a chairde:
abair, et. al.

i have seen pronunciational guides which state the "-IR" ending in irish is difficult to represent in english. for instance in the case of the imperative "Abair!" I read somewhere this is pronounced not like the Swedish rock group Abba, but more like ABih, where the "r" as we know it in Be/arla is balbh (mute.)

Go raibh maith agat

"I read somewhere this is pronounced not like the Swedish rock group Abba,"

The one who wrote that cannot have had any high opinions about his readers. No, "abair" isn't pronounced even remotely like Abba, Abbey or Aberdeen. :-)

"but more like ABih,"

I'm not with you here, where did the "h" at the end come from? The "a" in Irish is, as I guess everyone knows, the same a-sound as in virtually all European languages except English. It sounds nothing like the "a" in "can", "cat" or "man", more like the "u" in "cut".

By the way, since all of Europe can agree almost completely on how to pronounce the standard vowels, why on earth can't the English :-) I think that is a major part of the fact that an English-speaking learner normally pronounce foreign languages much worse than most other learners.


"where the "r" as we know it in Be/arla is balbh (mute.)"

The "r" is not mute at all, you can hear it quite clearly. It just isn't the same "r" as in English.

I think it sounds almost like a soft "d".

thanks

As Lughaidh has mentioned in other threads, in Gaoth Dobhair and thereabouts the slender r is regularly pronounced [γ´] or [j], so that "mo thrí thruaighe naoi n-uaire" is a perfect rhyme.

In North Mayo the -r- in "in Éirinn" may sound rather like the -s- in the American English pronunciation of "an Asian."

Where the slender r is a palatalized alveolar flap, it's pretty much like the normal American pronunciation of the -d- in the name Edie, said with a big smile.

Abair is pronounced quite as "abwiy" in Gweedore.

a chairde:

interesting. thanks.

regarding abair i was looking for the irish language equivalent of the imperative phrase: "shake! say!" -- or "shake! speak!"

Could that be Croith! Abair! ?? how would that be pronounced in the north of ireland.

go raibh maith agaibh

Beannacht

daniel cassidy

ps i am especially interested in my family's donegal dialect. any books you might on the phonology of the donegal dialect you might suggest?

What do u mean by "shake" ?

Craith would be pronounced /krajx'/ in Donegal Irish.


There are many local dialects in Donegal: northern Donegal Irish will sound different from Southern Donegal Irish.
The dialects u can find books about are: Torr, Tory, Ros Goill, Teelin, Glencolumbkill.

You can find much information in the LASID (Linguistic Atlas and Survey of the Irish Dialects) by Heinrich Wagner (first and fourth volumes).

Are there people in your family who speak Irish? If there are, why don't u ask them how they speak and why don't you learn irish with them? :-)

Are there people in your family who speak Irish? If there are, why don't u ask them how they speak and why don't you learn irish with them? :-)

A chara:

They are all dead. The last Irish speaker in my family died in Brooklyn in the mid-1950s when I was a "ponach." I am studying Irish American dialect words and phrases I grew up with. Tuig é nó ná, I was born with a lot of the words but not the grammar or spelling.

Abair was not one of them.

Teasaí for "hot" and suim oll amháin for a big sum of moolah were.



Beannacht
dc

I don't have my dictionaries handy, but I read that as:
suim ullmháin = количина готовине = a sum of ready money.
__________

Cf.:

"Mar airgead ullamh, bha teachd-a-mach 2003-04 mar seo a leanas…"

"A thaobh teachd-a-steach eile, thàinig lùghdachadh de £2.4 millean mar thoradh air a’ chuid a bu mhotha air tasgaidhean aonair ach an aghaidh sin thàinig àrdachadh ann an ìre nan cuidhteasan ann an airgead ullamh bho obraichean agus bho Aonadh na h-Eòrpa mar thaic gus togalaichean a leasachadh."
http://www.hie.co.uk/gaelic-p83-100.pdf

вел, а хара… сигуран сам да сваки члан овдjе добро разумиjе ”количина готовине”. :- ) уосталом, jeси ли видио нови уџбеник Lehrbuch der Serbischen Sprache? нашао сам га у своjоj библиотеци и мислим да je веома добар. свакако, знам да не требаш* уџбеник, али мислио сам да мощда то те занима – знам да занимаш се за уџбенике jезика.

*знам да нe моще казати ”требаш” на српском, али jе у реду на хрватском.




Bhuel, a chara… táim cinnte go dtuigeann gach ball anso ”количина готовине” go maith. :-) Dála an scéil, an bhfeacaís an cúrsa nua Lehrbuch der Serbischen Sprache? Fuaireas é im leabharlann agus tá sé ana-mhaith, dar liom. Tá a fhios agam go maith ná fuileann tú i ngá cúrsa, ach b’fhéidir go bhfuil suim agat ann - tá a fhios agam go bhfuil suim agat i gcúrsanna as teangacha éagsula

*Tá a fhios agam ná féidir “trebaš” a rá as Seirbis, ach tá sé ceart go leor as Chróitis.

"táim cinnte go dtuigeann gach ball anso ”количина готовине” go maith. :-)"

Se trata de una cantidad de «lana», o sea, de dinero en efectivo. Es decir, no se trata de lana. ¿Méndez? ¿Federico? ¿Me contradigo, Rodrigo?

"jeси ли видио нови уџбеник Lehrbuch der Serbischen Sprache?"

Најн, дас хабе их нихт гезêн.

Ní fhacaidh.

"знам да се нe може казати ”требаш” на српском, али jе у реду на хрватском."

Да, то је тачно (точно). То мени треба / јa to trebam.

одлично, сада имам и ”ж” – видиш да сам рано написао ”ш” мjесто ”ж”

"Se trata de una cantidad de «lana», o sea, de dinero en efectivo. Es decir, no se trata de lana. ¿Méndez? ¿Federico? ¿Me contradigo, Rodrigo? "

Jo, jag förstod det - tyckte bara att det var såg ganska kul ut :-)

"Најн, дас хабе их нихт гезêн"

наjа, маjнер маjнунг нах ист дер курс фил бесер алс ди енглише курсе

"Да, то је тачно (точно). То мени треба / јa to trebam"

Hvala, zaboravio sam to - ne govorim srpski tako često.

I don't have my dictionaries handy, but I read that as:
suim ullmháin = количина готовине = a sum of ready money.


A chairde

Go raibh maith agaibh.


Samollions or simollions only referred to "large" amounts of money in NYC and Bklyn -- 1880s to the present.

Can ullamh and amháin be combimed as ullmháin? Fascinating.

Is количина готовине Serbian Samollions? Or samollions in Serbian? Samollions is always used in the plural form in Brooklyn, which has many Russians and a few Serbians. But samollions are never singular even among Brooklyn Russians. It is a singular mystery.

It is never called samollion. Only samollionS. Perhaps its plurality in American slang embodies its samollion-like plenitude. I just used it in a singular form. So I take everything I just wrote back.


количина готовине is a mystery to me.

Thanks

By the way, how did we drift into this discussion from the original question about the pronunciation of "abair"?? :-)

Dancas1: Can ullamh and amháin be combined as ullmháin?

No, but ullamh means "ready," and if there's such a derivative as ullmhán (ullamh + -án) – whose genitive would be ullmháin – it makes sense as a word for "ready money" or "cash," like "airgead ullamh" in that Scottish Gaelic text. Otherwise, maybe the expression that your elders used was "suim ullamh againn," which they may have pronounced "suim ullamh aghainn" if they were from the southern part of Donegal. "Tá suim ullamh aghainn anois!" could mean "We've a sum of cash now!" (lit. "We've a ready sum now!"). This is conjecture, mind you.

In Serbian (etc.):
колико / koliko = how much
количина / količina = quantity
готов / gotov = ready
готов новац / gotov novac = ready money, cash
готовина / gotovina = ready money, cash
количина готовине / količina gotovine = a quantity of cash.

Jonas: how did we drift into this discussion from the original question about the pronunciation of "abair"??

« ps i am especially interested in my family's donegal dialect. > Are there people in your family who speak Irish? If there are, why don't u ask them how they speak and why don't you learn irish with them? :-) > They are all dead…I was born with a lot of the words but not the grammar or spelling…Abair was not one of them. Teasaí for "hot" and suim oll amháin for a big sum of moolah were.»

That's how.

(Message edited by Peadar Ó Gríofa on March 31, 2005)

Peadar:
...maybe the expression that your elders used was "suim ullamh againn," which they may have pronounced "suim ullamh aghainn" if they were from the southern part of Donegal. "Tá suim ullamh aghainn anois!" could mean "We've a sum of cash now!" (lit. "We've a ready sum now!"). This is conjecture, mind you.

What an interesting suggestion. The word samollions is still used all over NYC. I heard it from a colleague from the bronx at a graduate curriculum meeting at my college on MOnday and some of the other faculty thought it was a foreign language like Serbian. haha. He and I had to translate for our colleagues.

I had always suspected it was just some version of Suim Oll amháin, meaning "one vast sum?" Now you have me thinking, which is always good, but often sloppy in my case. Beannacht.

Well, thanks to your samollions, I have now learned that, even if there's no such thing as "ullmhán," there is such a thing as a mullion. Maybe someday I'll have occasion to use it in a sentence: "Mask the panes before you paint the mullions!"