Dear Colleagues,

I am currently collecting spellings of some geographical names in various languages (and writing systems), including Irish. A came accross a nice source of information at http://www.geonames.de, where I found the following information on "Himalaya" in Irish: "na Himiléithe" / "na Himiléiøe".

Could you please explain what is the meaning of the word "na", i.e. can it be omitted without changing the meaning of the respective name? And, which variant of spelling should I prefer?

Many thanks and best regards,

V Benko, 16:35 Danube Valley Time :-)

I think that the "na" stands for the plural form of the definite article "the," as in "the Himalayas." Irish has two definite articles, one for singular "an" and one for plural "na."

quote:

Could you please explain what is the meaning of the word "na", i.e. can it be omitted without changing the meaning of the respective name? And, which variant of spelling should I prefer?

Concerning the "na" Mac Tíre's explanation is correct. As far as I know, it cannot be omitted since it describes a group of mountains.

Your second variant of spelling doesn't look like Irish at all. The first one is correct.

Thanks, I am leaving the "na" and deleting the second form :-)

Vlado B, 13:10 Spring Time

na Himiléiøe - looks like some sort of Scandinavian language to my eyes. Curious that they have "na" preceding it.