Celtic Studies (01/16)

[godinakilt.livejournal.com]

"Madainn mhath a chlas," Camulus says. He looks rather haggard, as if he has spent the entire weekend trying to figure out how to teach Gaidhlig as concisely as he could. "Agus failte a Laithean na Gaidhlig. Good morning, class, and welcome to Gaelic Days. This week will be spent trying to give you a rudimentary knowledge of modern Scots Gaelic, as well as some idea of how the language evolved. When we begin reading the Irish tales later in the semester, you will see how similar Scots Gaelic and Irish are, the branching point being fairly recently on a broad historical scale.

"I did attempt to teach a course entirely in Scots Gaidhlig last semester." He looks rather dour. "Only one student attended. If, however, you are interesting in learning, I will be offering tutoring sessions for the small price of your soul. We'll begin with two notes from last semester on the origin of the language, which will cover the dry note-taking portion of the unit. Tomorrow will be the 'laughing while you all struggle with dipthongs' portion of the unit. And Friday will be the 'assigning you an oral presentation' part of the unit. I had only planned to teach Gaidhlig for one week. If you are all enjoying it, I may be convinced to extend it to two. So. Let's begin."


Camulus draws a diagram on the board as he lectures. "To begin with, there are a class of languages known as the Indo-European languages, because they are spoken in Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Several original languages emerged at the same time, and are thus considered cognate. Included in this group is Latin, from whence sprung the Romance languages, such as French, Italian, and Spanish; the Germanic languages, whose offspring include Anglo-Saxon and thence English; the Baltic-Slavic languages; Greek; and Sanskrit. The one we will be focusing on is the Celtic language group.

"Within the Celtic language group there are two further divisions. The first category is the Brythonic (or Brithonic) languages, which are Cornish, Welsh, and Breton, spoken in Cornwall, Wales, and the Brittany region of western France. Of these, Welsh is the strongest living language; Breton is still alive despite being ignored and undermined by the French government; Cornish is dead. The second category, that which will be the focus of this course, is the Goidelic languages, which consist of Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic (sometimes referred to simply as Irish), and Manx. Manx is also a mostly dead language, having been spoken on the Isle of Man. However, because of the existence of recordings of this man, Manx is undergoing a revival. Cornish scholars are attempting the same by reconstructing how the language might have sounded by its relationship to the other Brythonic languages.

"It might be interesting to note that there is one language in Europe and the Indian subcontinent that bears absolutely no resemblance to any other language in the Indo-European family at all, at all. This language is Basque, and it has been proposed that this, or a relative of this, was the language of the native Picts, who lived in the British Isles before the influx of continental Celts.

"Finally, I will introduce you to the Gaelic alphabet and the bane of beginning Gaidhlig scholars everywhere: lenition. The Gaelic alphabet is as follows:

a b c d e f g h i l m n o p r s t u

You will notice that j, k, q, and everything following u has been omitted. You should further note that h isn't really a letter. It's more in the line of a grammatical marker. While the addition of the letter h to a word changes its pronunciation, it is used to indicate the possessive, when following a preposition, or when the word in feminine. The addition of the h in this manner is called lenition, and words may be said to be lenited. The letters l, n, and r are never lenited, as are consonant pairs with s, such as 'sg', and vowels.

Lenited consonants are transformed thus:
b+h = v
m+h = v
t+h = h
f+h = [ ] (both letters effectively disappear)
d+h = gn (this is a very hard sound to convey phonetically. It's kind of a nasal g.)
g+h = gn (again, the nasal g)
c+h = ch (the harsh horking sound of 'loch')
p+h = f
s+h = h

There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule. A second spelling rule we will be looking at is that which concerns the vowels. Gaelic vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are divided into two groups: broad vowels (a, o, u) and slender vowels (e, i). The general rule is broad to broad and slender to slender. Each consonant is surrounded by either broad or slender vowels which determine how they are pronounced; for example, s by a slender vowle is produced 'sh', while s by a broad vowel is pronounced as a sibilant. I'm still working on language tapes to make this all clearer."

He smiles a bit, and his eye have that lost-in-memory kind of look. "I'm sure at the moment you are all cursing me and swearing up and down that you will never learn this godforsaken language. But Gaidhlig is a . . . fun language. You would be amazed at the number of words that have migrated into the English language. The word 'whiskey', for example. It's a well known fact that 'vodka' is the diminuative of the Slavic for 'water', but the Gaidhlig word for 'water' is 'uisge'. Whiskey itself was called 'uisge bheatha', the water of life. Consider 'gu leor' - it became the English 'galore'." He pauses. "'Gu leor' is one of the best examples of Gaelicness. It isn't just a language. It's more a way of life. One is never asked if they speak Gaelic - one is asked, "A bheil na Gaidhlig agad?" Do you have the Gaelic?" He smiles even more. "And even that question shows another point - directly translated it reads, 'Is the Gaelic at you?' There is no word meaning 'to have'. Things can be at you, on you, or in you, but you can't have anything. And, your final Gaidhlig meaning for today brings us back to 'gu leor'. It means both 'plenty' and 'enough'. If you have enough, you have plenty."

[[Okay, phonetically writing Gaidhlig? Very frelling difficult. Camulus would probably be saying 'Gaelic' the Gaelic way - more like Gallic, with a breathy 'a'. I'll be switching between spellings because my brain is weird like that.]]