I'm an Irish speaker. You can understand alot of Middle Irish because they are almost identical. It's like Middle and Modern English. It's not like Old Irish or Sean-Ghaeilge which is an entirely different language altogether. Is aoibhinn liom dán sin, tá sé deas agus taitneamhach chun an cluas
I would think 9th century is old Irish. When does Middle Irish begin? Chaucer is Middle English, or you might even say Early Modern. He is 14th century IIRC. In Spanish the Poem of the CId is generally dated c 1200, and it's quite easy to understand if you know Modern Spanish and learn a few translating tricks.
@@TimothyOBrien1958 I'd say modern speakers definitely wouldn't be able to understand Old Irish (pre-900 AD) since although a lot of words were obviously similar to their Modern Irish equivalents there are also many differences (and the Old Irish grammar is a nightmare). Middle Irish, spoken in Briain Ború's time, would be a bit easier but I still doubt modern speakers would be able to follow conversations in it or something.
@@TimothyOBrien1958 Honestly, I doubt it (unless they learnt Old Irish before that). For example, Old Irish "messe ocus Pangur Bán" = Modern Irish "mise agus Pangur Bán" (almost the same). Similarly, a literal Modern Irish translation of the last two lines in the first verse could be: "Bíonn a mheanma-san fri seilg / Mo mheanma féin i mo shain-cheird." All of the words look similar, but does the whole thing make sense nowadays? I'm not sure. Btw, the word "fri" is old-fashioned (possibly unknown to modern speakers). Then, the last two lines in the second verse: "Ní formadach friom Pangur Bán / carann sé féin a mhac-dhán." I don't know if anyone uses/understands "friom" nowadays, if mac-dhán would be understood as "childish art" or something else, or if they'd know that caraid = carann sé (and whether the verb "car" is understood nowadays at all). There are various grammatical differences: like "caraid" (meaning "he loves", rather than "friend"). In fact, this would probably be expressed by "is maith leis féin" or "is fearr leis féin" nowadays. The word "nathar" means "of us two" (doesn't exist in ModIr), "fria" means "to/at his" (probably doesn't exist in ModIr... its Scottish Gaelic form is "ri" or "r'a"). "Cesin" was one of the ways to say "féin". "Léir ingnu" (with diligent science) probably wouldn't be understood either. Etc. The translation in the video is great, but it doesn't follow the original too closely (because of the verse, rhyme, syllables etc.). The Old Irish pronunciation was different in many ways too: for example th and (often) d were pronounced th (as in English "thin" and "then" respectively). So when all this is taken into account, it turns out the differences were too great to allow mutual understanding. As for Briain, the language had become more similar to modern day Irish, but still... There were a lot of sounds which don't even occur in writing nowadays (cf. buidhe vs. buí "yellow", laghach vs. lách "kind" etc.). Th and dh still represented the th-sounds. The Middle Irish grammar was still more complicated than it is now. Etc.
It is Gaelic, Goídelc (Old Irish) to be precise. The language that would later become Modern Irish (Irish Gaelic; Gaoluinn, Gaelainn, Gaeilge, Gaelic), Manx (Gaelg) and Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig).
ink, that has to be one of the most idiotic comments I have ever read. Irish is not based on any alphabet, it uses alphabets to allow things to be written. Just to put it in perspective, all of the fonts currently used on computers, are based on the Irish script of the 16th Century. You were typing in a font derived from how the irish used alphabets to communicate.
So Turkish and Vietnamese are fake languages too I guess, since they switched over to the Roman alphabet. And English, for that matter, since we're also using the foreign Roman alphabet instead of runes. Except that, whoops, runes are themselves derived from the family of Old Italic alphabets that our current Roman alphabet comes from. Also: Picktish?
Ink, you have compiled an impressive amount of gibberish in a few small paragraphs. Whatever languages the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles spoke would NOT be referred to as Irish! PanglossDr had adequately addressed your first outlandish nonsense. But you continued on! You assert that "celtic gaelic ...came from france" which is only partially true - the homeland of all Celtic languages seems to have been around Bavaria - and is really immaterial to your goofy argument which seems to be that because there's no evidence to link pre-Celtic "Irish" to modern Irish that modern Irish is "fake"! ALL Gaelic is Celtic Gaelic! And you go on: "Pre-anglo-saxon latin and celtic English would be something more akin to neolithic irish, which was neither celtic or gaelic." Are you sniffing paint? And no, Picktish (sic) was NOT the original language of the entire isles! The vast majority of scholars concur that it was a Celtic language. Even if it weren't, which is a minority opinion falling out of favor, there's no way to assert that it was the "original" language of that area. And you don't mean "equivocate." You mean "equate." You should learn what grown-up words MEAN before throwing them around like confetti. Maybe your labyrinthine constructions impress your Comp 101 teacher but I can see right through them. No one equates Gaelic with the prehistoric language(s) of Ireland within ANY context. English has trace elements of Celtic. I don't know off hand what the percentage is in words, but it's almost entirely place names and late loan words. Hardly any "mixture" going on with English! You need to stop watching Ancient Aliens, get the cotton out of your head, maybe bone up on punctuation and spelling, learn where it's appropriate to capitalize letters and quit with the pseudo-academic crap.
+ink800ify What an idiotic and pedantic argument. Yeah, of course archaic Irish sounds totally different from modern Irish. And then the Irish culture isn't even the same fucking thing at all as whatever it was pre-Celtic. You may as well say America isn't America because we speak English, in-fact, you may as well say no culture in the world is its "original" outside of the African Rift Valley. So stupid.
*PanglossDr* Well, to be honest, the form is so old, it isn't modern Irish. It's a language that eventually became today's Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic. Someone named Cian Ó Cionnfhaolaidh pointed that out in another post in this comment section.
Eoin Byrne ..the language is called Irish as the both of you were using English.you refer to every other language by their English name when using English, and vice versa with every other language in the world. When speaking Irish, you naturally refer to it as Gaeilge
That was brilliant, except the reader has forgotten to pronounce the lenition on m and b, even though this sound change is not shown in Old Irish orthography, it was pronounced as such (e.g. a m[h]enma-sam[h], mu m[h]enma céin, im s[h]aincheird); the second element of compound words should also be lenited: foirmt[h]ech.
I didn't quite catch how he said _dh_. In OI it should sound [ð], like Welsh_dd_ or the 'th' in English 'then' etc. In he modern languages when not silent it has merged with _gh_.
Dear Cian, Thank you for the clarification. Your brief comment is quite useful as I’ve just begun studying Middle and Old Irish. Could you please, if possible, provide any resources that you would highly recommend? Kind Regards, Travis
Maybe better pronunciation by Tomás Ó Cathasaigh and Séamus Heaney’s ‘translation’ - really more of a rewrite. ruclips.net/video/jQcwILWepWk/видео.html
not to mention "th" being pronounced as /h/ when it should be the voiceless (inter)dental fricative, and the lack of lenition of "s" to /h/ in certain structures like "fria saindan" and "im saincheirdd", etc.
I always heard this translation I and Pangur Ban my cat, 'Tis a like task we are at: Hunting mice is his delight, Hunting words I sit all night. Better far than praise of men 'Tis to sit with book and pen; Pangur bears me no ill-will, He too plies his simple skill. 'Tis a merry task to see At our tasks how glad are we, When at home we sit and find Entertainment to our mind. Oftentimes a mouse will stray In the hero Pangur's way; Oftentimes my keen thought set Takes a meaning in its net. 'Gainst the wall he sets his eye Full and fierce and sharp and sly; 'Gainst the wall of knowledge I All my little wisdom try. When a mouse darts from its den, O how glad is Pangur then! O what gladness do I prove When I solve the doubts I love! So in peace our task we ply, Pangur Ban, my cat, and I; In our arts we find our bliss, I have mine and he has his. Practice every day has made Pangur perfect in his trade; I get wisdom day and night Turning darkness into light.
The version in the video is a literal translation so there are breaks in the flow and certain lines don't rhyme. The version you shared has been tweaked to make it rhyme and flow better in English
You can call irish gaelic too! You can call scottish Gaelic gaeilge too. All the names as inter usable. The main irish word for scottish Gaelic is "Gaeilge na hAlban" And the main word for Irish is "Gaeilge". But in english it's the opposite way Irish is "Irish gaelic (Gaeilge na hEireann) and scottish gaelic is "gaelic" (Gaeilge) 😂. I really wish their was two more names from the languages that don't cause confusion but don't divide them either
Really, when i was first starting to learn irish, i distinctly remembered that gaeilge ia used to refer to Irish, and scottish gaelic is used to refer to well, scottish Gaelic. But
bill nicks I mean it doesn’t necessarily have to be about reading the book, it could be wanting to keep in touch with ones cultural roots. Or they could be looking for a translation
People fighting below over the meaning of Old Irish. But the poem, written in the time of the great Heathen Army conquest of England, during the invention of Algebra by the Persian Muslims, the time of the persecution of Ahmed Hanbal, the last great scholar of four Sunni Schools, the time of Shankara, the Indian philosopher, the time in which Charlemagne gave up beer for wine, the time of the Tang dynasty and the invention of Gun Powder....while somewhere off the North Atlantic, in an Island ravaged by Viking raids and settlements,a monk and sits with his white cat, and celebrates the deep solace one may find in the life of the mind while praising what nature has designed us to do and to be....beautiful
I'd have preferred it if they hadn't tried to make the English version rhyme. I'm sure it required changing some of the original meaning. Wish it had just been translated from Irish to English, without trying to make it rhyme.
It’s not a terrible translation (by my limited understanding), but it’s only the first verse. Here’s my go at a literal one: Myself and Pangur Bán · each of us at his special art _His_ mind is on hunting · my own mind on my special craft I love quietude more than any fame · at my little book with careful understanding Pangur Bán doesn‘t envy me · he loves his youthful art.
It's a pity you did not also tell the history. Irish monks spent a lot of time transcribing the bible. Many will know of the Book of Kells. This monk, possibly somewhere in Switzerland, wrote the poem in the margin of a bible. I'm sure his superiors would have called it an off day. For me it was 100% on.
Bart Ehrman, a fantastic Bible scholar, shared that the story of Jesus saying “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” also began as notes scribbled in the margins of a copy of the Bible. The next monk and others enjoyed it so much that it became included.
Hello, I was wondering if someone could tell me which translation of the poem this is. I have read a translation by Auden, and several others which I assume to be more "verbatim," but I find this one particularly beautiful. Thanks!
I don't know who the translator is, but he's reading from "Poems from the Irish", by Eoin Neeson. It's not clear to me whether Neeson was the translator, or just the editor.
Yes that's gaelic ....am surprised by how much i can understand by the way. stop your click bait. Its irish though ....and if i can understand a lot of it having only learnt modern irish in school i am sure a gaelgoir can understand it all
But any modern Irish speaker would understand that first line (though not all the rest). No modern English speaker would understand the first line of Beowulf. Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon. Hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
@@qwertyTRiG it actually. Irish are a Gaelic people. Irish football (aka Gaelic) and hurling are Gaelic sports. Irish is a Gaelic language of course , but it is not itself called Gaelic. "The Gaelic Language" makes sense but only in the same vein as "The Frankish Language" or "The Germanic People". Calling it Gaelic makes it appear to be the ancient language of an ancient people, long lost to time. But it's the active, live, modern evolving language of Ireland , so. it makes the most sense to call it Irish. Irish people speak Irish. Yes it's Gaeilge as ghaeilge. But we don't call the German language Germanic or Deutsch ,
Because it was translated and the translation was made to rhyme. It's also not a literal translation, as there are some compromises to get it to work in English.
But could you call old English the same thing as modern English? It would be unrecognizable to us. Therefore it isn’t really Gaelic, not as we know it today though
I know you wrote this comment a while ago. Old irish/Modern Irish is in a completely different language family tree to Old English/Modern English. Old English actually looks quite a bit like Modern German which makes sense since it's a West Germanic language. Being an irish speaking person I recognise quite a lot words here. "Messe acus Pangur bán" would be "Mise agus Pangur bán" in Modern irish, the word "léir" which means "all" today, "fós" meaning "still", "clú" meaning famous". Even not knowing what I'm saying I could read that poem out with good pronunciation. Sentence structure is the same, pronunciation is the same. Maybe the spelling and meaning of some words have changed but that's what happens with most languages.
But languages often don’t use the native name of the language they’re referring to. We don’t call Hungarian ‘magyar nyelv’. Gaelic has such a strong connection with Scottish Gaelic for English speakers that I don’t think it’s as neutral as you suggest either. Irish isn’t a neutral word either, but it’s not completely crazy since it did spread from Ireland and was probably still a relatively recent arrival in large parts of Scotland in the 9th century.
@@thenextshenanigantownandth4393 Where are you getting that from?! Traditional scholars say the 5th century BC (Iron age). But modern Celtic scholars date it as far back as 2,500 BC from the waves of Indo-Europeans, from which it then evolved as distinct from Germanic, Italic, Greek, Slavic etc.
@@mikeoxsmal8022 Old Gaelic is not Irish. It was a foreign language, introduced, oddly enough, by the Gaels! Who also weren't Irish. Just like the Celts. This may come as a surprise to you, but there were people on the island of Ireland BEFORE the Gaels turned up, and they had their own language, AND their own alphabet. Gaelic simply arrived, and became the dominant spoken tongue, replacing Irish. Just like the majority of Irish people now speak English as their default language, or at least, Gaelic-inflected English. Language constantly evolves.
elves are the germanic word. they're called aos sí in ancient celtic, daoine sí in modern irish or daoine sith in scots gaelic, in welsh it's tylwyth teg, in english it's fairies, fata in latin, donas de fuera in italian, bonnes dames in french, haltija in finnish, haldaja in estonian, vila in slavic, and satyrs in ancient greek.
That statement doesn't make any sense. "Gaelic" and "Irish" were synonymous up until the end of the Middle Irish period, after which the three modern languages started to diverge, and Classical Irish dying out as a literary language was the deathknell for any unity. None of the three modern languages are any more "genealogically close" to Old Irish than the others. All have some aspects in which they're more conservative and more innovative. Scottish Gaelic might appear on the surface to be closer, but only because it retains a largely unreformed orthography, but that just means it has a lot of silent letters.
@@dyskr Béarlachas would naturally have occurred at least over time, the language would probably be in a simpler original form if so, and probably more approachable to people to try and learn cause it's pretty fuckn daunting at times tryin to learn it
It's not in anyway similar to welsh. Welsh is a p celtic language and Irish is a Q celtic language. At this time the languages where not in anyway similar. Btw technically Welsh comes from a language more similar to Irish then the other-way around. Q celtic is an older form of celtic than P celtic.
I'm an Irish speaker. You can understand alot of Middle Irish because they are almost identical. It's like Middle and Modern English. It's not like Old Irish or Sean-Ghaeilge which is an entirely different language altogether. Is aoibhinn liom dán sin, tá sé deas agus taitneamhach chun an cluas
It's similar with English. I don't speak Irish really, but even I can understand some of this poem.
I would think 9th century is old Irish. When does Middle Irish begin? Chaucer is Middle English, or you might even say Early Modern. He is 14th century IIRC.
In Spanish the Poem of the CId is generally dated c 1200, and it's quite easy to understand if you know Modern Spanish and learn a few translating tricks.
@@dbarnwell8224 9th century would've been a transitional period of Old Irish to Middle Irish. True Middle Irish began in the 10th century
Lovely, and it is absolutely in Irish even I understand most of it.
I was told that no modern speaker could understand Briain Boru and this is long before. So, could modern speakers understand Briain?
@@TimothyOBrien1958 I'd say modern speakers definitely wouldn't be able to understand Old Irish (pre-900 AD) since although a lot of words were obviously similar to their Modern Irish equivalents there are also many differences (and the Old Irish grammar is a nightmare). Middle Irish, spoken in Briain Ború's time, would be a bit easier but I still doubt modern speakers would be able to follow conversations in it or something.
@@davidmandic3417 So, there'd be no way for a modern speaker to have a clue about this, but maybe Briain?
@@TimothyOBrien1958 Honestly, I doubt it (unless they learnt Old Irish before that). For example, Old Irish "messe ocus Pangur Bán" = Modern Irish "mise agus Pangur Bán" (almost the same). Similarly, a literal Modern Irish translation of the last two lines in the first verse could be: "Bíonn a mheanma-san fri seilg / Mo mheanma féin i mo shain-cheird." All of the words look similar, but does the whole thing make sense nowadays? I'm not sure. Btw, the word "fri" is old-fashioned (possibly unknown to modern speakers). Then, the last two lines in the second verse: "Ní formadach friom Pangur Bán / carann sé féin a mhac-dhán." I don't know if anyone uses/understands "friom" nowadays, if mac-dhán would be understood as "childish art" or something else, or if they'd know that caraid = carann sé (and whether the verb "car" is understood nowadays at all). There are various grammatical differences: like "caraid" (meaning "he loves", rather than "friend"). In fact, this would probably be expressed by "is maith leis féin" or "is fearr leis féin" nowadays. The word "nathar" means "of us two" (doesn't exist in ModIr), "fria" means "to/at his" (probably doesn't exist in ModIr... its Scottish Gaelic form is "ri" or "r'a"). "Cesin" was one of the ways to say "féin". "Léir ingnu" (with diligent science) probably wouldn't be understood either. Etc. The translation in the video is great, but it doesn't follow the original too closely (because of the verse, rhyme, syllables etc.). The Old Irish pronunciation was different in many ways too: for example th and (often) d were pronounced th (as in English "thin" and "then" respectively). So when all this is taken into account, it turns out the differences were too great to allow mutual understanding. As for Briain, the language had become more similar to modern day Irish, but still... There were a lot of sounds which don't even occur in writing nowadays (cf. buidhe vs. buí "yellow", laghach vs. lách "kind" etc.). Th and dh still represented the th-sounds. The Middle Irish grammar was still more complicated than it is now. Etc.
@@davidmandic3417 What about the time of Briain Boru? Any chance then?
It's been a very long time since I learned Irish at school so I don't speak it, but straight away you would recognize it as a Gaelic language.
I love this poem ! You should watch Secret of the Kells !
It is Gaelic, Goídelc (Old Irish) to be precise. The language that would later become Modern Irish (Irish Gaelic; Gaoluinn, Gaelainn, Gaeilge, Gaelic), Manx (Gaelg) and Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig).
ink, that has to be one of the most idiotic comments I have ever read. Irish is not based on any alphabet, it uses alphabets to allow things to be written. Just to put it in perspective, all of the fonts currently used on computers, are based on the Irish script of the 16th Century. You were typing in a font derived from how the irish used alphabets to communicate.
So, English is fake English since it's so different from its origins?
So Turkish and Vietnamese are fake languages too I guess, since they switched over to the Roman alphabet. And English, for that matter, since we're also using the foreign Roman alphabet instead of runes. Except that, whoops, runes are themselves derived from the family of Old Italic alphabets that our current Roman alphabet comes from. Also: Picktish?
Ink, you have compiled an impressive amount of gibberish in a few small paragraphs. Whatever languages the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles spoke would NOT be referred to as Irish! PanglossDr had adequately addressed your first outlandish nonsense. But you continued on! You assert that "celtic gaelic ...came from france" which is only partially true - the homeland of all Celtic languages seems to have been around Bavaria - and is really immaterial to your goofy argument which seems to be that because there's no evidence to link pre-Celtic "Irish" to modern Irish that modern Irish is "fake"! ALL Gaelic is Celtic Gaelic! And you go on: "Pre-anglo-saxon latin and celtic English would be something more akin to neolithic irish, which was neither celtic or gaelic." Are you sniffing paint? And no, Picktish (sic) was NOT the original language of the entire isles! The vast majority of scholars concur that it was a Celtic language. Even if it weren't, which is a minority opinion falling out of favor, there's no way to assert that it was the "original" language of that area. And you don't mean "equivocate." You mean "equate." You should learn what grown-up words MEAN before throwing them around like confetti. Maybe your labyrinthine constructions impress your Comp 101 teacher but I can see right through them. No one equates Gaelic with the prehistoric language(s) of Ireland within ANY context. English has trace elements of Celtic. I don't know off hand what the percentage is in words, but it's almost entirely place names and late loan words. Hardly any "mixture" going on with English! You need to stop watching Ancient Aliens, get the cotton out of your head, maybe bone up on punctuation and spelling, learn where it's appropriate to capitalize letters and quit with the pseudo-academic crap.
+ink800ify
What an idiotic and pedantic argument. Yeah, of course archaic Irish sounds totally different from modern Irish. And then the Irish culture isn't even the same fucking thing at all as whatever it was pre-Celtic. You may as well say America isn't America because we speak English, in-fact, you may as well say no culture in the world is its "original" outside of the African Rift Valley. So stupid.
The poem is very cute, but yeah, that's definitely Gaelic
What is Gaelic? you insult our language by calling it that, it is Irish.
*PanglossDr*
Well, to be honest, the form is so old, it isn't modern Irish. It's a language that eventually became today's Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic. Someone named Cian Ó Cionnfhaolaidh pointed that out in another post in this comment section.
Eoin Byrne ..the language is called Irish as the both of you were using English.you refer to every other language by their English name when using English, and vice versa with every other language in the world. When speaking Irish, you naturally refer to it as Gaeilge
@@eoin3591 It's Gaelic. Gaeilge is sort of a munster dialect that got turned into a catch all term for Irish.
@@PanglossDr Why, I'm a foreigner, can you please explain to me why it is offensive, I wonder to know, thanks.
That was brilliant, except the reader has forgotten to pronounce the lenition on m and b, even though this sound change is not shown in Old Irish orthography, it was pronounced as such (e.g. a m[h]enma-sam[h], mu m[h]enma céin, im s[h]aincheird); the second element of compound words should also be lenited: foirmt[h]ech.
I didn't quite catch how he said _dh_. In OI it should sound [ð], like Welsh_dd_ or the 'th' in English 'then' etc. In he modern languages when not silent it has merged with _gh_.
yep dh and gh merged c. 1100, starting with palatal idh and igh.
Dear Cian,
Thank you for the clarification.
Your brief comment is quite useful as I’ve just begun studying Middle and Old Irish.
Could you please, if possible, provide any resources that you would highly recommend?
Kind Regards,
Travis
Maybe better pronunciation by Tomás Ó Cathasaigh and Séamus Heaney’s ‘translation’ - really more of a rewrite.
ruclips.net/video/jQcwILWepWk/видео.html
not to mention "th" being pronounced as /h/ when it should be the voiceless (inter)dental fricative, and the lack of lenition of "s" to /h/ in certain structures like "fria saindan" and "im saincheirdd", etc.
I always heard this translation
I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.
'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.
That's the one I know! That's how my mother taught it to me. Where is it from? Does anyone know?
@@odeath884 I think that's Robin Flower's translation
@@NiallOSiadhail Thank you for telling me!!!
The version in the video is a literal translation so there are breaks in the flow and certain lines don't rhyme. The version you shared has been tweaked to make it rhyme and flow better in English
You can call irish gaelic too! You can call scottish Gaelic gaeilge too. All the names as inter usable.
The main irish word for scottish Gaelic is "Gaeilge na hAlban"
And the main word for Irish is "Gaeilge". But in english it's the opposite way Irish is "Irish gaelic (Gaeilge na hEireann) and scottish gaelic is "gaelic" (Gaeilge) 😂.
I really wish their was two more names from the languages that don't cause confusion but don't divide them either
I call Scottish Gaelic "Gàidhlig" and Irish Gaelic "Gaeilge" and I find it easier ;-)
And Irish is called "Gàidhlig na h-Éireann" in Scots Gaelic .
Which ones the mother tongue
@@ripme6616 gàidhlig for the scottish and gaeilge for the irish
Really, when i was first starting to learn irish, i distinctly remembered that gaeilge ia used to refer to Irish, and scottish gaelic is used to refer to well, scottish Gaelic. But
Can you recommend any poem books or short stories in old irish?? Im looking to get one for my 90 year old grandmother. Thanks!
its very unlikely that your grandmother could read old Irish
bill nicks I mean it doesn’t necessarily have to be about reading the book, it could be wanting to keep in touch with ones cultural roots. Or they could be looking for a translation
People fighting below over the meaning of Old Irish. But the poem, written in the time of the great Heathen Army conquest of England, during the invention of Algebra by the Persian Muslims, the time of the persecution of Ahmed Hanbal, the last great scholar of four Sunni Schools, the time of Shankara, the Indian philosopher, the time in which Charlemagne gave up beer for wine, the time of the Tang dynasty and the invention of Gun Powder....while somewhere off the North Atlantic, in an Island ravaged by Viking raids and settlements,a monk and sits with his white cat, and celebrates the deep solace one may find in the life of the mind while praising what nature has designed us to do and to be....beautiful
I'd have preferred it if they hadn't tried to make the English version rhyme. I'm sure it required changing some of the original meaning. Wish it had just been translated from Irish to English, without trying to make it rhyme.
It’s not a terrible translation (by my limited understanding), but it’s only the first verse. Here’s my go at a literal one:
Myself and Pangur Bán · each of us at his special art
_His_ mind is on hunting · my own mind on my special craft
I love quietude more than any fame · at my little book with careful understanding
Pangur Bán doesn‘t envy me · he loves his youthful art.
It's a pity you did not also tell the history. Irish monks spent a lot of time transcribing the bible. Many will know of the Book of Kells. This monk, possibly somewhere in Switzerland, wrote the poem in the margin of a bible. I'm sure his superiors would have called it an off day. For me it was 100% on.
You can read an abundance of marginalia o Gaedhilge in the ancient tomes of Melk, an freisin! If the Abbot allows you, that is!
Bart Ehrman, a fantastic Bible scholar, shared that the story of Jesus saying “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” also began as notes scribbled in the margins of a copy of the Bible. The next monk and others enjoyed it so much that it became included.
What book is that?
Hello,
I was wondering if someone could tell me which translation of the poem this is. I have read a translation by Auden, and several others which I assume to be more "verbatim," but I find this one particularly beautiful.
Thanks!
I don't know who the translator is, but he's reading from "Poems from the Irish", by Eoin Neeson. It's not clear to me whether Neeson was the translator, or just the editor.
Who wrote the translation for this poem?
THAT IS GAELIC!!! Old Gaelic.
It's old Irish
@@mikeoxsmal8022 Same thing.
@@mikeoxsmal8022 Same thing.
Thank you🎉
Yes that's gaelic ....am surprised by how much i can understand by the way. stop your click bait. Its irish though ....and if i can understand a lot of it having only learnt modern irish in school i am sure a gaelgoir can understand it all
Thankyou for your reading of this poem. It sounds lovely in Irish but it seems a difficult language for me to learn.🙏🐈
Try.
thanks to all for their kind words about my poem. I suppose it's really aimed at the young/children learning Irish.
"Mise agus Pangur Bán", is the first line as written in modern Irish. The English of Beowulf has changed a bit too and not surprisingly so has Gaelic.
Please, do not call our language Gaelic, it is Irish.
But any modern Irish speaker would understand that first line (though not all the rest). No modern English speaker would understand the first line of Beowulf.
Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon.
Hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
@@PanglossDr Irish is a Gaelic language, and in a text this old, calling it Gaelic makes sense.
@@qwertyTRiG it actually. Irish are a Gaelic people. Irish football (aka Gaelic) and hurling are Gaelic sports. Irish is a Gaelic language of course , but it is not itself called Gaelic. "The Gaelic Language" makes sense but only in the same vein as "The Frankish Language" or "The Germanic People". Calling it Gaelic makes it appear to be the ancient language of an ancient people, long lost to time. But it's the active, live, modern evolving language of Ireland , so. it makes the most sense to call it Irish. Irish people speak Irish. Yes it's Gaeilge as ghaeilge. But we don't call the German language Germanic or Deutsch ,
@@AerachEile i understood quite a lot , beowulf however ... I know that weird p looking symbol makes a "th" Sound lol
sean-Goidelige, ar aon chaoi
Old Irish?
What are the odds it would rhyme in both languages?
madness....it is Gaelic
That is in Irish, just an older form of Irish , I could understand a good part of it
Ta se filiacht go hiontach e sin! Go raibh mile maith agat as sin a leimh! Beannachtai ort! --N
Ha!
The "hint" is worth a penny in a jar full of dimes. But the poem is the jar full and another beside.
Somehow it ryhmes in both Irish and in English🤔
Because it was translated and the translation was made to rhyme. It's also not a literal translation, as there are some compromises to get it to work in English.
@@talideon Ah, I see. Thank you.
I'd like to a my poem about a cat also call Pangur, only this is Pangur Dubh. It's really intended for children
Pangur
Mise Pangur an cat, I'm black Pangur the Cat,
Luchtiarna an tí, Mouse-Lord of the house,
Muna mbíonn mé amuigh, When I'm inside
Bím istigh. I want to be out
Seilgim na lucha I enjoy hunting rodents
Le chrúb géar mar chorrán, With claws sharp as blades
Ach is maith liom na Francaigh, Though I favour the rats [or French] *
Anseo sa Roussillon. In Roussillon glades
Is cat an-aineolach mé, I'm an ignorant cat,
Dar le gach saoi; So say the wise
Ní scríobhaim m'ainm, I can't write my name
S' ní féidir liom guí. Or send prayers to the skies.
Ach tá cara sár-naofa 'gam, But a holy man friend,
Manach gan locht, A Monk who is pure**,
Agus déanfaidh sin 'n gnó Prays for us both;
Do Phangur Dubh bocht. Of that Pangur is sure.
© David Monks, 10 May 2008
With apologies to the Anonymous 9th century Irish monk, whose cat was Pangur Bán, and who included lines about his beloved pet in manuscript he was transcribing; and to the style of Irish poet Antoine Ó Raifteirí of a thousand years later.
And dedicated to all cats, everywhere, of course - especially (the late) Portia, whose 5th birthday this marked.
* In the Irish language, with no disrespect intended to my good neighbours |(I live in France|), the word ‘Francach’ means both ‘French’ and ‘rat’, allowing a pun which is impossible in English.
** Could this possibly refer to the author?
English Translation: David Monks 2008
Apropos of nothing much, I recall reading somewhere that Pangur was likely a Welsh cat the Irish Monk encountered and adopted whilst travellin through Brythonic speaking Britain.
Goidelic did not use the letter P much, Hence Na Cruithnigh - the British p/b Hence to mind one's Ps and Qs.
Anyway, I hope the poem and its rough translation please someone.
Is Gaelic not Goidelic?
It definitely sounds like modern irish... well, some words i mean
That's not the old irish pronunciation...
Go raibth maith agat. ❤
But could you call old English the same thing as modern English? It would be unrecognizable to us. Therefore it isn’t really Gaelic, not as we know it today though
I know you wrote this comment a while ago. Old irish/Modern Irish is in a completely different language family tree to Old English/Modern English. Old English actually looks quite a bit like Modern German which makes sense since it's a West Germanic language. Being an irish speaking person I recognise quite a lot words here. "Messe acus Pangur bán" would be "Mise agus Pangur bán" in Modern irish, the word "léir" which means "all" today, "fós" meaning "still", "clú" meaning famous". Even not knowing what I'm saying I could read that poem out with good pronunciation. Sentence structure is the same, pronunciation is the same. Maybe the spelling and meaning of some words have changed but that's what happens with most languages.
What d'you mean it's not Gaelic (or rather, 'Irish')? Of course it is. As for English, it didn't even really exist at this date.
Gaelic is a fairer name than Irish for the Gaelic written language of the ninth century.
ie In Gaelic no one called the language Irish. Thats a modern English concept for the Gaelic language of Ireland today.
But languages often don’t use the native name of the language they’re referring to. We don’t call Hungarian ‘magyar nyelv’. Gaelic has such a strong connection with Scottish Gaelic for English speakers that I don’t think it’s as neutral as you suggest either. Irish isn’t a neutral word either, but it’s not completely crazy since it did spread from Ireland and was probably still a relatively recent arrival in large parts of Scotland in the 9th century.
@@AerachEile Irish is what we call it, so isn't that the real point. Tir gan teanga...
@@AerachEile Gaelic or Irish if you prefer came to scotland from Ireland as early as the 4th to 5th century AD.
@@thenextshenanigantownandth4393 Where are you getting that from?! Traditional scholars say the 5th century BC (Iron age). But modern Celtic scholars date it as far back as 2,500 BC from the waves of Indo-Europeans, from which it then evolved as distinct from Germanic, Italic, Greek, Slavic etc.
Not Irish; Old Gaelic. No Ogham ever graced this speech...
No it's old Irish
@@mikeoxsmal8022 Old Gaelic is not Irish. It was a foreign language, introduced, oddly enough, by the Gaels! Who also weren't Irish. Just like the Celts. This may come as a surprise to you, but there were people on the island of Ireland BEFORE the Gaels turned up, and they had their own language, AND their own alphabet. Gaelic simply arrived, and became the dominant spoken tongue, replacing Irish. Just like the majority of Irish people now speak English as their default language, or at least, Gaelic-inflected English. Language constantly evolves.
Really? Well if it’s not Irish how come fluent modern Irish speakers can understand most of it? Ogham is a form of writing, not speech.
A beautiful poem but he reads like a foreign phrasebook
Elvish, no doubt about it...
Nope. Irish
Speaking of Elvish, you should look up the Georgian script! It's incredible.
elves are the germanic word. they're called aos sí in ancient celtic, daoine sí in modern irish or daoine sith in scots gaelic, in welsh it's tylwyth teg, in english it's fairies, fata in latin, donas de fuera in italian, bonnes dames in french, haltija in finnish, haldaja in estonian, vila in slavic, and satyrs in ancient greek.
lol you wish , My-snia hunted yours
listen to this , if you know Czach language ruclips.net/video/OSVcrrpY6bQ/видео.html
Old Irish is genealogically closer to Gaelic than Irish is, fyi.
That statement doesn't make any sense. "Gaelic" and "Irish" were synonymous up until the end of the Middle Irish period, after which the three modern languages started to diverge, and Classical Irish dying out as a literary language was the deathknell for any unity. None of the three modern languages are any more "genealogically close" to Old Irish than the others. All have some aspects in which they're more conservative and more innovative. Scottish Gaelic might appear on the surface to be closer, but only because it retains a largely unreformed orthography, but that just means it has a lot of silent letters.
the irish on the screen is not the real irish of the time our lanuge was gealagh
Gaeilge
Not the most historically/etymologically correct name for the language.
Of course it's Gaelic. It's just not modern Irish (or Scottish, or Manx).
It's The Irish language before the monks destroyed it with latin
Would you rather Latin or Béarlachas.
@@dyskr Béarlachas would naturally have occurred at least over time, the language would probably be in a simpler original form if so, and probably more approachable to people to try and learn cause it's pretty fuckn daunting at times tryin to learn it
This was written by a monk who also spoke and wrote in fluent Latin.
Badly pronounced
It seems closer to Welsh...
its not
It's not in anyway similar to welsh. Welsh is a p celtic language and Irish is a Q celtic language. At this time the languages where not in anyway similar. Btw technically Welsh comes from a language more similar to Irish then the other-way around. Q celtic is an older form of celtic than P celtic.
It's nothing like welsh
Definitely Gaelige