Captain's Quarters -

Ceacht Ghaeilge a hAon: Cád a Dúirt Sé?

Here's a lesson for those prospective Irish speakers among you -- all two or three of you, anyway. It's a joke sent to me via the Admiral Emeritus from my aunt in central California, but it gives readers a chance to learn a little Gaeilge for themselves, a particular passion of mine.

An Irishman walking through a field in Ireland sees a man drinking water from a pond with his hand.

The Irishman shouts "Na ól an t-uisce, tá sé lán de chac bo!"

The man yells back "I'm English, speak English, I don't understand you".

The Irishman shouts back "Use both hands, you'll get more in."

So what did the Irishman say as Gaeilge? I'll answer in the comments later, but let's see if any CQ commenters can figure this one out.

An Deireadh Seachtaine Leis An Teango Beo

If readers noticed an unusually quiet period at Captain's Quarters, it's because I took the afternoon off to travel to Winona, Minnesota. What's in Winona besides beautiful landscapes and clean air? It's the annual Gaeltacht Minnesota Irish-language workshop weekend -- and I'm attending for the first time in three years.

I''ve written occasionally about my love for the Irish language. It has a distinctive, poetic beauty but is very challenging to learn. One of six Celtic languages -- a branch on its own from the Indo-European language root -- it uses a verb-subject-predicate structure that takes time to absorb. Gaeilge uses intriguing and maddening processes such as lenition and eclipsis that change the spelling and pronunciation of words in certain circumstances, which is like learning a vocabulary that likes to play hide-and-go-seek.

For instance, here's the start of an article from the Irish-language website Beo about an American city. Can you guess which one?

Is é an plódú tráchta an chonspóid is déanaí i Nua-Eabhrac. Faoi dheireadh tá glactha ag an gcathair leis go bhfuil an iomarca tráchta ar na sráideanna, agus táthar ag obair ar phleananna chun an trácht sin a mhaolú.

Here's the translation, as best as I can do:

Traffic jams are the latest controversy in New York. Talk has it that the city has been gripped with too much traffic, and work is in progress to debate plans to decrease it.

It sounds much less mundane in Irish ... trust me. I'll be posting over the weekend, but probably rather lightly. I will take the day off from the Northern Alliance Radio Network, but be sure to tune in and listen to the rest of the crew tomorrow, starting at 11 am CT.

In the meantime ... oíche mhaith!

An Bhlog Ghailge - Scátháinín Mháire

One of the hobbies I had before succumbing to my obsessive passion of blogging and political commentary was the study of Gaeilge, the language of Ireland. One of six Celtic languages, its renaissance has been slow and halting since the independence of Ireland in the 1920s. Few speak it as a first language, and only around 20% or so of the Irish population speak it conversationally, despite its status as one of the two official languages in the Republic of Ireland. However, its use in poetry and music is unbelievably beautiful, and its connection to Irish culture is unmistakable.

I live in an area where Irish language resources are in good supply. Chief among them is the non-profit group Gaeltacht Minnesota, which holds free language lessons on a weekly basis. My instructor, when I had time to attend, has started her own blog called Scátháinín Mháire for some amusement in Irish language study. Pronounced SCAW-neen WHY-ruh, it means "Mary's mirror", and it reflects her gentle and playful nature.

In one post, Máire points out a typo on an Irish sign in the airport, and in another, she gives a quick lesson for students. She shows a picture of a house on blocks, and lists three statements:

Trí rud: 1. Bhí cara dom ina cónaí in aice leis an teach seo. (7/7/06) 2. Thóg mé pictiúr an fhógra (inné) i 2005, sílim. 3. Lá breithe sona dhuit, a Pham! (cara eile)

The third means "Happy birthday, Pam! (another friend)". I'll let you guess what the other two mean. I plan to start taking it up as a hobby, so I'll need to make sure I have the other two correct before I return to class!

The Official Breakfast Of Lá Fhéile Phádraig

You know it's Saint Patrick's Day in the Twin Cities when green makes its way onto the breakfast table:

It tasted pretty much like a normal bagel, but somehow my Irish eyes were smiling the entire time ...

Lá Fhéile Phádraig Sona Dhaoibh!

The title says, 'Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all of you,' and as a celebration of the event today, I'm listening to a new set of CDs sent to me by the Irish band Poitín. The one spinning at the moment, Winter Brew, has a good mix of traditional Irish instrumental music along with pub songs and even a bit of sean-nós, for true traditionalists. Right now, I'm listening to "Ó Sullivan's March", a lively instrumental. After this CD finishes, I'll be listening to Barley Mash, which I think is actually the better of the two CDs. If you love Irish music and haven't heard Poitín, be sure to pick up these two worthy and entertaining albums.

I may or may not get much of a chance to celebrate tonight; in the Twin Cities, St. Patrick's Day gets an insane turnout at the local pubs, especially at places like Keegan's, which sponsors the NARN. If I'm not there in body, boys, I'll be there in spirit. I've stocked up on Guinness at home, just in case. I may spin up a good Irish movie with the First Mate, like The Secret of Roan Inish, one of the finest family films I've seen about Ireland that has any connection to the true nature of the country. (You can read my IMDB review, written in July 2002.)

But of course, I digress from the saint himself. Many legends and myths have attached themselves to the name of Saint Patrick, which unfortunately detract from the true nature of an extraordinarily remarkable man. I found an excellent biography of Patrick at American Catholic written by Anita McSorley, based partly on an interview with Thomas Cahill, who wrote How The Irish Saved Civilization, an excellent and eminently readable history of the Dark Ages. McSorley captures the historical impact Patrick had on Christianity and Western civilization:

And although almost any other qualification pales by comparison to Patrick's zeal for his mission, he must have set off equipped with an intellect both subtle and supple. For he not only decided, unilaterally, to do what no man in 400 years of Christian history had done before him—to carry the gospel message to the ends of the earth—but he also found a way to do it.

It's hard to grasp just what an accomplishment that was, says Cahill. When Patrick decided to "willingly go back to the barbarians with the gospel," Cahill explains, "he had to figure out how to bring the values of the gospel he loved to such people. These were people who still practiced human sacrifice, who warred with each other constantly and who were renowned as the great slave traders of the day.

"That was not a simple thing. This was before courses were given to missionaries in what is now called inculturation—how to plant the gospel in such a culture," Cahill says. "No one had ever even thought about how to do it; Patrick had to work his way through it himself.

"I know that Paul is referred to as the first missionary," Cahill says, "but Paul never got out of the Greco-Roman world, nor did any of the apostles. And here we are, five centuries after Jesus, who had urged his disciples to preach to all nations. They just didn't do that. And the reason they didn't is because they did not consider the barbarians to be human."

That ability to do what we would call 'thinking outside the box' today led to the mechanism by which we have many of the great writings of our ancient cultures. As McSorley relates, Patrick's conversion of the Irish almost completely and permanently within his lifetime created a Western monastic movement that had great consequences centuries later. The monks of Ireland would make copies of all these works while Europe descended into darkness, and only the reverse missionary work of the Irish into Europe centuries later would restore these works to greater Europe. Without Patrick and his remarkable mission to the barbarians of the wilds of Ireland, those works may have been forever lost, and Western civilization along with it.

If you have a few moments, take the time to read about the man we celebrate today, in addition to the merry myths we bandy about for fun. After all, even Patrick would object to getting too terribly serious about St. Patrick's Day, I think.

Is Gaeilgeoir Mé ... ach Clint Eastwood?

It isn't every day that I see the Irish language mentioned in the pages of the New York Times, and today's op-ed article by Wes Davis, an assistant professor of English at Yale, marks the very first time I've seen it form the basis of an opinion piece anywhere outside of Ireland. I've studied Irish for almost four years now, although I've cut back my scholarship (such as it was) while I've been blogging. I read and write Irish passably well for a first-grader, I suppose, and speak it less well than that, but I take pride in that bilingualism.

Davis makes the same point in his review of the language's use in the new Clint Eastwood film, Million Dollar Baby, a use of which I had no knowledge until now. MDB has attracted rave reviews and tremendous controversy over its somewhat-concealed treatment -- some say endorsement -- of assisted suicide. I have not yet seen the film but plan on doing so, either in the theaters or on DVD. Davis avoids that controversy to focus on the Irish language and how it speaks to the other themes of the film:

Before the bell has sounded at the start of her first title fight in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-nominated film "Million Dollar Baby," the scrappy, big-hearted boxer Maggie Fitzgerald, played by Hilary Swank, finds herself cheered into the ring by shouts of "Mo Cuishle," the Irish Gaelic moniker she's been given by her manager, Frankie Dunn, played by Mr. Eastwood.

The name is a shortened form of the phrase "A chuisle mo chroí," "O, pulse of my heart," or as Frankie will put it more concisely, "My darling." But Ms. Swank's character doesn't know that yet and neither do we. All we know is that the words emblazoned - and some argue misspelled - on the back of her robe are important to a lot of people.

If Davis reports this correctly, it's certainly misspelled. It should be Mo chuisle and the pronunciation changes as well, as the hard C changes to the guttural ch that people may find more familiar in German, such as Bach. That's hardly important to the film, of course, but it does demonstrate Hollywood's lack of effort in ensuring the accuracy of plot devices.

Davis goes on to explain how the language supports the film thematically, which of course is the larger point:

That sort of popular reaction makes sense. In the shorthand of the film, the Irish, scattered by hardship in their home country but strangely united by the trials that threw them apart, stand for a culture of underdogs, and the language that was once the common idiom in Ireland becomes the watchword of the movie's romantic idea of the hero.

As Maggie's boxing career builds to its climax, Mr. Eastwood hinges the movie's emotional peaks on the longing held in the Irish language. The most moving of these moments occurs when Mr. Eastwood's character finally reveals the meaning of "Mo Cuishle," and when he translates W. B. Yeats's "Lake Isle of Innisfree" from the little Irish-language book he carries like a talisman throughout the movie.

Many of us who study the language are drawn to its nature as a long-held secret, a victim and ultimately a survivor of oppression and well-intentioned neglect. In truth, Irish has begun to thrive again in small measure, with a surfeit of websites devoted to its promotion and education, a native language radio service in Ireland that streams to the Internet, and a global network of Irish language support groups that work tirelessly to push for a full revival of Gaeilge (pronounced gyail-gyuh). I belong to one such organization, Gaeltacht Minnesota, which has given free weekly instruction in Irish for over twenty-two years in the Twin Cities area.

If what I have read about the ending of Million Dollar Baby is true, then perhaps Eastwood made a mistake in using Irish for his theme. It's true that the language will ever be associated with underdogs and the oppressed, but especially in the last century, it also stands for tenacity and overcoming apparently insurmountable odds to survive and thrive. Despite having every excuse to allow Gaeilge to commit suicide through apathy, it has refused to die -- and now it has a worldwide following, albeit still tiny. If anything, the history of the Irish language provides a metaphor for the unique value of each life, not any deliberate mercy killing, no matter how justified it might be.

UPDATE: For those interested in learning Irish, here are a few links to get you started. Tá mé ag foghlaim Gaeilge le ceathair bhliain anois, agus is breá liomsa an teanga beo -- tá súil 'am gurb mbreá libhse freisin! (I've studied Irish for four years now and I love the language [lit., the living language] -- I hope you will love it too!)

Gaeilge ar an Ghréasán - Motherlode of links
Beo! - Irish-language magazine geared to learners
Daltaí na Gaeilge - Well-organized site with lots of links and educational material
Irish Books and Media - the best place to buy Irish-language learning materials in the US
Gaeltacht Minnesota - More links and great tips on the language

Gaeltacht Minnesota will have its annual all-day Irish language workshop on April 23rd, at least tentatively. Due to work commitments that day I will not attend, but if you can make your way to the Twin Cities area that day, I heartily recommend it as an easy introduction to the language. The price is reasonable and the relaxed atmosphere guarantees everyone has a good time.

Ag Seol Abhaile ón gCéardlann Gaeilge

Alas! Our weekend workshop for the Irish language has come to an end, along with the embargo on outbound e-mail. I'll be heading home shortly, after having taken upon myself the role of official historian of this year's event. When I have some time, I'll put together a slide show for the participants, complete with music and the 100+ pictures I took with my digital camera.

The workshop itself was a blast, even if I have neglected my language studies due to my blogging of late. I found I hadn't lost much from my skills ... not that there was that much to lose, of course. I even led a halting and somewhat off-key rendition of 'Whiskey In The Jar' (no offense to my partner here, of course) and a somewhat more confident version of 'Molly Malone' at the traditional Saturday-night céilí.

I found time to go on a couple of trail walks during the weekend, and even though I got eaten alive by the bugs, the scenery here is beautiful. Here's a good picture of the early-morning view of the hills right behind St. Mary's (and right behind me, in this picture):

My shirt, BTW, reads 'Tír na Gaeilge Reoite', or Land of Frozen Irish.

More later, when I return. Lá deas a bheith agaibh, agus beannachtaí Dia dhaoibh!

An Teanga Beo -- The Living Tongue

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I spent Saturday in an Irish-language workshop, and it occurred to me that some of you (okay, all four of you) may be scratching your heads and wondering what the heck I was talking about. I don't believe many people know that Irish Gaelic, known as Gaeilge (GWAYL-gyuh), is in fact a living language spoken fluently by at least 100,000 people in Ireland alone, with a million more who have a lesser command of it. Gaeilge has a rich history, both spoken and literary, stretching far past English; it has existed for at least 2,500 years, and is the oldest surviving language of Western Europe.

To give you an example, here's the Nicene Creed in Irish, as printed in a missalette I purchased at the workshop:

Creidim in aon Dia amháin, an tAthair uilechumhachtach, a rinne neamh agus talamh agus an uile ní sofheicthe agus dofheicthe. Agus in aon Tiarna amháin, Íosa Críost, Aonmhac Dé, an té a rugadh ón Athair sula raibh aon saol ann. Dia ó Dhia, solas ó sholas, fíor-Dhia ó fhíor-Dhia; an té a gineadh agus nach ndearnadh, agus atá d'aonsubstaint leis an Athair; is tríd a rinneadh an uile ní. Ar ár son-na an cine daonna, agus ar son ár slánaithe, thuirling sé ó neamh. Ionchollaíodh le chumhacht an Spioraid Naoimh é i mbroinn na Maighdine Muire agus ghlac sé nádúr daonna. Céasadh ar an gcrois é freisin ar ár son; d'fhulaing sé páis faoi Phontius Píoláit agus adhlacadh é. D'aiséirigh an treas lá de reir na scrioptúr; chuaigh suas ar neamh; tá ina shuí ar dheis an Athar. Tiocfaidh sé an athuair faoi ghlóir le breithiúnas a thabhairt ar bheo agus ar mhairbh, agus ní bheidh deireadh lena ríocht. Creidim sa Spiorad Naomh, Tiarna agus bronntóir na beatha, an té a ghluaiseann ón Athair agus ón Mac. Tugtar dó adhradh agus glóir mar aon leis an Athair agus leis an Mac: ba é a labhair trí na fáithe. Creidim san aon Eaglais naofa, chaitliceach, aspalda. Admhaím an t-aon bhaisteadh amháin chun maithiúnas na bpeacaí. Agus táim ag súil le haiséirí na marbh agus le beatha an tsaoil atá le teacht. Amen.

Well, it ain't "Top of the Morning," is it? It's a beautiful language, but difficult to learn, let alone master. I've been studying Gaeilge for three years; the workshop was my third anniversary. I'm not quite conversational, and in fact have backslid somewhat since I started blogging, but I can usually get the sense of what I'm reading, even if I can't translate conversational Irish quickly enough to be effective.

The workshop last Saturday was presented by Gaeltacht Minnesota, which has given free weekly Irish-language lessons for over twenty years. I'm now the orientation instructor, so if you live in the area and want to join up, I'll be the first instructor you get ... and then you'll go to someone who actually knows what they're doing. Our web site has a number of links to other resources as well. If you have any interest in the language but don't live in the area, you can check with Daltaí to find Irish-language support in your area.

If that doesn't work out for you, you can buy your own materials at Irish Books and Media, a great mail-order service that handles the largest inventory of Irish language materials in the country. I recommend the book and tape set called Learning Irish by Micheál Ó Siadhail (Connemara dialect), or Teach Yourself Irish. It's not impossible to learn writting Irish on your own, although learning to speak it is another issue entirely.

In the meantime, beannacht agus sláinte dhaoibh -- blessings and health to you all!