It is fascinating to read PUL's take on these words in his Mion-chaint, volume 1, compiled in 1899.

One million of persons: deich céad míle duine.
One million and one persons: duine agus deich céad míle.
2 million persons: fiche céad míle duine.
2,000,001 persons: duine agus fiche céad míle.
3,000,000 persons: deich céad míle agus fiche céad míle duine.
4,000,000 persons: dachad céad míle duine.
6,000,000 persons: trí fichid céad míle duine.
8,000,000 persons: cheithre fichid céad míle duine.
10,000,000 persons: céad céad míle duine.
1,000,000 persons: míle míle duine.
100,000,000 persons: céad míle míle duine.
1,000,000,000 persons: deich céad míle míle duine.
1,000,000,001 persons: duine agus deich céad míle míle.

It seems words like milliún and billiún are not natural Irish...

Not in PUL's day perhaps. Have a look at www.focal.ie and see what's available now. Life moves on.

>>Not in PUL's day perhaps. Have a look at www.focal.ie and see what's available now. Life moves on.

Life certainly does move on - that's why native Irish is on its last legs in much of the Gaeltacht. What is "available now" is English. The advantage of PUL's perspective is that it is based on the Irish as spoken when nearly half the country spoke Irish in the 1840s.


www.focal.ie is a good "dictionary" of Irish for electronic look-ups, but it is specifically designed for modern terminology to be found in Irish. This means that a large number of totally invented and non-existent words are in their database. Neutrino? What is the Irish word for that?

Actually, there is no Irish word for neutrino, because there has never been a minute's worth of work on particle physics done in the Irish language. Yet, focal.ie lists this word as "neoidríonó" - er... do you spot the English word through the faux-Celtic disguise? What about the "heliopause"? As far as I understand it this the area beyond the sun's gravity field out beyond the Oort cloud. But, hilariously, focal.ie was come up with "héileastad".

What is available now can even be totally fake. PUL's Irish was not fake.

You could also argue the fact that "Computer" wasnt in the english language 100 years ago. The argument is pointless. Languages DO move on.

Corkirish,

Are Peadar Ua Laoghaire and An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire two different people or a single individual?

*Were

>>>>Are Peadar Ua Laoghaire and An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire two different people or a single individual?

Danny, PUL did not refer to himself in writing as "Peadar Ó Laoghaire"; he retained the historically correct spelling of "ó" as "ua" (although the pronunciation of Ua is just Ó; the older spelling does not indicate a different pronunciation). As far as I know, different individuals had different inclinations in this matter, and so the tendency is to spell their names as they spelled them. Eg. Pádraig Ó Laoghaire, the SW Cork writer/member of the IRB who wrote books of Munster stories and died at the age of 25 used Ó in his name and so is always referred to like that (and not as Pádraig Ua Laoghaire). PUL was a priest, a canon in fact, and so could be referred to in the Roman Catholic way as An tAthair Peadar.

>>You could also argue the fact that "Computer" wasnt in the english language 100 years ago. The argument is pointless. Languages DO move on.

Croga75, it has been discussed to death on this site that in fact languages move on when the NATIVE SPEAKERS move the language on. The point has probably been made thousands of times on Daltaí. But we are in a unique situation with Irish where the language is controlled by non-native speakers, who are doing nearly all of the writing in the language, and making up new terms etc. Feargal Ó Bearra complained about "sláinteolaí déadach", invented as the term for "dental hygienist", because in that context native speakers wouldn't understand déadach to mean "dental" in Irish, but "with big teeth" - the toothy hygienist, or the hygienist with big teeth.

The language is moving on in a very artificial way, largely in accordance with the decisions of non-native speakers. In fact the "moving on" that has happened in the Gaeltacht has largely been a moving on FROM Irish to English. Ríomhaire, while an invented word too as all modern words are, does represent a concept that is common in daily life in the Gaeltacht - most people in Ireland do own computers - so the word ríomhaire is in use in the Gaeltacht (except where they use the English word "computer"), but I have yet to be presented with any proof that ANY native speaker of Irish knows what neoidríonó or héileastad mean. I was responding specifically to Taidhgín's comment to clarify that focal.ie is not a source of traditional Irish, and some of the words on that site are simply non-existent in the Irish language.

As for million (billions are a little beyond most people's financial imagination in any language), yes, I expect milliún is in use in the Gaeltacht, but míle míle and deich céad míle are much more self-explanatory, don't you think? Tá daichead céad míle duine in Éirinn, ach tá breis agus trí chéad déag míle míle duine sa tSín!

Neutrino - not Irish,not English either.Most neologisms ,especially in chemistry,physics,IT etc are bits of Latin re-assembled.They might be German or Japanese or wherever the new fangled thing was invented.The point is Brits,Yanks and others don't get their knickers in a twist - or their tongues in a ball - trying to invent some clumsy sounding synonym.

Slightly off topic,but I have long wondered why older people here ( north Cork) never pronounce the second 'i' in million.Slender vowels and minimum vowel sounds are often left out of names too.Thus my nephew Rowan is 'Rón' to my aunt and mother.The late musician Julia clifford was 'Joola' to everyone and so forth.Is this the after effect of 'caol le caol'on the English? There are loads of other oddities I havent met anywhere else.English was learnt in a single generation hereabouts I'd hazard.Does this occur in other parts of Ireland I wonder?

>>The point is Brits,Yanks and others don't get their knickers in a twist - or their tongues in a ball - trying to invent some clumsy sounding synonym.

Well the word may be Italian-sounding, but the point I am trying to make is that, whatever the origins of the word, particle physics research ***is*** done in English - and the word for neutrino is neutrino. It is not a word that is never used, but is one that is frequently used by English-speaking particle physicists. But there has never been a millisecond of research into neutrinos in Irish. The word has simply never had any currency at all. All it is is someone sitting in Dublin - agus a leath-lámh ar a bhód aige - making these words up.

>>>Slightly off topic,but I have long wondered why older people here ( north Cork) never pronounce the second 'i' in million.Slender vowels and minimum vowel sounds are often left out of names too.Thus my nephew Rowan is 'Rón' to my aunt and mother.

When they are speaking English or Irish? In English the second 'i' is an independent vowel, but in Irish the second 'i' in milliún is there only to show you the 'l' is slender and is not a separate 'i' sound. Even if your relatives are speaking English, their English may be influenced by Irish. Eoghan is /o:n/ in Cork Irish, so I think Rowan as Rón is fine in the dialect. Maybe you can "leverage" your knowledge of Cork English to apply the oddities therein to your learning of Cork Irish?

As it is, we are lucky that cáithnín is the word for "particle". The word is found in PUL. If it were left up to the focal.ie crowd it would have been páirticeal.

"You could also argue the fact that "Computer" wasnt in the english language 100 years ago."

Just as an amusing note...I collect antique books. In my collection is a 4 volume dictionary of American English from 1891. The word computer does appear in it.

"a person who computes; an actuary."

No, I did not miss your point, but I found it amusing as it was the first word I ever looked up in that dictionary because I thought it would be amusing to find it omitted.

Oh, well...it was more amusing in my head.

Corkirish,yes Cork English is a big help.People say 'my sister is in Australia with 20 years.'

Or 'I have drink in the house but I've no meas in it,I'd rather go out'

Or 'that yoke is after breaking on me',very handy -you can write them out as Gaeilge.I must make a note of odd fragments of actual Gaeilge in use hereabouts.Another resolution!

@ Antaine, that actualy is quite amusing . (takes foot out of mouth) should have done some research first I supose lol.
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The point I was trying to make is ALL Languages have load words that they made sound close to the original word. Whether they use them in the Gaeltalk is besides the point. Maybe no one there needs to or even ever cared about a neutrino or heliopause.

I find it crazy that there are so many debates on this forum about so-called "bad Irish", yet the majority of the people here are learners themselves. How does someone that has learned the language have the right to critisize what someone, with more than likely a heck of alot more Irish than they have, has used for an Irish word. I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers here, I usualy dont get into these debates. I just think, if one is to critisize anothers Irish or what words are found in any sort of reference material, than their Irish had better be Gaeltacht quality at the least.
I used to love reading all the good advice on this site, but as of lately it had turned into a site for people to argue.

(Message edited by croga75 on January 02, 2011)

I think million and billion are historically quite rare in both languages until relatively recently. In traditional life, what would you have to refer to as a million? Now we hear these all the time because of population scares and inflated money, not to mention mathematics in school. You can read Dickens and perhaps not hit these words once.

quote:

Slightly off topic,but I have long wondered why older people here ( north Cork) never pronounce the second 'i' in million.Slender vowels and minimum vowel sounds are often left out of names too.Thus my nephew Rowan is 'Rón' to my aunt and mother.The late musician Julia clifford was 'Joola' to everyone and so forth.Is this the after effect of 'caol le caol'on the English? There are loads of other oddities I havent met anywhere else.English was learnt in a single generation hereabouts I'd hazard.Does this occur in other parts of Ireland I wonder?

That is not unique to Cork but is found throughout Munster. Munster once had both lenited and unlenited palatalised l and n but the unlenited palatalised l and n have disappeared in Munster. This means that the words buile and buille are both pronounced identically in Munster /bil'ɪ/ whereas as in Connachta and Ulster the differentiation is retained: /bil'ɪ/ buile and /buiL'ɪ/ buille. As for /N'/ - unlenited palatalised n, as I said this has disappeared in Munster but in Cork and Waterford has turned into /ŋ'/ in intervocalic and final positions. Binn, for example, is /b'iːN'/ in Cois Fhairrge but /b'iːŋ'/ in Cork and Waterford. In Corca Dhuibhne, Cléire and a few other places in Munster it is /b'iːn'/. In Ballymacoda, east Cork, the response to the loss of historic unlenited palatalised l was to insert a /d'/ after the lenited palatalised l giving /bil'd'ɪ/ for buille but /bil'ɪ/ for buile.

As for pronouncing, Rowan as "Rón", that is perfectly normal. The name Eoghan is always "Ón" /oːn/ never /oːwən/ as an Englishman might pronounce it.

As for "milliún" and "billiún" not being "natural" Irish words, the versions given by Peadar Ó Laoghaire are interesting but "milliún" is and has been used by Gaeltacht people. In Munster it is pronounced "milleón" with the plural "milleónta" in Corca Dhuibhne; "na milleónta euro" etc.

As for CorkIrish's comments on modern terminology above, I largely concur with what he says. Unfortunately there are few people around nowadays with the necessary command of the language in all its forms which means that you will come across some less than perfect neoligisms. I'm not against neologisms at all but some new coinages could have had more thought put into them. I understand also from my own contacts in the area that severe staff shortages in the area of new terminology is also a major factor.

(Message edited by carmanach on January 03, 2011)

quote:

I understand also from my own contacts in the area that severe staff shortages in the area of new terminology is also a major factor.

However, they are open to suggestions via the web interface for improvements and modifications.

http://www.focal.ie/Enquiry.aspx

An open source approach might help (although the lack of competent editors to separate the wheat from the chaff will still be a problem)