I started studying Gaelic about a month ago, and need a translation from English to Gaelic. What is "little friend" (or something Equivalent) in Gaelic? I also need pronounciation.

If you're addressing the person, as in "Hey little friend, come over here", then it's "a chara bheag". In normal speech though, it's just "cara beag".

The Irish language has a few different cases for words, plus a few different mutations for them, so you really have to give context. As an example, here's the many different forms of the word "woman" that you'll find in Irish:

bean
bhean
mbean
mná
mhná
ban
bhan
mban
mnaoi
mhnaoi
mrá
mhrá

Awesome! I've been considering naming my horse "little friend". These forums are really neat.

recté: a chara bhig

How did a slenderised adjective end up in the vocative of a feminine noun, diachronically? Given that the noun does not slenderise.

Tá cara firinscneach. Seachas sin, níl fhios agam. Ar imfhios a oibrímse!

cara [ainmfhocal firinscneach]
duine a bhfuil aithne agus cion agat air, duine muinteartha, duine atá mór leat agus tú mór leis.

Raight; gabh mo leaithscéal

As far as I know, the vocative is identical to the nominative UNLESS you're dealing with a first declension noun, which is why I thought it was "a chara bheag". Any second opinions?

beag IS the 1st declension, so it changes to bhig
cara is not a 1st decl. noun so it remains the same
Daithí

"A chara bheag" atá sa gC.O. go bhfios dom - ach is é "a chara bhig" a déarfainnse agus tá tuairim agam go bhfuil sé níos fairsinge ná a mhalairt sa gcaint.

(cf. "a mhaicín bháin", "a dhuine uasail" srl.)

Sin é go díreach an rud a bhí mé ag iarraidh a rá. (is this the right way of saying this?)

Daithí

"A chara bheag" atá sa gC.O. go bhfios dom

Chan dóigh liom é... "A chara bhig" a bheadh ann, dar liomsa.

Chuaigh mé i gcomhairle leis na Bráithre Críostaí, agus mura bhfuil an ceart ar fad agaibh! "A chara bhig" a bheadh ann. Gabhaigí mo leithscéal as sin.

It turns out that different criteria apply to the noun and the adjective. For a noun, the singular vocative is (as you say) genitive singular for the 1st declension, nominative singular for everything else. For an adjective, it's genitive singular if the noun is masculine (regardless of declension), nominative singular if it's feminine.

quote:

Tá cara firinscneach.

Recte: it is both, depending on the actual gender.

An bhfuil tú cinnte? Úsáidtear an dá chóras forainmneacha ceart go leor - ach déarfainn "an cara a chonaic mé aréir" seachas "an chara," fiú dá mba bhean í an cara.

Focal eile is ea cara baininscneach: "Haunch" leis an nóta Lit atá sa GFGB!

Seo dhaoibh:

cara [kar@] m. and f. g. -d, pl. cairde friend

TYI le Ó Cróinín, p. 218

Dineen:

cara, g. carad, d. caraid, npl caraid, cáirde, fpl carad m. and f. a friend, a beloved one, a relative...

Сaighdeán creators' opinion about the gender of this word doesn't count for much against Ó Cróinín and Dineen in my eyes...

Right, I'd take that to indicate it's one of those nouns like ainm, briathar, fíon, loch that can be masculine or feminine depending on dialect.

Have you read somewhere that it does vary within dialect, based on the gender of the friend?

quote:

Have you read somewhere that it does vary within dialect

TYI le Ó Cróinín represents Cork Irish, not even a dialect, but a sub-dialect. If you think about for a while - you will understand that it is very logical that this unisex noun can have both genders. Even in English where is no such thing as grammatical gender there is "girl-friend" and "boy-friend". Even if it is simply "friend" you would not refer to her "he" if it is your female friend, would you?

Certainly not - just as I wouldn't use "é" and "sé" with "cailín" even though it is a masculine noun. I would, however, say "an cailín" and "máthair an chailín" rather than "an chailín" and "máthair na cailín."

For personal pronouns, sex trumps gender; for grammatical inflection, as far as I am aware it does not.

I would take Ó Cróinín's statement (and Dineen's) to mean that "cara" is found both as masculine and as feminine - possibly in the same speech community, possibly even with the same speaker, if he/she comes from an area where both forms exist. I'd buy that. It's no different from talún/talaimh if so.

But I would be cautious about inferring that the word changes gender with the sex of its referent, unless that's what Ó Cróinín explicitly states (I don't have the book), or unless you have examples of the same phenomenon happening with other words.

Hmmm ...
If "cara" would change grammatical gender, then "an chara" (nom.) and "na carad" (gen.) would be used if feminine.
Does this really happen?

Lars

I could believe it. (For what it's worth Ó Dónaill also gives feminine "cara" as a variant.)
It wouldn't be any different from other such words: aigne, ainm, beart, béim, briathar... there must be a couple dozen at least.

What I'm not sure I believe is that the gender changes on the fly, based on whether the friend is male or female. I've never heard of that happening: it doesn't seem to with "ainm", which is (as far as I can tell) uniformly feminine in Munster, uniformly masculine elsewhere - and most of the bi-gendered words I can think of don't even refer to sexed beings anyway, so they certainly don't.

Not saying it couldn't happen, but if so it's a new one on me, and I suspect on lots of other people - which is why it would surprise me if somebody somewhere hadn't explicitly noted the phenomenon.

Tá "carae / cara" firininscneach sa tSean- agus sa Mheán-Ghaeilge. Sin é a deir DIL agus LEIA, agus ní fhaca mé a mhalairt riamh. Níl againn anois ach líne amháin i ngluais TYI a deir go bhfuil an focal seo m. and f. Feicim go bhfuil "céile" m. and f. sa ghluais sin freisin, cé go bhfuil sé firinscneach in Ó Dónaill agus in De Bhaldraithe (agus sa tSean-Ghaeilge). Hmmm. B'fhéidir gurb é seo atá á rá acu dáiríre: go gcuimsíonn na focail seo, "cara" agus "céile", fir agus mná araon, murab ionann is teangacha eile a bhfuil dá fhocal éagsúla acu: amigo, amiga; ami, amie, etc.

quote:

For a noun, the singular vocative is (as you say) genitive singular for the 1st declension, nominative singular for everything else. For an adjective, it's genitive singular if the noun is masculine (regardless of declension), nominative singular if it's feminine.

Now that's beautiful... it nearly beats the whole "mirror image" thing Irish has going with 1st declension nouns.

quote:

I wouldn't use "é" and "sé" with "cailín" even though it is a masculine noun. I would, however, say "an cailín" and "máthair an chailín" rather than "an chailín" and "máthair na cailín."

Tabhair faoi deara freisin go bhfuil "bád" agus "leabhar" firinscneach, ach is féidir "sí" a úsáid ag tagairt dóibh. Ach ní deirtear "na báide", "na leabhaire" go bhfios dom.

Can I complicate things?

It may not be clear what Ó Cróinín means by "m and f", and cara may have been masculine in Old Irish... but... it is in declension terms a feminine noun.

I am looking at my old edition of the Christian Bros. It says under 5th declension "cara, fem, a friend", and gives the full declension. The point is, nearly all 5th declension nouns are feminine. If it were masculine, it would occupy in the 5th declension, the same position than an t-im "butter" occupies in the 2nd declension. Now I can find a masculine 5th declension word: gabha, "smith". And there are others too, but anyway, Nolan's also says "MF" for cara. But, essentially, the 5th declension is a feminine declension.


By the way, the table of 5th declension nouns in this book, indicates that cú is feminine. Maybe when cú was reassigned to the 4th declension it was made masculine? Nolan's says cú is feminine, but had been masculine in Old Irish.

quote:

it doesn't seem to with "ainm", which is (as far as I can tell) uniformly feminine in Munster, uniformly masculine elsewhere

Words like "ainm", "ubh" that have such situation are usually old neuter nouns. So it is logical to assume that when neuter disappeared in some dialects those words became masculine, and in other - feminine.

Cara - is in completely different league.

Scríobh Róman:

quote:

Even in English where is no such thing as grammatical gender there is "girl-friend" and "boy-friend".

Fainic! Eros seachas philia atá i gceist le boy/girl friend, ar a laghad san Eoraip.

"Tabhair faoi deara freisin go bhfuil "bád" agus "leabhar" firinscneach, ach is féidir "sí" a úsáid ag tagairt dóibh. Ach ní deirtear "na báide", "na leabhaire" go bhfios dom."

A general thing in Ireland to use she pronoun when refering to objects "how she cuttin'?" "Does she run well?" (car) etc LI outlines how this is done in Conemara