# Irish: Dear...



## rominetimma

Hello. 

I'm writing a small story, and I'd like to know how to say "Dear Ríona" in Irish, like in the beginning of a letter.

Now, by 'Irish', I'm meaning whatever form of native language would be spoken in the southern-centre part of the country with respect to Dublin. The differences between Irish, Gaelic, Welsh. . .well, I am completely confused.


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## computerguy

rominetimma said:


> Hello.
> 
> I'm writing a small story, and I'd like to know how to say "Dear Ríona" in Irish, like in the beginning of a letter.
> 
> Now, by 'Irish', I'm meaning whatever form of native language would be spoken in the southern-centre part of the country with respect to Dublin. The differences between Irish, Gaelic, Welsh. . .well, I am completely confused.



I think 'A Chara' would be fine.  I've only taken it for around 2 months and we haven't written a letter yet but that's how a couple of letters I got started so I guess that can only be the way to say dear.


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## rominetimma

Ok, thanks. Do you know whether that's (Gaelic) Irish, or Welsh?

EDIT: After "A chara", can one's name be put after it? "A chara Ríona"? Do you know if, in Irish letters, a colon or comma or semicolon is used after the greeting?


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## computerguy

rominetimma said:


> Ok, thanks. Do you know whether that's (Gaelic) Irish, or Welsh?
> 
> EDIT: After "A chara", can one's name be put after it? "A chara Ríona"? Do you know if, in Irish letters, a colon or comma or semicolon is used after the greeting?



It is Irish (Gaeilge) and I don't think you put a name after the 'A Chara' and you put a comma after 'a chara'.


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## rominetimma

computerguy said:


> It is Irish (Gaeilge) and I don't think you put a name after the 'A Chara' and you put a comma after 'a chara'.



Thanks for the linguistic clarification. Though, that info adds a complication to the way I was going to end my story. Is there any way in Gaeilge (or some other 'form of Irish'...) to write a greeting with one's name?


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## computerguy

rominetimma said:


> Thanks for the linguistic clarification. Though, that info adds a complication to the way I was going to end my story. Is there any way in Gaeilge (or some other 'form of Irish'...) to write a greeting with one's name?



My Irish classes start again from Tuesday, I can ask the prof if you can wait till then. 

For now, I'll look for something in my book again.

Edit: After some digging, I found that you actually put the name before the 'a chara'

 A Ríona, a chara. 
If you friends name is something other than Ríona, you can tell me and I'll find the correct spelling for it. Words get lenited when used after A and other words. 


Some of these phrases might come handy to end the letter

Slán = Goodbye
Tabhair aire = Take care
Tóg bog é = Take it easy
Go n-éirí leat - Good luck
Sláinte = Cheers (I would say this is the most common thing to say around here)
Nollaig shona dhuit - Merry christmas
Athbhliain faoi Mhaise duit - Happy new year
Nollaig shona agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise duit = merry christmas and happy new year.

Hope this helps! 

Forgot that you were writing a story and not a letter but the phrases might still come in handy , so i'll leave it there.


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## palomnik

rominetimma said:


> Hello.
> Now, by 'Irish', I'm meaning whatever form of native language would be spoken in the southern-centre part of the country with respect to Dublin. The differences between Irish, Gaelic, Welsh. . .well, I am completely confused.


 
I'm a bit confused by your geography.  It sounds to me as if the people you're talking about would probably use English anyway, unless your story is set a couple of centuries ago.


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## rominetimma

computerguy said:


> My Irish classes start again from Tuesday, I can ask the prof if you can wait till then.
> 
> For now, I'll look for something in my book again.
> 
> Edit: After some digging, I found that you actually put the name before the 'a chara'
> 
> A Ríona, a chara.
> If you friends name is something other than Ríona, you can tell me and I'll find the correct spelling for it. Words get lenited when used after A and other words.
> 
> .....
> 
> Forgot that you were writing a story and not a letter but the phrases might still come in handy , so i'll leave it there.



Thanks very much! I don't need the ending phrases since I'm going to end my story with the commencement of the letter, but thanks for them anyway. I've become quite intrigued in Irish, and those are interesting. 

If you think there's more to what you already wrote and want to ask your professor, I can wait; thanks.



palomnik said:


> I'm a bit confused by your geography.  It sounds to me as if the people you're talking about would probably use English anyway, unless your story is set a couple of centuries ago.



Well, not a couple of centuries ago, but my main Irish characters are an elder couple, whom I can pretend got taught the language by their parents and grandparents if anything, or they could've simply been born in an Irish speaking area and moved toward Dublin... I like accuracy, but the history of their knowledge of Irish isn't very important, so I'll just keep in my mind that the largely populated areas speak English, yes? (I know Dublin definitely does, because I have an acquaintance there.) *sigh* Another language of history outdated by English...



Would "A Ríona" without ", a chara" also work?


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## elirlandes

"A Ríona" is correct and works on its own. 
"Cara" means friend, so "A Ríona, a chara" means something along the lines of "my [dear] friend Ríona".
If you mean "dear" in the sense more of "darling" or "dearest", then something like "A Ríona, a stóir" or "A Ríona, a ghrá" : stór = darling, grá = love.
You could also say:
A Ríona, mo stóir / mo ghrá : where "mo" means "my".

When addressing somebody in Irish, you use the vocative case, which will often change the name. Typically this means "aspirating" the first consonant, and using "lenition" of the final syllables. [Aspirating means putting a "h" after the first letter, and lenition means conversion of the final vowels to "slender vowels, "e" or "i"]. To make matters even more confusing, the application of these rules is not always obvious... For example, "R" cannot be aspirated, and I am not sure that the "-ana" of Ríona easily take lenition, so I would not change the root name Ríona]

Other examples... The name Seán [pronounced "Shawn].
When addressing a person called Seán, you say "A Sheáin" pronounced "ah hyawin".
Seamus [Shaymus], but "A Sheamais" [ah hamish]..
And, as we saw above, "cara" [friend, pronounced "car-ah"] but "a chara" [ah khar-ah].


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## elirlandes

rominetimma said:


> Well, not a couple of centuries ago, but my main Irish characters are an elder couple, whom I can pretend got taught the language by their parents and grandparents if anything, or they could've simply been born in an Irish speaking area and moved toward Dublin... I like accuracy, but the history of their knowledge of Irish isn't very important, so I'll just keep in my mind that the largely populated areas speak English, yes? (I know Dublin definitely does, because I have an acquaintance there.) *sigh* Another language of history outdated by English...



English speaking people in Ireland generally have a few words of Irish which are often used in their everyday English. The sort of people you are referring to sound like they would have that. This small set of Irish language loan words into the English of Ireland by the Irish words "(na) cúpla focail" which means, "(the) couple of words".

e.g. Do you speak Irish? Not really, but I have been known to use na cúpla focail.

If you read the letters written (in English) to the Editor of the Irish Times for example, they will often begin with "A chara". They will often finish with the Irish language termination of "Is mise" which is a bit like "Yours".

It sounds like your character's letter could end with...
Is mise => yours [it is me]
Is mise le meas => yours sincerely [it is me, with respect]
Slightly more informally, you could say:
le meas => Respectfully / with respect
le ghrá => with love

Other cúpla focail you might hear regularly would be:
Fáilte / Fáilte romhait (to one person) / Fáilte romhaimh (to more than one person) => Welcome
Go raibh maith agut / aguibh => Thank you [you singular / plural]
Slán => goodbye
Sláinte => Cheers!
Dia linn => God be with us! (Said when a person sneezes, like Gesundheit!)
craic => all purpose word for "fun" ... That was great craic last night...
Scéal => news or story... What is the scéal? = Have you any news?


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## cailín gaelach

rominetimma said:


> I'm writing a small story, and I'd like to know how to say "Dear Ríona" in Irish, like in the beginning of a letter.



It was mentioned above, but the correct way to say dear Ríona is
'A Ríona' or 'A Ríona, a chara'
You can also say 'Ríona, a chara'


(Below is just extra info, but if you get confused when reading it, just ignore it because its not relevant if all you want to know is dear Ríona)


I think the 3 phrases above are the only (correct) ways to say dear Ríona in Irish.
You *can't* use 'A chara, a ríona' or 'A chara ríona' or any other variations unfortunately.

When calling somebody or writing to somebody in Irish the vocative case is used. 
An English equivilant would be Old English where people would sometimes say 'O John' to address someone, or modern English where you'd say Hey John when greeting John for the first time. In Irish however, this vocative case it is always used when adressing someone.

A lot of names change in the vocative case, particularly native names.
If you use the construction 'Ríona, a chara' the name stands at the head of the phrase, and isn't preceded by this 'a' which causes the change in the following word, so any name used in this construction doesn't change at all so happy days!
If you are going to use the name Ríona, the name doesn't change in the vocative either. 
If however you decide to give your character a different name, come back and ask for the appropriate vocative form




> "Cara" means friend, so "A Ríona, a chara" means something along the lines of "my [dear] friend Ríona".


While cara does mean friend, the above statement is not true.

A chara is a very standardized phrase. It can be used alone, and is usually used to open a letter, whether alone or with a name.

Examples of when it can be used alone are
- opening an official letter
- starting a letter to someone whose name you don't know
- writing or a letter to someone you know, but don't know the vocative form of their name.

A Ríona, a chara does not mean 'my dear friend Ríona' it is simply 'dear Ríona'.
Adding 'a chara' after someone's name when adressing them in a letter neither makes the letter more formal nor colloquial nor changes the meaning.
A Sheáin = Dear Seán
A Sheáin, a chara = Dear Seán
A Uasail Uí Mhurchú = Dear Mr. Murphy
A Uasail Uí Mhurchú, a chara = Dear Mr. Murphy



> "A Ríona, a stóir" or "A Ríona, a ghrá" : stór = darling, grá = love.
> A Ríona, mo stóir / mo ghrá : where "mo" means "my".


Both of the above are correct 




> Typically this means "aspirating" the first consonant, and using "lenition" of the final syllables. [Aspirating means putting a "h" after the first letter, and lenition means conversion of the final vowels to "slender vowels, "e" or "i"]


Sorry to be picking apart your posts elirlandes! but I think you just have your terms mixed up here.
Inserting a 'h' after the first letter is called 'lenition'
When the end of a word is made 'slender,' this is called palatisation.
(I don't know the term aspiration but it may be a synonym for lenition or palatisation, you'd have to check that with someone else)

So for example

friend = cara
my = mo + lenition
my friend = mo chara {here the c is lenited}

Aogán [proper name]
A Aogáin = dear Aogán {the n here is palatised}

Seán
A Sheáin = dear Seán {Here both lenition and palatalisation can be seen}




> le ghrá => with love


The vocabulary is right, just the grammar is wrong, its 'le grá'




> Fáilte romhait


Its written 'Fáilte romhat'




> Fáilte romhaimh


Fáilte romhaibh




> Go raibh maith agut / aguibh


Its written 'Go raibh maith agat / agaibh' even though the second 'a' in agat and agaibh is actually pronounced like a u!




> Tabhair aire = Take care
> Tóg bog é = Take it easy


Tabhair aire is often used in the sense of 'be careful' in the south anyway rather than 'take care [of yourself]'
To get the meaning of 'take care [of yourself]' it might be better to say 'Tabhair aire duit fhéin'

You'd be more likely to hear 'Tóg go bog é' and I'm fairly sure thats the only way its written. 'Tóg bog é' is what you'd hear though would hear when someone says it fast.



Since the others have already mentioned how to end a letter, I'll just add a few words in case you chose to include it or are simply interested.

- Is mise = yours sincerely [can be used both formally and informally]
- Is mise le meas [literally 'I am, with respect', translated to 'yours sincerely' but more formal than 'is mise' alone]
- Le grá = with love
- Beir bua - cannot be translated literally but something along the lines of 'take care'
- Beir bua agus beannacht - although 'beannacht' literally means blessing, this means more or less 'take care' too [this I particularly because of the alliteration]
- Ádh mór = Good luck [I think its a recent thing to finish your letters with this but cannot say for certain that it hasn't always been used]






rominetimma said:


> Now, by 'Irish', I'm meaning whatever form of native language would be spoken in the southern-centre part of the country with respect to Dublin. The differences between Irish, Gaelic, Welsh. . .well, I am completely confused.



All 3 are Celtic languages so they are somewhat related

Irish and Scot's Gaelic belong to the 'Goidelic' or 'Q-Celtic' branch of the Celtic Language family.
 - Irish or Irish Gaelic {'Gaeilge' in Irish} is spoken in Ireland
 - Scot's Gaelic, also known as simply 'Gaelic' {'Gaidhlig' in Scot's Gaelic} is spoken in Scotland.
They were once the same language, Old Irish, but drifted apart between the 13th and 17th centuries. They are however very similar with a good degree of mutual intellegibility, especially when written down.
There are 3 distinct dialects of Irish and an official standard but Scot's Gaelic is closest to the dialect of Ulster (The northern province of Ireland, which includes Northern Ireland and some of the Republic).

Welsh ('Cymraeg' in Welsh) is part of the 'Brythonic' or 'P-Celtic' branch of the Celtic Language Family.
It is spoken in Wales and shares some features with Irish and Scots Gaelic, mostly grammatical structures, and some vocabulary but the similarities in the vocab is not immediately obvious because they branches diverted from each other so long ago and because of the different orthography.


I hope I've helped and haven't confused anyone but if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them.


Beir bua & beannacht!
Go n-éirí go geal leat agus tú ag scríóbh an scéal. (Good luck with writing your story.)

-Cailín gaelach


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## elirlandes

cailín gaelach said:


> Sorry to be picking apart your posts elirlandes!



Glaicim go hádhúil le gach ceartú!  Is fada ó bhain mé úsáid as mo chuid Ghaeilge...


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## rominetimma

Thanks very much for all of the information (especially the languages clarification)!  It's all very helpful, even it if doesn't pertain to my story. And "A Ríona" is what I'll be using.


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