In (American) English when someone states a negative statement "I didn't go to school today." I could ask "Why not?"

In Irish if someone said "Ní imíonn mé ar scoil inniu." would I ask "Cén fath?" or is there a way to say "Why not?"

p.s. feel free to correct the sentence "Ní imíonn mé ar scoil inniu." if it needs to be.

Níor imigh mé ar scoil inniu!
Cén fáth (nár imigh)?

(Imíonn mé ar scoil gach lá; d'imigh mé ar scoil inniu; níor imigh mé ar scoil inniu toisc go raibh an sneachta ró throm)

Well, "why not?" is just Cén fáth? in Irish, or a number of other ways of saying it,incl. cad ina thaobh? There is no way of showing the "not". It is just cén fáth?

As for the sentence, you said it was meant to be past tense, and then came up with "ní imíonn mé". Apart from the fact that in the official Irish the present tense would be imím, not imíonn mé, the tense is wrong. It would be níor imigh mé, or níor imíos.

I am not sure imeacht is needed here, although I don't think it is wrong either. You could say: níor chuas, or ní dheachaigh mé, or ní dheaghas.

(Message edited by corkirish on December 01, 2010)

A thing you'll often hear from learners here in Dublin is "Cén fáth nach?" which is a calque of the English "Why not?" and sounds totally unnatural in Irish. You wouldn't leave the negative conjunction nach just hanging there in mid air at the end of a sentence. You would need to repeat the verb in the question.

There are a number of ways of saying "Why not?/"Why didn't you?"

Cén fáth nach ndeachaigh tú? (standard)
Cad ina thaobh ná(r) chuais? (West Munster)
Cad ina thaobh ná(r) dheaghais? (West Munster)
Dé chúis nár chuaigh tú? (East Munster)
Cad é an/dén chiall ná(r) chuais? (West Munster)
Cad é an/dén taobh ná(r) chuais? (West Munster)

Other forms in the west and north are are:

Cad fá a ndeachaigh tú?
Cad chuige/Tuige a ndeachaigh tú?
Cá taobh a ndeachaigh tú?

That last one is used in Donegal (I think).

You could of course just say Cén fáth/Cad ina thaobh/Dé chúis/Tuige?

If you were saying "Why not!" as a rhetorical question as in:

A) Will you have another drink?
B) Yeah, sure, why not!

What you would say there is this:

A) An n-ólfá deoch eile?
B) Ólfad, siúrálta!

Or Michal's favourite "Cén dochar?"

Aonghus, that would only work in context. Why not? What harm would it do?

But in the original sentence, "I didn't go to school", cén dochar wouldn't go well here at all! It would sound like "so what! who needs to go to school anyway?"

Cinnte; I was referring to the list of possible replies at the end of Ailín's post.

quote:

If you were saying "Why not!" as a rhetorical question as in:

A) Will you have another drink?
B) Yeah, sure, why not!

quote:

Aonghus, that would only work in context. Why not? What harm would it do?

"Cén diobháil (é)?" is what one would say in West Munster, I imagine. I don't think "dochar" is at all common, not in Corca Dhuibhne anyway. I can only find one example in my own notes, from Breandán Mac Gearailt:

Nár dheine sé díth ná dochar duit; May it cause you neither loss nor harm, (500B:22)

What about cén? Is that common in Cork/Kerry? There is not a single example in the works of PUL I've got digitised. He seems to have only "cad é an".

Dochar occurs in PUL's Mo Sgéal Féin and Séadna.

Yes, cén and cad é an both occur in CD. I also have examples from Donnchadh Shéamais Ó Drisceoil. See also Ó Sé: 700 where he says that these forms are interchangeable.