Languages, Dialects, Accents (page 17)

road to nowhere

Gaelic is fun to listen to. That is enough reason to learn some.

RubaDub

Question for Canadians from a US person:

Do they teach in school or is it just something culturally that you end every sentence with "ya know?"

(We love you though. Many here would love you more if you learned how to tip in restaurants ... lol).

Rub a Dub

road to nowhere

Aren't sentences supposed to end with eh? Eh

RubaDub

Aren't sentences supposed to end with eh? Eh

road to nowhere ...

I think you have it backwards. It's the British (especially older ones) that begin sentences with eeeeeehhhhhhhh.

Rub a Dub

LoveUniHateExams

Just want to talk about grammar. English doesn't have much of it. Old English certainly did but Modern English doesn't.

So, re verbs, foreigners learn the stem of English verbs and the third person singular form.

E.g. drink, he/she drinks. The simple past tense is drank (drink being a strong verb).

Er, and that's pretty much it. Once you've learnt those forms, you're kinda good to go (although English does have continuous forms - I am drinking; I was speaking, etc.) - I drink/drank, you drink/drank, he drinks/drank, we drink, etc.

Arabic has a verb form for each person (I, you, he, etc.)

ashrab - I drink

tashrab - you (masculine singular) drink

tashrabina - you (feminine singular) drink

yashrab - he drinks

tashrab - she drinks

nashrab - we drink

tashraboona - you (masculine plural) drink

yashraboona - they (masculine plural) drink

There are also forms for they (feminine plural), they two (dual), you (feminine plural) and you two (dual) but these aren't used in everyday speech. The you and they (masculine plural) forms are used as a gender-neutral forms in everyday speech. The dual forms aren't often used - being replaced by the plural forms.

I'm a bit of a grammar geek so I love this kind of stuff.

The correct forms, using the correct prefixes and suffixes, are used for virtually every Arabic verb ...

adrus - I study

tadrus - you (m. sing.) study

tadrusina - you (f. sing.) study

yadrus - he studies

tadrus - she studies

nadrus - we study

tadrusoona - you (m. pl.) study

yadrusoona - they (m. pl.) study

There are also different forms in the past tense ...

darastu - I studied

darasta - you (m. sing.) studied

darasti - you (f. sing.) studied

darasa - he studied

darasat - she studied

darasna - we studied

darastum - you (m. pl.) studied

darasoo - they (m. pl.) studied

^^^ And that's the two main tenses in Arabic - simple present and simple past. For the future tense, you just add sa- to the present tense.

LoveUniHateExams

^^^ So that's a bit of Arabic and grammar.

Now on to Gaelic.

In Gaelic, verb forms don't change according to person (I, you, he, etc.).

Tha mi a' fuireach - I live/am living/am staying

Tha thu a' fuireach - you live/are living/are staying

Tha e a' fuireach - he ...

Tha i a' fuireach - she ...

Tha sinn a' fuireach - we ...

Tha sibh a' fuireach - you (plural or polite) ...

Tha iad a' fuireach - they ...

Verb forms in Gaelic change according to whether the sentence is a statement or question:

A bheil thu a' fuireach ann am Pàislig? - Do you live in Paisley?

Tha thu a' fuireach ann am Pàislig. - You live in Paisley.

Chan eil thu a' fuireach ann am Pàislig. - You don't live in Paisley.

Nach eil thu a' fuireach ann am Pàislig? - Don't you live in Paisley?

^^^ these verb forms are the same regardless of the person (I, you, he, etc.).

The following is a bit strange - you don't conjugate verbs in Gaelic; you conjugate prepositions.

The word for 'at' is aig in Gaelic. But to say 'at me', 'at you', etc. you don't say aig mi, aig thu ...

Aig kinda changes and is amalgamated with the pronoun. So:

agam - at me

agad - at you

aige - at him

aice - at her

againn - at us

agaibh - at you (plural/polite)

aca - at them

^^^ Weird, huh? XD

smiddy3

No wonder I`m at a loss for words sometimes ..

LoveUniHateExams

A form of aig + pronoun is important in Gaelic because there is no verb 'to have'.

Instead of saying 'I have something' Gaelic literally says 'something is at/with me'.

Tha mac agam - I have a son (literally, 'there is a son at me').

It's also used to say if you speak a language (in Gaelic you 'have a language/a language is at you'):

Tha Beurla agam - I speak/know English ('there is English at me'')

Chan eil Gaidhlig aig an fhear sin - that man doesn't know Gaelic

It's also used for saying I know/I don't know (literally 'knowledge is at me/isn't at me'):

Chan eil fhios agam - I don't know

Tha fhios agam - I know

LoveUniHateExams

Gaelic is fun to listen to. That is enough reason to learn some - the following vid is by a Gaelic-speaking Aussie girl from Melbourne, I believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNzQ0xOW9zc

The language has a strange beauty. Her accent is almost similar to a Welsh lilt.

Phizzy

Thanks for Posting that Vid LUHE ! Gaelic is easy on the ear ! and the lady makes a good point, recordings of people in the past who spoke nearly dead, or in fact dead, languages and dialects are so important !

It was interesting to see you express things as you so ably explained above, " I have not gone to the shop" for example. Different in Gaelic ! I agree with the similarity to the Welsh lilt, I heard that too.

Fascinating stuff, many thanks.

Languages, Dialects, Accents

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