Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 06:10:47 -0400 From: Am_marcair_dubh <[email protected]> Subject: Tip of the week Tip of the Week 1
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 08:56:47 -0400 Subject: [16]Re: Tip of the week In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> Sgr�obh Am_marcair_dubh: >This week's tip > >Mu dheireadh = "last" should only be used >of "last" in a series. >It should not be used for "last" >as in "last week." /"last month". Tapadh leat, a Chailean. >an t-seachdain mu dheireadh den t-seachdain = the last week of the month. Obh, obh. Bitheadh sin "an t-seachdain mu dheireadh den m�os", nach bitheadh? >anns an dà bliadhna mu dheireadh in the last two years >All the other time terms precede by "last" have special >words for them e.g. > an-raoir = last night, > an-uiridh last year etc. -Speireag. --------------)<<<<0 Speireag Alden, aka Joshua Macdonald Alden: [email protected] Usually found somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire. Nach sgrìobh thu 'sa Gàidhlig thugam? Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 03:34:06 -0400 From: Am_marcair_dubh <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Tip of the week Sgrìobh Speireag, >> an t-seachdain mu dheireadh den t-seachdain = the >> last week of the month. > Obh, obh. Bitheadh sin "an t-seachdain mu dheireadh > den mìos", nach bitheadh? Ups! Bhitheafh sin "an t-seachdain mu dheireadh den mhìos", tapadh leat, Cailean Am Marcair Dubh Is i a' Ghàidhlig Cànain mo Dhùthcha. Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 21:47:21 -0500 From: David Gressett <[email protected]; Subject: "last week" What is the preferred way to say and write "last week" in Gaelic? In Colin Mark's Tip of the Week #1 I find "an t-seachdain seo chaidh" Roddy Maclean's "Litir do Luchd-Ionnsachaidh" has "an t-seachdain 's a chaidh" and, more recently "an t-seachdain sa chaidh" Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 04:46:39 +0100 From: Tom Thomson <[email protected]> Subject: Re: "last week" The short answer: do it as Colin Mark reccommends (which is not as I do it - I'm saying "Do as I say, not as I do" here.) If you want the long answer, read on This starts from "an t-seachduin seo a chaidh", but you can't have "seo a" so the "a" gets elided out leaving "an seachduin seo chaidh". However, in some contexts in some dialects "seo" gets pronounced "sa", so you would have "an t-seachduin sa a chaidh", and again "sa a" is impossible so it leads to elision and becomes either "sa" or "s' a". That gives you all three forms you have observed. Just to complicate things a bit, sometimes soe is written as a suffix, so instead of a space between the final n of seachduin and the s you have a hyphen. That gives another three variants, making six so far. More variations: the most common spelling in the 19th and most of the 20th century was seachduin, but an a instead of the u was always possible and over the last twnty years (as a result of the SEB's GOC for secondary school examinations) the spelling with "a" has become more common. That doubles the number of variants, bringing it up to twelve. Then of course, "seo" is often written "so". So we end up with sixten possible variants. And finally, chaidh could be written 'chaidh unless sa is written s' a, to indicate the elided relative pronoun a. I think that makes the total number of variants 20. All twenty are equally correct. Take your pick! If yu want a preferred variant, you have to ask yourself "preferred by whom?". As native writers use all 20, you can't appeal to "correctness" in any useful linguistic sense. But you can appeal to correctness in a prescriptive idiotic misinterpretation of school examining board regulations sense, see below. If you want to be correct according to the SEB examination rules, you should not use "s' a" or "so", stick to "sa" or "seo", spell seachduin with an 'a' instead of an 'u', and don't write an apostrophe before chaidh. That reduces the count to four variants. From what I've seen in print, it seems to be usual not to have a hyphen with seo, but to have one with sa. That reduces it to two variants (neither of which is the one I would use, incidentally). But the SEB doesn't like hyphens unless there is a very good reason for writing them, so that brings it down to just one variant - the one in Colin Mark's tip. (I would write "so" instead of "seo", but that's just because that was the way to do it 50 years ago, and the only reason I leave out the apostrophe before chaidh is that I'm too lazy to write it). However, this is all spelling. The only possible pronunciation diference between all these variants is whether the s in seo, so, sa, or s' is palatalised or not. For me, it is (as it clearly is for Colin, given his spelling "so" with an 'e') but I've heard it unpalatalised sometimes. M. Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 08:03:29 -0700 Subject: Re: "last week" In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> [email protected] writes: >"an t-seachdain seo chaidh" < > >"an t-seachdain 's a chaidh" < > >"an t-seachdain sa chaidh" Dh'ionnsaich mi "an t-seachdain seo chaidh" anns a'chiad uair, ach nuair an robh mi ann an Eilean Ceap Breatuinn (aig a'Chollaisde na Ghaidhlig) chunnaic mi "an t-seachdain 's a chaidh". Ach co-dhiu.....all three are okay, in my estimation..... I learnt "" the first time, but when I was at the Gaelic College in Cape Breton I saw "". (But, there's really not much difference in pronunciation, anyway). I use the first one, just because that's what I learnt first. Anndra na teoclaid. :-) --------------- "B'fhearr a bhi gun bhreith na bhi gun teagasg." "Better not to have been born than to be unlearned." "B'fhearr gun tòiseachadh na sgur gun chrìochnachadh." "Better not begin than stop without finishing." Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 12:26:25 +0100 From: Colin Mark <[email protected]> Subject: Re: "last week" A Dh�ibhidh, Michael has given you a very comprehensive account of the development of this, so I won't expand on that. Suffice to say that a quick scan of the resources available would indicate that 'seo' and 'sa' are almost equal in frequency of usage, with a preponderance of 'sa' in the Scotsman and in Litir gu L-I. In short, this would indicate that 'seo' is more traditional and 'sa' is more modern. Despite G.O.C., there are a few situations in which you will come across alternative spellings e.g. in the phrase 'mo chreach-sa thàinig!' Goodness gracious! Is that the correct spelling? I cannot be absolutely sure. I have often seen 'mo chreach 'sa thàinig!' To my mind, it really depends on the original form of the phrase. If we look at 'mo chreach-sa [a] thàinig!' this would indicate that the -sa is the emphatic particle, with the following relative pronoun elided, which would seem very likely in this case. But what would *'sa* mean in 'mo chreach 'sa thàinig!'? It clearly cannot mean the same as *'s a* does after 'cho' as in: Cha robh e cho dona 's a shaoileadh tu. It wasn't as bad as you might think. - where *'s* = *agus*. Nor can it mean any of the other abbreviations indicated by *sa* (with or without apostrophes) i.e 'in the', 'in which'. Similarly, in the phrase *c' àite a bheil?* (here written in full) you will often find either *c' àit a bheil?* or *c' àite bheil?* It makes no difference to the pronunciation, but I prefer *c' àit a bheil?* because I think that the first vowel should give way here. Then there is the circumstance I wrote about on 7th April: mu a thimcheall / mu a timcheall may also be written as m' a thimcheall / m' a timcheall or mu thimcheall / mu timcheall I wouldn't recommend the second, and my personal choice is the third one. Cailean Am Marcair Dubh Is i a' Ghàidhlig Cànan mo Dhùthcha.MBR< URL: http://www.gaeldesign.com/colinmark Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 01:44:20 +0100 From: Tom Thomson <[email protected]> Subject: Re: "last week" > But what would *'sa* mean in 'mo chreach 'sa th�inig!'? It clearly > cannot mean the same as *'s a* does after 'cho' as in: Now that Colin has pointed it out, I've noticed that Daidbidh wrote " 'sa" and not "s' a". Of course I read it as "s'a" because that's the only way to make sense of it (apart from an apostrophe after the 'a' indicating an elided possessive). As Colin says, " 'sa" can't actually mean anything (maybe he didn't express it that strongly in fact, but that's what it amounts to). "sa" in phrases like this is a contraction of "-sa a", not of "is a" or "anns a" or anything else that could account for an apostrophe before the 's'. Micheal Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 16:57:54 +0300 From: Daniela and Jim Brown <[email protected]> Subject: Re: "last week" Tapadh leibh airson na freagairt seo. Tha mi toilichte a bhith a' cluintinn gur h-e an tritheamh atharrachadh as fhe�rr leibh. (Se as fasa dhiubh ri r�dh cuideachd, cho fads a chi mi.) Le deagh dh�rachd, Seumas Thank you for this answer. I am glad to hear that you prefer the third variant. (It's the easiest to say too, as far as I can see.) |
Main Menu
Gaelic Page
Tip of the Week - Main
Tip of the Week - Previous Tip of the Week - Next
This page hosted by
| Get your own
Free Home Page