I know Early Modern Irish is tangential to learning Irish today. But I have some questions, and I don't know if anyone can answer them. So can I start a new thread for these? They are from Bedell's Bible, but I am using it as a linguistic text. I read the 1st 8 verses of Genesis today.

Gen. 1:5: Agus do búdh í an nóin 7 an mhaidean an cheud lá.
Gen. 1:8: Agus do budh é an nóin 7 an mhaidean an dara lá.

My query is: what part of the copula is do búdh? It this just "ba" in disguise? Is it past tense? If so, why is it not "do ba"? Did Early Modern Irish append a "dh" before vowels? I suppose these old books vary with the fada's, but in one case it is búdh and in the other budh, and also curious is that in one case it is "é" and in the other "í".

Does anyone have any insight into this?

Although I am reading it slowly, I think 8 verses is quite good progress for reading such old Irish!

I'd suspect the typesetter for the different forms!

given the é/í switch above

I think bu(ú)dh is "bhí" in disguise.

But: do bhí occurs elsewhere in the text, which is why i think it is a copula form. The table of forms at the back of Dinneen's includes some copula forms in like budh, but they are future, not past, hence my difficulty.

Let me give the whole text (and bearing in mind that Bedell's Irish in the OT was not necessary the same as Domhnall's in the NT):

SANN tosach do chrúthaidh Día neamh 7 talamh.
2 Agus do bhí an talamh gan chuma, 7 fáon; 7 do bhí dorchadus ar ághaidh an aigein; 7 do chorruigh Spiorád Dé 7 ághaidh na nuisgeadh.
3 Agus a dúbhairt Día, Bíodh solus ann: 7 do bhí an solus ann.
4 Agus do chonnaic Día an solus, gur mhaith é, 7 do roinn Día idir an solus 7 an dórchadus .
5 Agus do ghoir Día don tsolus Lá , 7 don dórchadus do ghoir sé Oidhche . Agus do búdh í an nóin 7 an mhaidean an cheud lá.
6 Agus a dúbhairt Día, Bíodh spéur a meadhón na nuisgeadh, 7 roinneadh na huisgeadha ó na huisgeadhuibh.
7 Agus do rinne Día an spéur, 7 do roinn na huisgeadha faói an spéur ó na huisgeadhuibh ós cíonn na spéire: 7 do bhí mar sin .
8 Agus do ghoir Día don spéur neamh. Agus do budh é an nóin 7 an mhaidean an dara lá.

A mistake in verse 2, so this is the correct version:

SANN tosach do chrúthaidh Día neamh 7 talamh.
2 Agus do bhí an talamh gan chuma, 7 fáon; 7 do bhí dorchadus ar ághaidh an aigein; 7 do chorruigh Spiorád Dé ar ághaidh na nuisgeadh.
3 Agus a dúbhairt Día, Bíodh solus ann: 7 do bhí an solus ann.
4 Agus do chonnaic Día an solus, gur mhaith é, 7 do roinn Día idir an solus 7 an dórchadus .
5 Agus do ghoir Día don tsolus Lá , 7 don dórchadus do ghoir sé Oidhche . Agus do búdh í an nóin 7 an mhaidean an cheud lá.
6 Agus a dúbhairt Día, Bíodh spéur a meadhón na nuisgeadh, 7 roinneadh na huisgeadha ó na huisgeadhuibh.
7 Agus do rinne Día an spéur, 7 do roinn na huisgeadha faói an spéur ó na huisgeadhuibh ós cíonn na spéire: 7 do bhí mar sin .
8 Agus do ghoir Día don spéur neamh. Agus do budh é an nóin 7 an mhaidean an dara lá.

Yes. I think your probably right.

I see Dinneen notates buḋ as "absolute future"

In English the verse would be "that was the first day"

quote:

don tsolus

And somebody claims that caighdeán is a good thing?

Yes, Róman, I noticed that Bedell was not constrained by the CO. :-)

But anyway, my problem is that búdh seems to be future copula, but with "do" in front of it, it cannot be future. Does anyone know of any sites or books with more info?

looking at Celt, I think we must be misinterpreting Dinneen, or he got it wrong

http://www.google.com/custom?cx=015080749438202091167%3Aj3njhim80qu&q=budh&sa=Se arch&cof=GFNT%3A%23666666%3BLH%3A55%3BCX%3ACELT%2520Search%2520Engine%3BDIV%3A%2 3cccccc%3BFORID%3A0%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egoogle%2Ecom%2Fcoop%2Fimages%2Fgoog le_custom_search_sm%2Egif%3BLP%3A1%3BAH%3Aleft&hl=en&client=google-coop

sampla amháin as:

Do ghabh Caoimhghin ré n-ais tré chruas crabaidh gach corghus do dhenamh a c-cró caolaigh, & leac ghlas mar leabuidh faoi, & as é ceól na n-aingeal do budh proinn dó; & do chaithedh caoicios ar mhí mar sin.

Quote:

I'd suspect the typesetter for the different forms! given the é/í switch above

Doesn't this open a can of worms relevant to the inerrancy of the Scripture? One frequently reads of the meticulous care taken to secure consistency and accuracy in both the transcription of the original, Hebrew parchments and the translation of versions such as the English, King James. I would like to think that Bedell et al were equally careful.

Nope Aonghus, "budh" is what we spell now "ba", ie. the past tense of "is".

This has been quite a day for the Copula

Bedell was long dead when the edition Peadar is working with went into print. Also, it must be said that he only commissioned the translation. Some other scholars did the work.


Scríobh Lughaidh:

quote:

Nope Aonghus, "budh" is what we spell now "ba", ie. the past tense of "is".

Cheartaigh mé mé fhéin thuas.
Ach tá sé ag Dinneen (i gcúl an fhoclóra) mar "Future absolute"

Thanks Aonghus and Lughaidh for researching this for me. I have finished transcribing Genesis 1, and so I may have some more questions. Now the Bible has 1189 chapters, so I am nearly 0.1% through the whole...

And yes there are many inconsistencies in Genesis 1 especially in terms of fadas, some cases of inconsistent lenition, and é/í varying around... I am thinking that in seanchló Irish, just like Arabic with its vowel sounds, the dot for lenition and fada can be seen as "extra information" that scribes in those days thought they could put in or leave out at will...

I mistranscribed one word owing to a manuscript sign:

And God saw... Agus do chonnairc Día

I thought it said do chonnaic, but there is definitely an r in there too and Google shows that do chonnairc did exist as a form.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gaelic/Rhodes/sb.5.html

What follows are excerpts from the above URL. It's amazing what a little Google will do!

Bunléitheoireacht Ghalach a Cóig le Mícheál Rhodes
Here is the Elementary IG Reading # 5. This is an old folk story taken from Douglas Hyde's book "Le hAis na Teineadh" - Beside the Fire. I have standardized the spelling somewhat, but have left the old pre-1948 spellings. Most of the older literature is written with this older spelling and it is good to get used to it. I have put a vocabulary at the end of this piece that gives the modern spelling equivalents of the earlier spellings in the text.


Adhlacadh Liaim Uí Ruanaigh

Nuair chonnairc an bhuachaill Liam, as go bráth leis, agus níor stop go ndeacaidh sé chum an tsagairt agus a chroidhe ag teacht amach ar a bhéal le faitchios.

Now the Bible has 1189 chapters, so I am nearly 0.1% through the whole...

Perhaps you ought to move to one of those monastaries on a rock off the western coast. Looks like your time is accounted for for awhile.


Adhlacadh Liaim Uí Ruanaigh

Tá ceist agam. Cén fáth Uí Ruanaigh in áit Ó Ruanaigh? Nach Liam fear é?

Liam Ó Ruanaigh's burial atá i gceist

Liam Ó Ruanaigh's burial atá i gceist

Ní tuigim, a Thúsa_fhéin.

A Pheadair, an bhfuil "Corpas na Gaeilge" agat? Tá'n leabhar uilig istigh ansin (cé go bhfuil sé rud beag deacair véarsa áirithe a aimsiú ann.)

Aha! Agus an bhfuil Siobhán Uí Ruanaigh = Siobhán (banchéile) Uí Ruanaigh? Rooney's wife? Agus an ceannóidh Ruanaigh hata nua di?

Can I ask more Genesis questions?

1:9: Agus a dubhairt Día, cruinnighthear na huisgeadha atá faói neamh a néunáit, 7 léigthear an úir thirm leis: 7 do bhí mar sin.

In this verse, the commands seems to be in the autonomous form of the verb. Or if it is not, what is cruinnighthear and léighthear? Why not the imperative 3rd singular? Also "léigthear an úir thirm leis" must mean "let dry land appear", but leigim means "let", so the phrase seems to mean, "let the dry land with it". Am I parsing this sentence wrong?

1:12: Agus tug an talamh mínfhéur, 7 luibh do bhéir síol do réir a chinéil, 7 crann do bheir torradh, noch araibh a shíol ann féin do réir a chinéil; 7 do chonnairc Día gur mhaith sin.

I know "noch" means who, which etc. But I don't understand "noch araibh". What is araibh?

Now it seems that "noch araibh a shíol" means "whose seed was" with araibh being raibh in disguise. But I am wondering if raibh was always araibh back then, or whether the a is a relative particle that needed to follow noch?

They're the autonomous imperative.
cruinnigheodh na huisgeadha = "let the waters gather"
cruinnighthear na huisgeadha = "let the waters be gathered"

This is just a guess:
Léigthear an úir thirm leis = "let the dry land be exposed/left by it"
(where the "let" in the English version comes from the verb tense, not from interpreting "léig" as "permit")

The "a" after "noch" is a relative particle - indirect, in this case.

Dúirt Aonghus:

quote:

Bedell was long dead when the edition Peadar is working with went into print. Also, it must be said that he only commissioned the translation. Some other scholars did the work.

Níl a fhios agam an fíor nó bréag é, ach seo sliocht as The Irish Literary Tradition le J. E. Caerwyn Williams agus Patrick K. Ford:

"William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, and a number of assistants were responsible for the Old Testament translation, although he had been long dead (7 February 1641/2 [sic]) before it was published. Irish was not Bedell's native tongue, and that may explain the fact that the Old Testament translation is inferior to that of the New Testament. The Old and New Testaments were published together in 1690."

Abigail: no, I don't have a copy of that book. What is in it? Why should I get it? I have a copy of the actual Bible printed in 1827.

May I thank you for your knowledgeable comments on the autonomous imperative, which I hadn't been aware of before. I have noticed that in Bedell's Bible a number of particles attack to the wrong word. So: noch araibh = noch a raibh. Following "cruinnighthear na huisgeadha" it says: "a néunáit". I figured out that "a" means "i", and that the n that follows was wrongly attached to the noun, so that the whole means: in aon áit. I am gradually learning a few things, but Dennis has made me dubious by telling me it is in poor Irish!

Dennis:

you are not sure what 7 February 1641/2 means?

This was the old way of referring to dates in England, and I was not sure if that extended to Ireland. The thing was: January 1 was not regarded as the proper start of the new year, being merely the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. The proper start of the new year was Lady-day, the Feast of the Annunciation, on March 25, because that was exactly 9 months before Jesus was born. So dates between January 1 and March 25 got the double year treatment. 7 February 1641/2 means it was 7 February 1642, but pious Anglicans refused to accept that 1642 had truly started until Lady-day, and so continued to regard that part of the year as belonging to 1641. This is why the execution of King Charles I is variously stated as 30 January 1648 and 30 january 1648/9, when in modern reckoning it was 30 January 1649.

Well, it would take you back a couple of editions, to the 1681 printing - I don't know if that would matter for your purposes or not.

We have the 1681 on microfilm here. The first verse of John is slightly different, although perhaps not in ways that would interest you (it's clearly the same translation, just with orthography tweaked a bit):
http://www.nd.edu/~amitche3/images/short_term/eoin_1_1.png
ANn sa tosach do bhí an bhriathar, agus do bhí an bhriathar a bfochair Dé, agus do bé Diá an bhriathar.
versus yours:
ANN sa tosach do bhí an Bríathar, 7 do bhí an Bríathar a bhfochair Dé, 7 do bé Día an Bríathar.

Aside from that, it's an electronic corpus of printed materials from 1600-1882 - prose, poetry, religious texts, etc. Over 7 million words. The search functionality could be a bit better but it's still an excellent resource.
http://shop.ria.ie/shop/shopexd.asp?id=358


Regarding "a néunáit", as far as I know the "n-" was originally just the usual eclipsis on vowels:
ár dtír, ár n-anam
i dtír, i n-anam

Somewhere along the line (and I'd be interested to know where! I think it must have been fairly recently) it became attached to the preposition instead.

Abigail, thank you for that. I certainly would like to get it. Ar dtús, b'fhéidir leat rá liom, an bhfuil an Sean Tiomna i gCorpas na Gaelainne chomh maith leis?

"Somewhere along the line (and I'd be interested to know where! I think it must have been fairly recently) it became attached to the preposition instead."

Since the written form has rules of its own, and a logic often orthogonal to speech, it is no surprise that the continous string of sound is abstractly divisioned differently depending on what basic rules you subscribe to. Given the Caighdeán, it is no surprise that it went for in aon áit over the more sensible anaonáit

Well, "i n-aon áit" would have struck me as the sensible thing. But nobody asked me. :)

I was reading a novel last week, "Tonn Tuile" by Séamus Ó Néill. Ulster dialect, written in 1947. It's full of hyphens: "faoi n-a fear" and "aon-mhuinín" and "an chéad-chogadh eile". I don't recall seeing the likes of "i n-aon-áit" there but it wouldn't have surprised me.

B'in an chéad leabhar sa gcló Gaelach ar léigh mé ó cheann ceann... tá mé in ann é a léamh le tamaill anuas ach bíonn faitíos orm roimh leabhair atá scríofa go hiomlán ann, faitíos agus easpa foighne.

Ach mhol cara liom an leabhar seo le haghaidh mo thrialla san Iorua, agus rinne sé dearmad glan mar dhea ar an ghné sin den leabhar a lua liom. Tá iontaobh nach beag agam i dtuairimí an charad céanna i dtaobh léitheoireachta - b'eisean a chuir "Fontenoy" faoi mo bhráid, agus cúpla leabhar eile a thaitin thar cionn liom. Fuair mé an leabhar ón leabharlann mar sin, i ngeall ar a mholadh seisean de agus tar éis an cúlchlúdach a léamh dom féin (rud a bhí sa gcló Rómhánach ar fad.) Ag siúl amach dom go dtí an carrchlos, ghéill mé don chathú agus d'oscail an leabhar le haghaidh "ach amháin cúpla leathanach" a léamh - agus mura raibh sé sa seanchló!

Chloígh mé leis agus bhí sé níos éasca tar éis cúpla leathanaigh. Faoi lár an leabhair ní raibh an cló ag cur aon mhoille orm.
Agus ba dheas taitneamhach an t-úrscéal é!

Abigail, thank you for that. I certainly would like to get it. Ar dtús, b'fhéidir leat rá liom, an bhfuil an Sean Tiomna i gCorpas na Gaelainne chomh maith leis?

Gabh mo leithscéal! Ní fhaca mé an cheist thuas go dtí seo.

Tá go deimhin. Ach má théid tú á lorg faoin teideal úd, beidh d'obair in aisce agat!

Ba chóir dom a lua nach féidir caibidil iomlán a léamh ó cheann ceann, sa mBíobla nó in aon leabhar eile sa gcorpas. Bíonn ort focal áirithe a chuardach, agus ansin taispeánfaidh sé trí nó ceithre cinn de véarsaí ina thimpeall mar "chomhthéacs" leis. Coipeáil-agus-greamaigh na véarsaí sin, roghnaigh focal neamhchoitianta sa gceann deireanach díobh, agus cuardaigh an focal sin leis an chéad chúpla véarsa eile a fháil...

I should mention that you can't see the whole text at once - only a few verses at a time. It's a little bit inconvenient.

quote:

Corpas na Gaelainne

Recte: Corpas na Gaeilge Sin é an teideal atá air.

An bhfuil a fhios agat, Abigail, an n-oibríonn sé go maith ar an Mac?

quote:

an n-oibríonn

Caighdeán nua, an ea?

Corpas na Gaeilge -bought it and unless you enjoy looking up ONE word at a time -no phrases, no 'how did they do relative clauses in the 17th century' etc. No just one word at a time

Corpas atá ann! Ní bheinn ag súil le léiriucháin gramadaí!

A Dennis, níor bhain mise triail as ach ní dóigh liom go n-oibríonn. Dar leis an treoirleabhar a tháinig leis tá Windows (98 nó níos úire) de dhíth.

quote:

« an n-oibríonn »

Caighdeán nua, an ea?

Cad é an Ghaeilge ar hypercorrection?

quote:

ní dóigh liom go n-oibríonn

GRMA, Abigail. Sin $72 agam anois le caitheamh ar rud éigin eile!