# Irish Gaelic: a vic vig O; a cailin vig O



## Walden

In the book "The Crock of Gold" by James Stephens, a leprecaun meets two children in a dark pine wood. He asks to the boy: "What's your name, a vic vig O?". Then he asks to the girl: "What's your name, a cailin vig O?". Two pages on, he addresses the boy as "a vic cig". Can any Irish Gaelic speaker tell me the meaning of these phrases? Thanks.


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## L'irlandais

Hello,
Well the short answer is that these words are either misspelt or anglasised.  See The Crock of Gold on Gutenberg, & Note 2 below.

Its' only a guess, as I am not familiar with the works of James Stephens.

First off, a usual turn of phrase for "my lad!" in Irish is "*a mhic ό*!"; (*refer to first note below).  The spelling difference may be explained by the fact that it is written as it should be pronounced, "mh" pronounced like "v".
  In which case, "a vic cig" maybe "a mhic óig" meaning "my young lad".
While the final *ó* in each case means (my) dear, the "*vig*" I wonder if it may represent "óg" ; so "a vic vig O" might be an inconsistency in spelling = "a mhic óig ó?" meaning "my dear young lad?".
(Not sure why "óg" would take an "i" in the middle though, _eclipsis ?_  You had better wait for a native speaker's input on that issue.  
(As it was first published in 1912, the _anglasising_ may be a English publisher's decision rather than that of the author.)

Not much light to shed on the expression used for the girl, expect perhaps (just perhaps) it means "my lass!"
Perhaps, "*a cailín óg*" = my young girl.  You'll need a second opinion on that score too, however, as my Irish is fairly poor.

Note (1) on pronunciation :**mac* = son, the initial consonant is subjected to change following the vowel.
This change is a phenomenon of the spoken language, which is shown in writing as lenition (Séimhiú) signified by the letter "h" in Irish.
Also note that a consonant is either broad or slender in Irish, depending on on whether the preceeding (or following) vowel is broad (a, o, u, á, ó, ú) or slender (e, i, é, í).

Note (2) :  [Gutenberg's transcriber's note that the *spelling inconsistencies *of the original are retained in their etexts.]

Hope this is of help.


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## CapnPrep

_vig_ to _óig_ seems like a long shot. I would suggest _vig_ = _bhig/bheag_, 'small (vocative masc./fem.)'

_cig_ to _óig_, on the other hand, does seems like possible slip-up in editing.


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## L'irlandais

Hi CapnPrep,
You're right, it was stretching things a little too far that.  _~shrug~ _

Effectively "*b*" is another consonant which when lenited "*bh*" is also pronounced as "v" when it preceeds both broad and slender vowels, so that fits.


> So "a vic vig O" maps on to ..."a mhic bhig(_bheag_) ó?" which might mean ..."my dear little lad?"
> "What's your name, a cailin vig O?". then becomes "a cailín bhig(_bheag_) ó? = my dear little girl. However this doesn't explain "a vic *cig*" :~ " my ..?.. lad"


Well *mac* certainly becomes *mhic* ;  but *beag* becomes *bheag* after the Séimhiú, no talk of a similar mutation of the "ea" to an "i" as far as I know.
I still do wish somebody could explain why the "*ea*" in *beag* could become "*i*" when pronounced here.
I've checked out my earlier suggestion of _'eclipsis'_, this relates to simply initial mutations, so it's not that.  Any ideas?

Thanks,


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## CapnPrep

The vocative form of masculine singular nouns and adjectives usually looks like the genitive singular. In particular, a final broad consonant becomes slender: nominative _an bád mór_ "the big boat" becomes genitive _an bhá*i*d mhó*i*r_. In some cases, vowels also undergo changes, for example "_ea_" turns into "_i_" before a slenderized consonant. That is what happens in _beag ~ bhig_ (cf. _airgead_ ~ _airgid_ "money", _fear_ ~ _fir_ "man").


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## L'irlandais

Go raibh míle maith agat,
Thanks for the explaination, it's very helpful in understanding how the "i" comes to be added.

To be honest ; in the examples of fear and airgead, I had thought (wrongly) the "i" simply denoted a change from masculine singular to masculine plural.
*fear *= man 
*fir *= men (or in the case of gentlemen's toilet = leithreas na* bhfear* the sign reads *fir *meaning gents)
In the context of the original post then *fear* + Séimhiú = fh*ear *(pronounced  like *are *in English) so the fh is silent in this case.

In the context of *airgead* = money (masculine singular) when we talk about a lot of money = *cuid mhór airgid*.

That said ;  I do accept your point, just goes to show I do need to brush up on my Irish.


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