition in his 1870 book ‘Irish Folk Lore’: according to him, the person whose future the Fetch predicts is not the one who sees the omen. Instead, the creature will appear as an exact copy of someone and will then appear to a close friend of the one he copied. This will often be a strangely sudden and mysterious meeting. If this friend sees the Fetch in the morning, this will not affect him, but the person who was copied will live a long and prosperous life. If the friend sees the Fetch at night, the person who was copied will die soon, but the person who sees the apparition will not be affected either way.

According to Feats, belief in the Irish Fetch was also commonly found in Scotland. This claim might have been derived from a statement by O’Hanlon that the Fetch is related to a similar Scottish spirit.

Sources: Kinahan, F., 1983, Armchair Folklore: Yeats and the Textual Sources of “Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, Vol. 83C, pp. 255-267. Yeats, W., 1993, Writings on Irish Folklore, Legend and Myth, Penguin UK, 496 pp. (this is a collection of Yeats’ writings from the late 19th and early 20th century.) (image source: ‘How They Met Themselves’, 1864 watercolor painting by Dante Rossetti. The painting is not meant to depict the Fetch spirit but I thought it fits well.)

[god-of-annwn]

Arianrhod, Welsh goddess of the moon and stars

From the Welsh, arian = silver and rhod = wheel; taken as meaning the full moon

Arianrhod is mentioned in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion as the daughter of Dôn and sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy. She gives birth to two sons: Dylan ail Don and Lleu Llaw Gyffes.

[twitchcoded-deactivated20240816]

there are 6 modern celtic languages spoken today, which can be divided into 2 branches: goidelic/gaelic and brittonic/brythonic.

goidelic/gaelic languages:

gaeilge / irish

gàidhlig / scottish gaelic / scots gaelic / gaelic*

gaelg / manx

*scottish gaelic can just be called gaelic, which helps distinguish it from scots (a germanic language related to english with different varieties spoken in scotland and ulster). scots is not a celtic language so it isn't related to scottish gaelic, but nevertheless people still get them confused with each other.

brittonic/brythonic languages:

cymraeg / welsh

brezhoneg / breton

kernewek / cornish (also kernowek or kernûak depending on which orthography is being used)

other points:

the celtic nations refers to the places where these 6 modern celtic languages are spoken: ireland, scotland, the isle of man, wales, brittany, and cornwall.

celtic identity is very tied to the presence of a modern celtic language. there is nothing that all of the celtic nations have in common that isn't also shared by some other cultures, except for a celtic language. places without a modern celtic language are not celtic. a large part of europe and parts of west asia were celtic-speaking in the past, but it does not make them celtic now. there is no such thing as a "culturally celtic but not celtic-speaking" country/region.

(also the hallstatt and la tène archaeological cultures and their spread cannot be reliably linked 1:1 with the spread of celtic cultures, nor can their art reliably be labelled as "celtic art")

celtic languages and the cultures and histories attached to them are not interchangeable with each other. there is no one singular "celtic culture".

gaelic does not mean the same thing as celtic. welsh, breton, and cornish are celtic languages, but they are not gaelic languages. "welsh gaelic" is not a thing.

along with scots and ulster scots, there are a number of non-celtic minority languages that are spoken in and around the celtic nations that you may also be interested in learning about :)

[pompadourpink]

French fairy tales

Princess Rosette, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy : FR / EN

The fair with golden hair, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy : FR / EN

The friendly frog, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy : FR / EN

Aurore and Aimée, Jeanne de Beaumont : FR / EN

Beauty and the beast, Jeanne de Beaumont : FR / EN

Bluebeard, Charles Perrault : FR / EN

Cinderella, Charles Perrault : FR / EN

Donkey skin, Charles Perrault : FR / EN 

Little red riding hood, Charles Perrault : FR / EN

Little thumb, Charles Perrault : FR / EN

Puss in boots, Charles Perrault : FR / EN

Sleeping beauty, Charles Perrault : FR / EN

The fairy, Charles Perrault : FR / EN

Blondine, Sophie Ségur : FR / EN

Ourson, Sophie Ségur : FR / EN

Sophie’s misfortunes, Sophie Ségur : FR / EN

The little grey mouse, Sophie Ségur : FR / EN

(You can download those stories legally as they are now part of the public domain.)

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Are there any major differences between welsh and irish mythology? Is Brythonic just in terms of language? You mentioned there were welsh versions of holidays like Beltane and Samhain, what are they? Sorry for so many questions, thank you

♥️

No apologies, friend, I am very much the dweeb you are looking for.

Okay, so, mythology: oh, yes. Very different myths, different “gods”, all sorts. We don’t have any version of the Tuatha De Danaan/Fomorians, the Ulster Cycle, any of that; they don’t have the Mabinogi, the actual real Arthur (as opposed to the stolen English propaganda), none of that. 

BUT, there are interesting crossovers sometimes, because there was shared migration between the two lands. We have a myth of a war between Wales and Ireland involving a magic zombie-making cauldron that Wales won; I believe they have a myth with similar facets, that Ireland won. We both have a tale of a spectral fortress in the Irish Sea, sometimes there and sometimes not (Caer Siddi in Welsh, which is translated in a whole bunch of ways but one of those would be something like “revolving fortress” and is the root of Howl’s Moving Castle; I’m not sure of its name in Irish though.) We both have a tale of Osian and Nia Ben Aur, as we’d call them (Oisín and Niamh Chinn Óir in Irish, I think?); the Welsh version is definitely Cymricised, but it does use the phrase Tir na nÓg to refer to the Otherworld, when we would normally call it Annwfn. And sometimes there’s interesting linguistic crossover for certain gods (or godlike figures, it’s all a bit unclear) - the big example that springs to mind is Manawydan fab Llŷr vs Manannán mac Lir. 

So, there’s some crossover myths. But by and large, they’re entirely different mythologies.

“Brythonic” is largely language - basically, the Insular Celts are the Celtic peoples that came and settled modern Britain and Ireland, but they spoke two distinct branches of Celtic language. These were Goidelic (eventually became Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx) and Brythonic (eventually became Welsh, Cornish, Cumbrian, Breton). There were some cultural differences between the two groups, but by and large, the terms are linguistic. 

As a side note, I studied Irish for a bit in university, and I did so through the medium of Welsh rather than English. It meant that Irish rapidly became the fastest, easiest language I’ve ever tried to learn. Vocab-wise, the two are almost entirely different, with only a small handful of exceptions. But weirdly, the grammar was very nearly identical, to the point that I could translate just the words in a Welsh sentence directly and individually into Irish and it would work with no further adjustments like ninety nine times out of a hundred. It was great, I loved Irish. 

(Breton by contrast was much harder - similar vocab, but the grammar was very different from the heavy French influence. So even though it was a more closely related language, it was more difficult.)

Aaaand... ah, holidays! Okay. So the equivalents are:

Beltaine - Calan Mai

Lughnasadh - Calan Awst

Samhain - Calan Gaeaf

Imbolc -  Gŵyl Fair y Canhwyllau

All of those are later names given to the festivals by the Christian church, which the possible exception of Calan Gaeaf (”the eve of winter”, literally). One of my Celtic Studies lecturers had a theory that the earlier names were likely to be Calan Haf (”the eve of summer”), Calan Medi (”the eve of the gathering/harvesting”) and maybe something like Calan Gwanwyn (”the eve of spring”). Alternatively, if they followed the Gaelic naming conventions, it’s possible Lughnasadh would have been Gŵyl Lleu (the festival of Lleu, our equivalent of the god Lugh) and Imbolc would be Gŵyl Fraid (the festival of Fraid, our equivalent of Brigid), but that requires quite a bit more back-and-forth than we have time to go into here.

Anyway, I hope that helps!

[salvadorbonaparte]

Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books  that I try to update regularly 

UPDATE because apparently not everyone has seen this yet the new and improved version of this is a MEGA folder

I know there’s so many more urgent things but if you like this resource you may consider buying me a ko-fi to keep this project alive

[soljos2023]

Hi Michelle! I was wondering if you could point me to some decent resources for learning Irish (maybe you have a tag for it)? Complete beginner here, obviously 😔. No worries if not & thank you <33

hi!! I am always so so happy to talk about Irish my dear, and I'm so excited to see that you have an interest in learning it!

if I could give you a general road map of the language, I would say, that although Irish is a little removed from continental European languages, you'll find a surprising amount of useful connections between Irish and the languages you already know. we do have a decent amount of loanwords as well. the thing people think will be difficult is the spelling, but actually, Irish is extremely phonetic, with no 'irregular' pronunciations.

note: resources that say "Irish" or "Irish Gaelic" or "Gaeilge" are for the same language, but if it says "Gaidhlig" or just "Gaelic", it's Scots Gaelic. for identification: Irish has accents that go áéíóú and Scots Gaelic has accents that go àèìòù :) and Manx Gaelic is different again! we're all related but different

the key outline is:

the word order is verb - subject - object

Irish has a case system but it's quite simple, and there is no different between nominative and accusative, so we always stick to this word order

léigh mé an leabhar (layg may on lau-ur) = [read] [I] [the] [book]

for the verbs, I recommend learning the indicative, present, and past of the regular verbs first. everything is very regular - there are two conjugations, one for short verbstems and one for long verbstems, and a slightly different spelling depending on the vowels used - you echo the vowels of the stem in the ending :)

there's a word for "the" = "an" (pronounced 'on'), or for plurals, "na", but no word for "a"

a lot of languages change the end of words to show changes (chair, chairs), and we do too, but we also change the beginning sometimes; this can take a little while to Get but it's honestly much easier than it sounds

pronouns: mé - tú - sé - sí - sinn - sibh - siad

don't worry about dialect! we all understand each other and all resources I've ever seen teach the standarised dialect

for a general introduction, there is the Langfocus video, and the Learn Irish channel, especially this video explaining the broad structure of the grammar. less technical - this video of Dónall Ó Héalaí talking about why he loves Irish :)

the best free digital resource in my opinion is the bitesize irish blog. they explain everything. there is a newsletter as well, for beginners, and it says it's free - you definitely get a free e-book.

also you can use @ salvadorbonaparte's mega drive or the libgen download here but I think the Routledge Colloquial language series are generally some of the best language coursebooks you can find :)

there is a course for beginner's from DCU on FutureLearn which provided a very good foundation (especially because it has audio), and you get free for a month <3

if it's an option, try to watch some TG4 - they have lots of really nice Irish-language shows, nature documentaries, etc. you might need a VPN to access some of the videos but in principle it's supposed to be accessible from every country. there are ALWAYS subtitles.

RTÉ (the Irish national broadcaster) has an Irish page, which is a mixture of articles about the language in English, and Irish-language articles.

dictionaries online:

teanglann.ie -> most detailed and very easy to use. searches three dictionaries :) also, they have a pronunciation database with three audio files of every word in the dictionary. and they have a declension table for every noun. hello. best website of all time.

focloir.ie -> has newer vocabulary that's missing from teanglann, detailed entries with nice modern example sentences.

of course you might not want this immediately, but it's good to know about tuairisc.ie, which publishes short - often very short - news articles in Irish. it could be good for reading practice :)

same - archive.org -> Irish-language texts -> 1. a direct link to those published after 2000, and 2. a direct link to bilingual books. and gaeilge.ie have a list of free audiobooks in Irish in case you want to just listen to get the feel of it?

p.s. if you ever decide to do a paid course, Coláiste na Rinne is cheaper than Gael Linn as just as good ;)

that's everything I can think of right now, but please, ask me anything that occurs to you! <3

[euphrosynthetic]

Counterintuitively, I learn languages better when I don’t learn from a textbook.

I do fun little mini games or continuously try to translate poems, I make guesses on how words fit together until I have an unexplainable understanding of basic grammar, and only then do I check a textbook to explain what I understand.

We’re built to learn languages. When a language is taught, there’s a disconnect between the text’s explanation and actual, deep understanding that will help me learn more as time goes on. It’s great to be able to double check grammar rules to be sure I got it right, but I can’t learn when primarily “taught”.

[learnelle]

I’ve been revising Irish and I had completely forgotten how much of an extra language it is.

For example, in English you say “I am really sorry.” The Irish translation is literally “the sadness of the world is upon me.” Tá brón an domhain orm. 💀🇮🇪

[the-evil-clergyman]

Birth of Venus by Fritz Zuber-Buhler (1877)

[valiantnachoblizzard]

Classical art headers.

Credit + reblog if you use them :)