A Chairde,

What does "Neamhleor teanga amháin" mean?

insufficient language only. Ni thuigim.

Go raibh maith agaibh,

(Message edited by student on June 05, 2009)

along the lines of..

one language isn't enough

What context did you see it in? It looks somewhat artificial.

Ó Donaill gives Neamhleor as "pred. a" Insufficient, Inadequate. I don't know what a "predicate adjective" is, but I think whoever composed the phrase above is misusing it.

"Ní leor teanga amháin" would be more natural.

A "predicate adjective" is one linked by a copula as opposed to an "attributive adjective", which is one that modifies a noun directly. Most adjectives can function as either, but some are restricted to one role. For instance, "The door was ajar" but not *"the ajar door" and "the mere thought" but not *"The thought was mere."

If "predicate adjective" is being used as a lexicographical label, I assume that means neamhleor is in the same category as ajar and you couldn't say *an theanga neamhleor seo. This also suggests that Neamhleor teanga amháin is a copular construction with the copula dropped.

In regard to context, I happened to include a "thank you" in Irish in an e-mail that was composed entirely in English. The reader of the e-mail responded with the phrase above and then included some other Irish. I think she was indicating that she knew Irish.

Or how to use a dictionary, at least.

Googling the term seems to contradict Ó Donaill slightly.

http://www.google.ie/search?q=neamhleor&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:g a-IE:official&client=firefox-a

It looks like it is an inadequate attempt to implement the term "inadequate" in Irish meamraiméis.

Thanks Seán_Óg - I think I understand the phrase finally. I did a google search on the complete phrase and it appears the phrase has been used before. For example, at:

http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/onelanguage.htm

the phrase is shown to mean, "one language is never enough." Perhaps it's idiomatic to a degree.

I hope I haven't opened the writer who introduced me to this phrase to an attack by the ruling powers here and I hope for her sake she's not reading this thread - I think that her feelings would be hurt. But I do like the phrase, since it has a certain poignancy that I have always embraced.

(Message edited by student on June 06, 2009)

I wouldn't dismiss it outright, a Aonghuis. It makes sense grammatically as Domhnaillín has explained and it is not really a direct translation - the "never" isn't in there, and the word order is not English for a start. Use of the copula (and its subsequent omission) also point to a degree of nativeness, rather than artificiality.

Certainly, the "attributive" use of "neamhleor" appears to be officialese, but it is being used (correctly according to Ó Dónall) as a predicate adjective in "Neamhleor teanga amháin."

If you google the whole thing "neamhleor teanga amháin", all links do appear to originate from the omniglot page for which Student has provided the link above. However, google won't pick up older usages in texts. Perhaps there is a historical precedent.

After all, Ó Dónall has it as an entry and must have had enough information about it to state that its usage is as a predicate adjective rather than an attributive adjective. (Dinneen, however, was not so forthcoming...)

quote:

Perhaps there is a historical precedent

Yes, yes, I love historical precedents! I didn't mention that the last part of the writer's sentence was "tá fáilte romhat." How many of us here remember that historical, historical-precedent hunt?

Thanks Breandán for the info - we're off to a good start.

Mac Léinn

Oops, a Mhac Léinn, you are correct. I was being a bit harsh. I apologise if I have offended anybody.
That was not my intention.

My intention was to say that the phrase, to me, sounds stilted and meamraiméiseach, because "Ní leor teanga amháin" expresses the same concept more naturally. And this applied in particular to the many examples google found - the sentences could have been recast more intelligibly.

Thanks Aonghus. I wonder if the phrase does have any history to it. Is it possible that it's idiomatic? Once I realized what it means as it is translated - one language is never enough - it seems to have a deeper meaning, as though it's rooted in some quest to reach out in other than one's native language.

Just curious that's all. And I thoroughly enjoyed our "tá fáilte romhat" historical-precedent search from some time ago. Maybe it's time for another one?

I don't know.
I had never seen the word before, and it is part of a long list of words prefixed by neamh- in Ó Donaill.

I'd be surpised if the phrase is old.

Scríobh Student:
...as though it's rooted in some quest to reach out in other than one's native language.

I think you've nailed it here. It's not wrong per se, but looks very much like learnerese/translatorese; I can't imagine a native speaker who wasn't "under the influence" phrasing it that way. (Tionchar an Bhéarla a dtagraím dó, ar ndóigh, a chairde.)

You'd asked if it might be idiomatic. It isn't, or not as I understand the term: its meaning is perfectly clear from a literal reading. Did you mean something else?


Tá difear eatarthu dar liom, dá chaoile é - there's a subtle difference of meaning, although it wouldn't matter most of the time:
Ní leor teanga amháin - One language is not enough, .i. b'fhearrde thú dhá theanga
(Is) neamhleor teanga amháin - One language is insufficient, .i. b'fhearrde thú teanga eile ab iomláine ná í


Gnás na Gaeilge an briathar a dhiultú seachas focal ar bith eile, mura mbaine sé sin do chiall na habairte - given a choice, Irish has a strong tendency to attach negation to the verb.

A very familiar example of this is the way you say "never" in Irish, by using "ever/always" and a negative verb:
Ní thiocfaidh sé choíche - "he won't ever come" = he'll never come.
See? Negation naturally attaches to the verb in the Irish sentence, to the adverb in the English one.

Another example is "nothing":
Níl tada agam. - "I don't have anything" = "I have nothing"
You wouldn't say *tá neamhní agam!

(Neamhní, literally "non-thing", does occur in another common phrase though. Rud a chur ar neamhní - to set something at nought, to ignore it completely.)

In regard to asking if the phrase might be idiomatic, I meant that perhaps it is idiomatic because of the use of "neamhleor," which by some here, is considered unnatural. I was thinking along the lines of say an American phrase like "Is you is or is you ain't my baby?"

To the erudite who are limited to purer-than-the-driven-snow English, that American phrase might also be considered unnatural and hence invalid and only said by a native American "under the influence." But if you were to ask an American who actually speaks the language whether the phrase is correct they, if familiar with it, (and the key here is being familiar with it) might chuckle and say that it was idiomatic and leave it at that. They probably wouldn't try to dissect the heck out of it and prove that it doesn't exist because some dictionary doesn't contain overwhelming evidence that it does exist. So it boils down to being familiar with a phrase.

See?

I would also like to ask what other words from the long list of neamh-words contained in Ó Dónaill are also on the Invalid Neamh List. Or is it that "neamhleor" is on that unenviable list all by itself?


(Message edited by student on June 08, 2009)

I would consider most of the "neamh" words to be jargon.

Not invalid, just [very] unusual.

But I don't think we should be getting into an argument over this. There are enough "religious wars" going on on the site at the moment, we don't need to add to them!

Focail scoir: one of the links for "Neamhleor teanga amháin" was a list on the omniglot site of the phrase "one language is inadequate" in many languages. I strongly suspect that is the source.

Also, thanks for opening my eyes to the idiosyncracies of the term idiom.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idiom

I thought it was limited to meaning 1.

So what you're asking is, is this a cultural reference of some sort, a catchphrase that lots of Irish speakers are familiar with?
I'd bet it isn't: there are enough nós-subscribers and Peig-readers in here that I think we're a reasonably broad cross-section of Gaeilgeoirdom, and yet none of us had ever heard of it.

Did a bit of Googling and my best guess is that this phrase originated at the Omniglot site mentioned above, and was then copied to several dozen people's blogs, forum sigs and myspace pages (none of them actually written in Irish, which is why I consider it less likely that one of them originated the phrase.) Your man at Omniglot has a list of contributors to his "one language is never enough" page, although not identified by language. I reckon you could write to him though and ask where he got it, if you're interested. (He says he's studied Irish so it may actually be his own doing; even if not, he should be able to put you in touch with the person he got it from and you can ask them.)

So much for the provenance of that phrase.

For the rest: any Invalid Neamh List is your own invention, so you'll have to tell us what's on it.

And here's an idea. When you're learning a language and somebody says "it's not normally said that way," would you ever just pay attention instead of bouncing up to argue that, "well, there's no reason it couldn't be said..." Yes, of course there isn't. Joyce was a native English speaker too.

What we're telling you, though, is that it cuts across some fairly deep linguistic ruts - and while maps may be useful, ruts define the trail. Irish is what Irish speakers speak when they're speaking Irish.

Thanks Aonghus. I think I see your point about neamh words being jagon-like. Even so, I think Irish speakers would understand the phrase. And I've learned a bit about all the neamh words.

As for the rest of the thread.... no comment.

Abigail, it is one thing to recommend a better way of expressing an idea and another thing completely to deny the validity of someone else's choice of phrasing based merely on your own experiences.

I am always dubious of people who jump up and say "nobody says that", "I've never heard anyone say that before", no matter whether they are native speakers or not.

All speakers, native or non-native are limited by the utterances they have encountered in their linguistic travels, and absolutely no one has encountered every possible utterence possible in any given language.

A person may be very proficient in Irish, but they should not make the mistake of thinking that their experience alone can define the whole language.

Ó Dónall has an entry for it. Therefore it has the possibility of existing somewhere in Irish, most likely in a past text. I am sure he didn't just pull it out of thin air. It may be jargon, it may be stilted, or it may be limited in its usage or register, but the fact that there is an entry negates any claim that it cannot exist.

That the context cannot be "googled" does not prove much. If it were there somewhere it would certainly make the proof a lot easier, but the texts available on the internet are nothing like comprehensive. Ó Dónall's source is almost certainly something that existed long before the internet.

As it turns out, "neamhleor" is also mentioned in the commentary to the Bunreacht na hÉireann recently posted on this forum:

‘Are inadequate’ is expressed as ‘nach leor’ (‘are not
adequate’) in the Irish text, ‘leor’ generally expressing
‘enough, sufficient’, whereas ‘inadequate’ is translated
as ‘neamhleor’ in Téarmaí Dlí.

‘Inadequate consideration’ is translated as ‘comaoin
neamhleor’ in Téarmaí Dlí.

That points to its use in legalese. However, this cannot be Ó Dónall's source because the legal use mentioned is as an "attributive adjective", not a "predicate adjective".

I agree that we should probably try a different phraseology to express this idea if we were to construct the sentence ourselves. I believe everyone has the right to express their opinion and perhaps to offer what they think are better ways to express the thought.

However, under the circumstances (i.e., given Ó Dónall), I don't think anyone can say outright "neamhleor teanga amháin" is wrong.

Scríobh Breandán:

quote:

can say outright "neamhleor teanga amháin" is wrong.

Scríobh Abigail:

quote:

It's not wrong per se, but looks very much like learnerese/translatorese; I can't imagine a native speaker who wasn't "under the influence" phrasing it that way.

Scríobh mise:

quote:

It looks somewhat artificial ... I think whoever composed the phrase above is misusing it.

Nobody said it was outright wrong. But we gave our opinion, and backed it up, that this is not the natural way to write it. Until somebody comes up with a counter example, I stand over that opinion.

The evidence is that the phrase "Neamhleor teanga amháin" is a recent coinage, probably on that omniglot page. The usage differs from all other usages found in texts online, all of which are meamraiméis.

Scríobh Mac Léinn:

quote:

I think Irish speakers would understand the phrase

They would. But they are far more likely to express teh concept as "Ni leor teanga amháin!" (Agus ní leor. And even inside teanga amháin, ní leor eolas duine amháin!)

I wrote to Simon Ager, the creator of the Omniglot site
www.omniglot.com about this phrase. I invited him to participate in this thread and I'll be sure to post any response that I get from him.


(Message edited by student on June 09, 2009)

Here's Simon Ager's (from www.omniglot.com) response:

quote:

The phrase is my translation of "one language is never enough", which I coined. I checked this with a native Irish speaker from Belfast who is an expert on Modern and Old Irish and he seemed to think that it was an acceptable translation. If anybody on the forum can suggest a better translation, please let me know.

Okay. I'd second Aonghus's suggestion of "Ní leor teanga amháin" then.

Just to be absolutely clear (since Breandán seems to have misunderstood the tenor of my previous post as well) I do agree that "neamhleor" is a word and a perfectly valid one. It just happens not to be the usual way of saying this.

It's rather like saying "this makes nonsense" in English. Sure, you could say it, but for some reason we all don't. Instead we normally say "this doesn't make sense", or perhaps "this makes no sense." Why? Dunno. But we do, and when we see someone reach for "this makes nonsense" instead, we're likely to assume that person is either a non-native speaker or making a play on words somehow.

Incidentally, you can see the same preference at work in the Scottish Gaelic and Manx translations. Both of those use (cognates of) tá rather than is, but the principle is the same: when choice is offered, you tend to negate the verb rather than adding negative prefixes to other words. (I can't offer this as a hard-and-fast rule, because it isn't one - just my attempt to make some sense of the patterns I see.)

I would be interested in knowing who the native Irish speaker is that Simon is referring to, who is an expert on Modern and Old Irish and from Belfast, who found this phrase acceptable.

quote:

one language is never enough

---

Tongue in cheek, stirring it...

---

Hmm.

"Ní leor teanga amháin" lacks the "never" bit.

And now we start to spin...what does "never enough" mean?

Nílim sásta gan ach teanga amháin agam?

Is fearrde tú teanga breise a bheith agat?

I think we'd best leave it at "Ní leor teanga amháin"

Go raibh muid le chéile ar neamh ag cíoradh na ceisteanna síoraí seo

I sent another e-mail to Simon asking for him to contact the native speaker from Belfast. Maybe the mystery scholar from Belfast can shed some more light on the subject. (and perhaps my small donation to his site www.omniglot.com might help in the process).

quote:

the native speaker from Belfast

Aire! Beidh achrann ann roimh i bfhad!

Simon has provided me with the name of his source of help on the phrase. I just sent him an e-mail requesting his input and also invited him to join the conversation here.

I will provide an update when available. In the meantime, here's a link to his source discussing placenames in Ireland.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/irish/blas/guests/

I should have indicated the source's name that Simon mentioned. He is Dr. Stiofán Ó Díreáin. After clicking on the link shown in my e-mail above, you'll see his name on the right hand side.

Is it possible that the reason some folks here are not familiar with the neamh construction is because it's an Ulster dialect form?

And please..... no scolding, no matter how much you think you know about the Irish Language!


(Message edited by student on June 09, 2009)

I'll hold my fire until Stiofán says his piece!

A Aonghuis,

A bhfuil aithne agat ar Dr. Ó Díreáin?

Níl. (Fós!)

Neamhfhós, nach ea?

Tá tú ag deánamh neamhní de m'fhoighde...
Déanfaidh mé neamhshuim ionat.

Go raibh maith agat. Feicim go nach bhfuil tú neamhthrócaireach!

Feicim go nach bhfuil tú neamhthrócaireach

nó

Feicim go nach bhfuil tú neamhthrócaireach

?

An neamart nó neamhspéis nó neamhaird is cúis leis an botún neafaiseach sin agat?

Feicim nach bhfuil tú neamhthrócaireach, cinnte!


Tá tú ró-dhocht! Táim neamhghramadúil inniu, mar sin é.

Thanks as always for the corrections - much appreciated!


(Message edited by student on June 10, 2009)

Here's the response that I got from Dr. Ó Díreáin:

quote:

I agree with Aonghus. The most natural thing to do is to use the copula construction
Ní leor teanga amháin - Irish as a language likes simplicity and this is what would normally be used
leor = sufficient; neamh is a negating particle so insufficient. It would be used with the copula so though I have never heard neamhleor used in this way it would I suppose be 'is neamhleor teanga amháin' - without 'is' the copula is implied
My maxim in Irish is simplest is best,
Go n-éirí libh,
Stiofán

Is maith liom an mana sin.

Bíonn blas ar an mbeagán

---

93.

Trí húathaid ata ferr sochaidi: úathad dagbríathar, úathad bó hi feór, úathad carat im chuirm.

Three fewnesses that are better than plenty: a fewness of fine words, a fewness of cows in grass, a fewness of friends around ale.

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/donncha/focal/features/triads/triads.html

---

A Mhic Léinn, tá súil agam go beidh tú abhus uair éigin, agus gur feidir linn "úathad carat im chuirm" a chuir i ngníomh!

(Message edited by aonghus on June 12, 2009)

Tá, cinnte, beidh sé sin go hiontach! Go raibh maith agat a Aonghuis.

Here's some additional info that I received from Stiofán this morning:

quote:

Just one other thing. If I remember right the use of the particle 'neamh' was regarded as of English influence by some members of the discussion group. It is not as it dates back to old Irish where it was written neb- and neph- and served the same function of negating a noun or adjective. For further information on this see the 'Dictionary of the Irish Language' by the Royal Irish Academy.

I'd like to ask a follow-up question. Is it possible that there's is more than one acceptable way to say "One language is not/never enough." Or must we follow a particular sentence structure as advocated by some others in this thread?

That is, could both "Ni leor teanga amháin" and "Neamh leor teanga amháin be correct?" There seems to me to be such little difference in the wording (Ni v.s Neamh) that it could be possible.

Then perhaps "Neamh teanga amháin" could be preferred by some since it is the older of the two ways of negating a noun or adjective.

(Message edited by student on June 15, 2009)

A Mhic Léinn, the issue was never one of technical correctness, but of usual habit. (Gnás na Gaeilge)

As far as I remember nobody suggested that neamh- was due to English influence, but that the whole construction was learnerese/translatorese - under the influence of English.

And as it turned out, the phrase was coined by a diligent learner!

The difference is that
Ní leor teanga amháin
is a common, natural construction,
whereas
Neamhleor teanga amháin
a) lacks a verb, but is could be implied
b) uses a rarely used word - a word that is to be found almost exclusively in officialese

Both are technically correct.

Sentences can be completely grammatical, but cause a fluent or native speaker to pull up and wonder. This one does.

quote:

but cause a fluent or native speaker to pull up and wonder

But isn't that what phrases as this one are supposed to do - cause the reader to wonder, even if the phrase contains a rarely used word like neamhleor? Also, in regard to a) lacks a verb, couldn't the implied verb be tá, instead of the non-verb (neamhbhriathar ) is?

Aren't there many perfectly acceptable phrases in Irish that do not contain a verb when uttered or written, such as "Dia dhuit?"

So far, you've been the only fluent speaker to wonder about this phrase. I wonder if there are other "wondering" fluent speakers among us.

I'm not too interested in getting in an endless argument about this.

(Abigail is a fluent speaker in my book, btw - I've met and spoken with/to her).
And nobody else seems to care - only Breandán intervened in this thread!

I think we'd better agree to disagree.

quote:

I don't know what a "predicate adjective" is, but I think whoever composed the phrase above is misusing it.

As Béarla, a Aonghus, a chara, a predicate adjective is an adjective appearing in the predicate of a sentence (verb + modifiers) and describes the subject. The construction uses a copulative verb.

The night is dark. = Is dorcha an oiche. Dorcha would be labelled a predicate adjective in English grammar. I believe it's simply called the predicate in Irish.

I hope this doesn't open the door on another "how to use the copula" debate.

A Phádraig, is í "an aidiacht fhaisnéiseach" an téarma atá agesna mBráithre Críostaí (féach ar alt 11.3 dena nGraiméar).

Anois, sin téarma a thuigim ar an bpointe!

Más "[Is] (Neamhleor) (teanga amháin)" atá i gceist, is dócha go raibh mo bhreith, gur mí-úsáid na aidiachta faisnéisí, a bhí ann mí cheart.

(Message edited by aonghus on June 15, 2009)

quote:

The night is dark. = Is dorcha an oiche.

The Irish here is incomplete. "Is dorcha an oíche í seo" would make sense but to say "The night is dark" it would be better to use the other verb 'to be' -- "Tá an oíche [seo] dorcha [agus tá sí fuar]. Why the additional words? It is the first line of a popular sean-nós song.

In a sentence like:
"Tá an fear mór glic" ("The big man is clever")
would I be right in saying that "mór" is an attributive adjective while "glic" is a predicate adjective?


With more than two adjectives the dividing line between the attributive ones and the predicate ones can be hard to place e.g.
"Tá an fear mór sásta glic" = (a)"The big man is satisfied and clever" or (b)"The big, satisfied man is clever".
I know commas are often used (e.g. for (b), "Tá an fear mór, sásta glic") but it's not done consistently and I've occasionally seen colons and dashes used in this situation too (e.g. "Tá an fear mór sásta: glic).

Perhaps a solution would be to introduce a new punctuation mark - an interpunct would do nicely I think - into Irish for these situations:
"Tá an fear mór· sásta glic"/"Tá an fear mór sásta· glic".

It could also be used in other situations like copula sentences where there can be difficulty in recognising the break between two parts - cases where "ná" is frequently used, in Munster anyway.
e.g. "Is é an t-aon chóras scríobhtha a bhí ag na Gaedhil roimhe sin· an oghamchraobh a ghreantaí i gcloch."
I'd have found that sentence a real challenge earlier in the course of my learning specifically because I wouldn't have recognised the break between "... sin" and "an ...".

I'm obviously no linguist so I'm unsure of the correct technical terminology to describe these types of sentences (Is the example above a cleft sentence?, Would "Is é an t-aon chóras scríobhtha a bhí ag na Gaedhil roimhe sin" be described as the predicate?).


Just an idea.

My only offering here would be to say that glic in that sentence would seem to be the object of Tá.

(Tá) (an fear) (mór)
(Tá) (an fear mór) (glic)
(Tá) (an fear mór sásta) (glic)


If Tá referred to both sásta an glic, then I think it would have to be

Tá an fear mór sásta agus glic.

where the agus could be substituted by a comma. [and a pause in speech].

Go raibh maith agat as an bhfreagra, a Aonghuis.

quote:

Tá an fear mór sásta agus glic.

I thought using "agus" between adjectives like that was to be avoided - considered béarlachas - even in cases like the above. Perhaps I've taken that too far.

quote:

where the agus could be substituted by a comma. [and a pause in speech].

Usually where I've seen a comma used in this situation it was placed between each of the attributive adjectives as in English e.g.
"The short, blonde, attractive woman was sick"
"Bhí an bhean ghearr, fhionn, tharraingteach tinn".

Is dóigh liom (agus ní gramadóir mé) go bhfuil glic ag feidhmiú mar chuspóir an bhriathair "Tá" seachas aidiacht sa chás seo.

Murach sin, bheadh rud éigin cosúil le
Tá fear
agat, nach bhfuil ciall ag baint leis.

Ceart go leor.
Mar a dubhart ní gramadóir mise ach chomh beag.
Ní raibh ann ach smaoineamh chun cúpla poinnte a shimpliughadh, go háirithe le haghaidh foghlaimeoirí.