Re: Irish Gaelic is evil!

On Mar 1, 2005, at 8:24 PM, Carsten Becker wrote:
> Sheet 1: "Ceacht a hAon" (Lesson 1): BEANNACHTAÍ (Greetings)
> A man meets a friend at home, but her dog is making things
> difficult since it doesn't like the man ...
> -- Dia duit. (JEE-ah ditch) Hello.
>   Fáilte (FWAL-tche) Welcome.
> -- Dia is Muire duit. (JEE-ah iss MWER-ah ditch[1]) Hello!
>   (reply)
> -- Cad é mar tá tú? (cad ay mar TAW too) How are you?
> -- Go maith, go raibh maith agat. (guh moyh, guh roe moyh
>   agat) Well, thank you.
> -- Go measartha, go raibh maith agat. (guh MASS-ar-ha, guh
>   roe moyh agat.) Fair, thanks.
Yay for Irish!  ;-)

I remember this basic greeting stuff from my one semester "Irish
Language and Culture" class a few years ago.

If i remember correctly, _Dia duit_ (not |Día|?) was pronounced by my
teacher as something like /'dZ)i@ gItS)/, and everyone was really
confused how _duit_ could sound like "gitch"... eventually i realized
that it must be either an incredibly strongly velarized /d/, or what
happens when a non-native speaker tries to reproduce such a sound.

I think my teacher said that _Dia duit_ and _Dia is Muire duit_
literally mean something like "God be with you" and "God and Mary be
with you", and that people who might feel uncomfortable using
theologically-loaded greetings could just stick to "cad é mar tá tú"
type 'how're you doing?' greetings.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "survival is insufficient."

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