Is teanga draíochtúil í An Ghaeilge
Irish is a magical language, Is teanga draíochtúil í An Ghaeilge
I say that because the more you learn Irish the more you learn to see the world through different eyes
through the eyes of the Irish language, and how it sees nature, the land
and animals
the best way to illustrate this is by going through six beautiful and mystical words
and explaining them with an English translation
So let's start with this word here which is Bóín Dé
and this is the Irish word for a Ladybird, Bóín Dé
when you translate this it means literally
God's little cow or God's little calf, Bóín Dé
Bó for cow and Dé for God
Bóín Dé
and it's a wonderful way to describe a very very small insect
the Irish word for Wolf is
Mac Tíre
which literally translates into
the son of the country, mac being son and tíre being land or country
Mac Tíre - a Wolf, and these two animals the Ladybird and the Wolf - there Irish
translations I think they show a wonderful appreciation and respect
for nature, and this is what you see when you see the world through the Irish language.
Our next word then, is the Irish word for
harvest which is Fómhar
and quite conveniently this is also the Irish for autumn
so it's great that the Irish word for harvest
also is the Irish word for autumn because that would be the time traditionally
when the harvesting would take place
Fómhar which is harvest and autumn
and sticking on the topic of food and crops
the irish word for The Great Famine is An Gorta Mór
and when you translate this literally, it means the great hurt or the big hurt
because the great famine in the 1840s was a massive blow and was hugely
devastating to ireland
about a million people died of starvation and another million had to flee the country
and The Great Famine, An Gorta Mór, so gorta comes from the irish verb
Gortaigh, which is to hurt and mór is big or large
so when you say that and you listen to it, what it means, An Gorta Mór you can certainly
take from it
huge hurt and
huge damage to families communities and of course the Irish language, it devastated all of those things
Moving on then to the Irish word for daffodil which is Lus an Chromchinn
and when you translate this word for word it comes out as
the plant with the bowed head, lus being the Irish word for plant
and chrom for bow, and chinn is from the irish word
ceann which means head, lus an chromchinn - the plant with the bowed head
and it really is quite a magical and mystical way to describe a plant and it probably has certain parallels
with spirituality and religion of the time many many hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
Our next word then is the Irish word for citizen which is
saoránach
this has the word saor in it, as you can hear and see
and that comes from the Irish word Saoirse for freedom Saoirse
so it's quite apt really because in order to be a citizen of somewhere you need to be free
free from tyranny, free from slavery or free from colonialism
so that's why it's quite appropriate and quite nice to hear
saoránach as the Irish word for citizen.
So I hope I've helped to illustrate here
how learning Irish can help you see the world through different eyes, with a greater
appreciation for nature, animals and the world around you
learning Irish also helps you get in touch and
renew acquaintances with your history, your culture, your heritage and your ancestors
learning Irish helps to let your imagination run free
If you enjoyed this video
please give it a thumbs up and let me know in the comment section below some of your favorite mystical and magical words
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