A chairde ...

There was a recent discussion on this forum about the words of the song Téir Abhaile 'Riú.

It focused on the word 'Riú, but I'd like to ask about the word Téir. It's translated everywhere as 'Go' (imperative). I assume that means the verb téigh, but its imperative singular is téigh, isn't it? Is téir an old form?

I'm asking because I noticed that there is a noun téirim, meaning 'haste'. And since it has the form of a verb in the first person, I'm wondering if there was once a verb téir, 'to hasten'. In which case the translation might be something more like 'Hurry home with ye' or 'Go home with ye NOW!'

Le meas ... Linda_Kathleen

(Message edited by linda_kathleen on November 23, 2009)

Ó Dónaill lists téir as
"var[iant] 2 singular imperative of téigh"
also
"variant 2 sg present of Téigh"

BTW, téigh in all its incarnations and combinations takes up almost 4 pages of the dictionary!

I suspect téirim is derived from téigh.

What magic did you work to get the link text to be readable size?

quote:

Ó Dónaill lists téir as "var[iant] 2 singular imperative of téigh"

Go raibh maith agat, a Aonghuis.

quote:

What magic did you work to get the link text to be readable size?

How nice of you to notice! Just put \ 1{} (no apaces) around the text you want to show. So the whole thing looks like this (before you remove the spaces):
\ newurl{url, \ 1{this is the text I want to show}}

Note the 2 closing braces at the end.

Ah! I tried putting the size outside the whole URL text, and that didn't work.

Go raibh maith agat!

"Téann tú", measaim.

In Munster they say deinir for déanann tú for instance.
(not that the song is a Kerry song or anything, i assume tis a Northern song originally)

It might be an imperative form of the verb.

However your probally right with it meaning hasten.
(Dhera, i thought thered be no harm in exploring every possibility and other aspects of the language)

Rath mór

téire, téir'

2ng singular imperative of téigh, Munster

As far as I can tell, this is a song from Munster or Connacht. It's not from the north. I believe the older form would be "téighre".