Greetings Everybody!
Irish people, can you help your buddy across the ocean out??
Am reading a book that takes place in Ireland, and I am terribly embarrassed that I can’t pronounce some of the characters’ names! For example, how in the world do you pronounce “ SAHBH”?! Gee knows that American English is NOT a phonetic language at all, I don’t want people to think I’m ripping on Gaelic! I am really curious about Irish history, and I enjoy reading about Ireland...
((I teach English for a living, but I have never had any Gaelic speakers in my classes))!
Also, what is “craic”?
TIA

[cmjr100]

Craic is such a hard word to explain, it can be used to mean fun or enjoyment, so it would be used as "I just went for the craic" or " the craic last night was great". It can be used as gossip, so as in "Whats the craic?". It can also be used as a personal desciptive, such as "His craic is great"

SAHBH is an Irish female name.
The pronunciation would be "Sive", that is, it should rhyme with "dive", "hive", "alive".
I hope that helps...if you have any more queries about Irish name pronunciation, feel free to message me.

wap

Craic is such a hard word to explain, it can be used to mean fun or enjoyment, so it would be used as "I just went for the craic" or " the craic last night was great". It can be used as gossip, so as in "Whats the craic?". It can also be used as a personal desciptive, such as "His craic is great"

Thank you! (How d’ya say that in Irish? And, is it correct to call it Irish? We Americans for some reason refer to it as Gaelic even though some of us know there are dialects of Gaelic).

OK, I suppose my next question isn’t about Gaelic, but about language in general(I am very curious about everyday language use in Ireland because, I hope you don’t mind me saying that, for such a small country, the Irish have a great variety of accents and expressions)! One of my favorites was a man from Galway who said to my father, “ You’re like a bear with a sore arse.”
Anyway,
I notice that, in a lot of the books I read, the characters very frequently substitute “me” when they would mean “my”. We have our idiosyncrasies in American speech too, but not this, which is why I am curious about it!

Thanks again!

Hi,
Craic is pronounced "crack".
"me" is substituted in written material to give a flavour of the sound of the way that Irish people say "my".

it's not too dissimilar to the way people write "I wanna" to substitute "I want to" - it shows the ethnographic/cultural/(dare-I-say "class") background of the character.

wap

Hi,
Craic is pronounced "crack".
"me" is substituted in written material to give a flavour of the sound of the way that Irish people say "my".

it's not too dissimilar to the way people write "I wanna" to substitute "I want to" - it shows the ethnographic/cultural/(dare-I-say "class") background of the character.

wap

Oh I see! Boy, that was one mystery solved that I have been wondering about a REALLY long time! well, I have lots of other questions, but they’re not so much language related as they are historically related, and my county, the US, you see, I hope you don’t mind me saying that PC-ness has run amok here to the pint where we’re so afraid of causing offense to any particular group, that, in my opinion, people who are curious can’t ask anything because “it’s too touchy a subject.”

I understand that Ireland, simply due to the fact that your civilization is so much older than mine(America is only 242 years old) has had A very long and dare I say tumultuous history, but I’ve really always truly wondered, “What’s the deal with the separation?” Now, I don’t mean to sound flippant, or that internal conflict isn’t a big deal, but the answer Americans are always given by many Irish is one answer “Religion”. While this may indeed be the case, it is difficult for Americans to believe that this is the ONLY reason, and there is a reason for that ...I am sure you know this already, but my country’s Constitution has something in it called the Bill of Rights, and one of these rights is the freedom of religion. Not only does the citizen have the right to practice his or her own religion, BUT that’s also one of the reasons why an institution like the Catholic Church...it’s why that institution is ...how do I say this? Not as in...control of some aspects of society as it seems to be in Ireland. Does this make any sense?? So, this huge difference is part of the reason why certain Americans wonder, you kniw is it really all about religion?? I understand that this is quite also probably a generational ...perspective too, so I don’t knkw how older Irish people feel versus younger...As I said, I kniw this is a difficult thing, so you don’t have to answer, and yeah, I could read a book(which I wouldn’t mind doing), but I have always thought that the best way to learn about a culture is to talk to people! I hope you understand!

[cmjr100]

That's a big topic, if you don't mind a Scotsman popping in.

I'm going to keep this really simple. All of Ireland used to be under British control. As part of the plan to allow it to get Independence, it was partitioned, so the North stayed British, and the South became the republic. That way those that wanted to remain British, could do so. On the whole, the republicans tend to be catholic, the unionists tend to be protestant. A lot of the reasoning behind it is historical. To be fair the atmosphere in the North for the Catholics was designed to be toxic, and they were really second class citizens.

While in the south the Catholic Church is quite powerful, it is slowly starting to become less relevant. The recent legislation allowing abortion would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. The protestant church in the north is also still quite strong, there is a lot of linkage between the church and the political parties. Between them it means there are still a lot of things in NI that are different from the rest of the UK. Thankfully it's dropping off now, but it's going to take a lot of time.

That's a big topic, if you don't mind a Scotsman popping in.

I'm going to keep this really simple. All of Ireland used to be under British control. As part of the plan to allow it to get Independence, it was partitioned, so the North stayed British, and the South became the republic. That way those that wanted to remain British, could do so. On the whole, the republicans tend to be catholic, the unionists tend to be protestant. A lot of the reasoning behind it is historical. To be fair the atmosphere in the North for the Catholics was designed to be toxic, and they were really second class citizens.

While in the south the Catholic Church is quite powerful, it is slowly starting to become less relevant. The recent legislation allowing abortion would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. The protestant church in the north is also still quite strong, there is a lot of linkage between the church and the political parties. Between them it means there are still a lot of things in NI that are different from the rest of the UK. Thankfully it's dropping off now, but it's going to take a lot of time.

Of course, I understand thst, and I am by no means trying to vilify the Catholic Church(although reading books by Frank McCourt and Roddy Doyle’s latest, “Smile”, which is a fabulous but extremely difficult read) don’t exactly show it in the best light...Nor does the movie “Philomena”, which is about the “Magdalene Houses” in Ireland during the 1950s. For reasons I just explained to another user, while society’s condemnation of unmarried women might have been unacceptable in the US around the same time, I am very certain my country would never have an institution like the Church excercise so much power that it virtually decided whether or not a woman could keep her child. You see what I’m saying? Because of our countries’ different set ups—that’s why I was so shocked about that, and I also don’t mind saying that I was born waaayyyy after the Women’s Rights Era(born 1985), so there’s another reason! I’ll never forget that scene in the movie where they take the baby away from the poor woman, and she could do nothing about it! it truly made me wonder how many Irish babies were forcibly given up for adoption, and where they ended up.