h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

" the Irish spelling system, while perfectly logical is not simple. There are about 50 different sounds in Irish but only 18 letters to write them with, so the system uses lots of combinations of letters. Spoken Irish, of course, shouldn't have this problem.' [Gnomon]

I will need to sing a song in Gaelic at a concert in December. it's an all-Gaelic concert, but only in the sense that the composers lived in Ireland or Scotland. A lot of the selections are based on recordings by Anuna, an Irish vocal group. We will also be singing the words for "Oh Holy Night" to the tune of "Londonderry air" [aka "Danny Boy"]. I imagine audience members falling out of their seats when they hear that

If you want me to provide you with a transcription of the sounds of the Irish into something you can read, I'll attempt it.

As I've been accused of spamming, please will you discuss your needs directly with Gnomon in a separate thread please paulh.

Deb

Oh, don't worry about the accusation of spamming. That's just Malabarista. She subscribed to all our journals and then complains when we post to them.

I don't think Malabarista complains - as such. She's just telling us that she can't follow all this NaJoPoMo'ing. And I for one understand her and don't mind.

I could be wrong, of course

But either way it's no biggy to me

What? Was there a complaint about topic drift?

Living in New Mexico, under the care of preponderantly Spanish-speaking staff, I am gradually acquiring Spanish, a proper accent, and a tendency to use Spanish bits in conversation.

But one of my therapists is Navajo, and if you think Spanish has a plethora of verb forms, lanza, wait till you meet Navajo! As Clarita has explained it, you start with a word, and then start attaching prefixes and suffixes to it according to your intentions towards the thing/person so named, or its intentions toward you, or what color it is, or whether it's coming or going, or what mood either of you are in etc. etc. Not only that, the word in question, say "grandmother" is usually different according to whether you, the speaker, are male or female. Not to mention some of the modifiers, too.

And I forgot to mention the Tibetans who work here.

Playing catch up. Now reddit

In Danish we have quite a lot of different words for relatives:

For example maternal grandmother is 'mormor' (= mother's mother) while the paternal is of course 'farmor' (= father's mother)

And so on

Cousin is 'fætter' if it's a boy - and 'kusine' if it's a girl.

So where English only uses Grandmother, uncle, aunt and cousin we say Mormor, farmor, morbror, farbror, moster, faster, fætter and kusine.

In Norway and Sweden they do more or less the same - only in Sweden they don't distinguish between fætter and kusine and only use kusin.

In Sweden it is common for children to call every adult male 'fabror' (father's brother) even if they are not in the slightest related.

Don't get me started on 'second cousin once removed'