Mar. 13th, 2014 09:24 pm
Réalta im' intinn féin
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muckefuckSeachtain na Gaeilge is almost over (it runs through Monday) and I'm only just now getting around to observing it. I blame the weather; normally, the misty dank would have me pining for the loughs and boreens, but there's no mist around, only snow and ice. I had to almost force myself to pick up Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea (a decent read if you're willing to ignore the anachronisms and attempts at postmodernism, which I am). Once I did, though, I found myself reaching for my dictionaries again, and we all know where that leads.
I was mildly impressed with myself for remembering that "Star of the Sea" would be Réalta na Mara. But I wanted to be sure, so I googled and found out that it's not as straightforward as all that. (This is Irish after all.) Old Irish had rétglu, an n-stem with genitive singular rétglann, the modern reflex of which would be réaltann and réalta is found as a fifth declension feminine in the earlier literary language.
Nowadays, the CO treats it as fourth declension: invariable in the singular with plural réaltaí.) In dialects, the old genitive réaltann sometimes serves as the nominative as well. (Others of its class prefer the dative, e.g. Éirinn as a variant of Éire.) In some, réalta gets reanalysed as a second declension feminine, losing the second syllable altogether and acquiring a new analogical genitive, réilte. Then in his dictionary of Cork Irish, David Webb notes that the form preferred in West Cork is réiltín, properly a diminutive and used in the standard language to mean "asterisk".
That's the fun of Irish: Don't like the declension of something? Feel free to chose another!
I was mildly impressed with myself for remembering that "Star of the Sea" would be Réalta na Mara. But I wanted to be sure, so I googled and found out that it's not as straightforward as all that. (This is Irish after all.) Old Irish had rétglu, an n-stem with genitive singular rétglann, the modern reflex of which would be réaltann and réalta is found as a fifth declension feminine in the earlier literary language.
Nowadays, the CO treats it as fourth declension: invariable in the singular with plural réaltaí.) In dialects, the old genitive réaltann sometimes serves as the nominative as well. (Others of its class prefer the dative, e.g. Éirinn as a variant of Éire.) In some, réalta gets reanalysed as a second declension feminine, losing the second syllable altogether and acquiring a new analogical genitive, réilte. Then in his dictionary of Cork Irish, David Webb notes that the form preferred in West Cork is réiltín, properly a diminutive and used in the standard language to mean "asterisk".
That's the fun of Irish: Don't like the declension of something? Feel free to chose another!
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