Wherever Irish speakers in the world get together, you can have a “pop-up Gaeltacht”! And we’re having one on this episode. We’ve got author and TG4 presenter Laura Pakenham taking us through the history and orthography of this great and resilient language. Laura is the author of Irish: History and Culture Through Language.
Timestamps
00:00 Start
00:24 Introducing Laura Pakenham
10:12 About Laura: Getting the gig
15:01 Navigating “correct” usage v. common usage
21:05 Different Irish voices on TG4
21:56 Getting feedback from Gaeilge speakers
24:33 Gaeilge as it is today
30:15 Irish is fun and cool, not so much a duty anymore
37:55 On coming to Irish as a learner
41:30 Related or Not: Theme
42:49 Related or Not: JIG, GIGUE, and JOG
49:51 Related or Not: HEATH, HEATHER, and HEATHEN
56:31 Related or Not: SCRAP and SCRUPLES
01:01:10 Gaeilge orthography and phonology
01:08:37 Gaeilge words and idioms
01:13:36 Why are things often referred to as “she”?
01:15:43 Favourite Irish words?
01:17:40 Irish diaspora and its linguistic impact
01:21:30 Advice for language advocates
01:23:59 The reads
Listen to this episode
Video
@becauselangpod Good news for Gaeilge: people are using it for normal fun human stuff! It's not just a duty. Laura Pakenham @laurajpakenham breaks it down for us. Laura is the author of "Irish: History and Culture Through Language", available from @simonandschusterbooks @adams.media ♬ original sound – Because Language
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This time we are ordering the names by how well they follow the transition probabilities of Irish words, according to a list from the National Corpus of Irish
From most Irish to least Irish:
- Rach
- Stan
- Martha
- Rachel
- Fiona
- Keith
- Chris L
- Luis
- Amanita
- Lance
- Ben is here
- Meredith
- Amir
- Manú
- Rene
- sæm
- Colleen
- Steele
- Linguistic C̷̛̤̰̳͉̺͕̋̚̚͠h̸͈̪̤͇̥͛͂a̶̡̢̛͕̰͈͗͋̐̚o̷̟̹͈̞̔̊͆͑͒̃s̵̍̒̊̈́̚̚ͅ
- Canny Archer
- Larry
- Mignon
- Nasrin
- Helen
- Kevin
- Laura D
- Elías
- Ariaflame
- Daniel is here
- gramaryen
- Rosemary
- Ignacio
- LordMortis
- Tony
- Nigel
- Kristofer
- Joanna
- Amy
- Becky
- Molly Dee
- James C
- Kathy
- Rodger
- Andy from Logophilius
- Aldo
- Faux Frenchie
- O Tim
- Ayesha
- Lyssa
- Lucy
- Whitney
- Nikoli
- J0HNTR0Y
- PharaohKatt
- Hedvig is here
- Diego
- John Mac
- Iztin
- Sydney
- Andy B
- Sonic Snejhog
- Wolfdog
- John K
- Xekri
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Become a Patron!Show notes
Irish: History & Culture Through Language
https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Irish/Laura-Pakenham/Speak-the-World/9781507225158
The Forgotten Weapon of Cultural Oppression: The “Bata Scóir” and its Devastating Impact on Irish Language and Identity
https://brehonacademy.org/the-forgotten-weapon-of-cultural-oppression-the-bata-scoir-and-its-devastating-impact-on-irish-language-and-identity/
‘We’re a bit jealous of Kneecap’: how Europe’s minority tongues are facing the digital future
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/26/kneecap-europe-minority-languages
Seachtain: Bánú na Gaeltachta: Where are all the Irish speakers?
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/seachtain-podcast/seachtain-banu-na-gaeltachta-where-are-all-the-irish-speakers/a957372661.html
Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Pakenham,_6th_Earl_of_Longford
Gaelic type | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_type
Cló Gaelach: What is the Old Irish Script?
https://letslearnirish.com/articles/clo-gaelach/
dig v.3 | Green’s Dictionary of Slang
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/3lqt5la#sn4
National Corpus of Irish
https://www.corpas.ie/en/cng/
Transcript
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: All right, y’all cut it out, because we’re burning through our material. We’ve got to have this on the tape.
[BECAUSE LANGUAGE THEME]
Hello, and welcome to this live episode of Because Language, a show about linguistics, the science of language. I’m Daniel Midgley. Let’s meet the team. She knows more languages than she has cats, which is only two, but still, it’s kind of impressive. It’s Hedvig Skirgård. Hello, Hedvig.
HEDVIG: That seems like a challenge to get more cats. I will discuss this with my spouse, yeah.
BEN: The perfect number of cats is language knowledge plus one.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
DANIEL: Yes. Like food bowls. You’re supposed to have one extra food bowl. Like, for every N cats, you’re supposed to have N plus one bowl. Am I right in that?
HEDVIG: That’s usually litter boxes, I think.
BEN: Mm. Yeah.
DANIEL: Oh, I’ve been getting. I’ve been…
HEDVIG: Yeah.
DANIEL: Yeah, okay. Don’t put the food there.
HEDVIG: It’s the other end.
DANIEL: Yes. Hedvig, level of Irish fluency?
HEDVIG: Oh, none. None. I know. I’ve seen spelling of Irish names like Siobhan and… Is it Cui… Cui?
LAURA PAKENHAM: Caoimhe. C-A-O-I-M-H-E.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
LAURA: They’re fun. They’re fun. Irish names get a lot of slack, but…
HEDVIG: But I heard that it looks unusual because you’re expecting it to be English phonology, but if you just learn the mappings, apparently, it’s fairly regular and consistent, so that’s all you need, right?
LAURA: Yeah. Yeah. It’s difficult. It’s different. Yeah.
HEDVIG: As long as it’s internally consistent, I’m happy.
LAURA: Yeah. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Okay.
LAURA: Fairly, kind of. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: And he’s a great person who always puts a smile on my face. It’s Ben Ainslie. Ben, hello.
BEN: Daniel, we’ve spoken about this. We don’t mention the ways that I please you, okay? Like, that’s private Daniel and Ben stuff and we leave that off the podcast.
DANIEL: Sorry about that, but it’s true. I’m going public.
BEN: Oh, no. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Level of fluency in Irish?
BEN: I’ve been strenuously trying to think of a joke here to drop that isn’t like a super conventional drunken Irish thing and I couldn’t come up with one and I think that’s just punching down. So, the answer is no, I don’t know any Irish. I too have found Irish names intimidating over the years, but as I’m sure Laura already knows, because probably half of her family lives where I live, there’s a lot of Irish people in Australia now. [LAUGHTER]
LAURA: That is… You’ve taken all my friends. I’ve none left. [LAUGHTER]
BEN: So, I work with three Aoifes alone. I have had exposure therapy to Irish names and I’m a little bit more comfortable.
DANIEL: Okay, well, the reason we’re talking about Irish is because this is a special episode all about the Irish language, or Gaeilge, because we have a very special guest. You’ve seen her on TikTok. You may have seen her on TG4, the Irish language broadcaster. It’s Laura Pakenham. Welcome, or fáilte!
LAURA: Dia dhuit! Hello. Hello.
DANIEL: Give her some jazz hands, everybody. Whoo.
BEN: [ONOMATOPOEIA]
DANIEL: And, Laura, you’re also the author of this book, a copy of which came into my possession recently. It’s Irish: History and Culture Through Language. Laura’s going to be helping us know more about this great language and maybe have a chat. So, tell me about Gaeilge, the name of the language. How many different ways are there to pronounce that?
LAURA: Probably a theme that will come up a lot is the kind of discrepancies between standardised Irish versus the three main spoken dialects. The three main spoken dialects are Ulster, Munster and Connacht and three of the four provinces in Ireland. So, standardised the most, I guess, kind of neutral, official way that Irish is referred to as Gaeilge G-A-E-I-L-G-E. In Ulster dialects, you will hear it being more referred to as… I don’t want to impersonate the accents too much, but it’s like Gilliga or Gaelg, which sounds like Gaelic. And that’s when people can be funny about the whole Gweelga, people calling it Gaelic thing, kind of like [ONOMATOPOEIA]. I’m kind of like once you’re once it starts with a G-A-E, anything that comes after that, I’m kind of happy just call it what you want. And yeah, Connacht dialect, Connemara Irish would still be fairly Gaeilge. And then in Munster, they call it Gaeilin, so, Gaeilin the moon, which can have a few variations in spelling, but for the most part Gaeilge is what we go with.
DANIEL: Okay, well, this is going to be a theme because as linguists, we’re pretty used to variation in language. So, it’s good to know that things are falling into place.
LAURA: Yes. Irish is certainly no exception.
HEDVIG: Can I ask Laura a follow-up question?
LAURA: Mm-hmm.
HEDVIG: How do you say the word LANGUAGE in Irish?
LAURA: Teanga.
HEDVIG: Okay. I was going to check if Gaeilge was the language, but it’s not.
LAURA: Yeah. It’s specifically Irish. Teanga, which is tongue, it would be teanga in Gaeilge. Yeah, the language of Irish.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
DANIEL: Okay, well, this already has me with a question. So, Irish is a Celtic language, but obviously there’s been lots of contact. So, that would be a loan word, wouldn’t it be? Tongue, teanga.
LAURA: This is the thing. There’s lots in Irish that’s not inherently Celtic and bears a lot of similarities to other words. And like the word for CHURCH and kind of CATHEDRAL would be EAGLAIS, which is very, like IGLESIA and stuff. I would have quite a bit of Spanish from school and then would have been able to make some comparisons there. So, there’s lots and lots of words, like our word for room, TSEOMRA, I believe, is influenced from CHAMBRE, French.
HEDVIG: Sounds like it.
LAURA: So, there’s… Yeah, there’s lots of… And then we also have… We would call children or boys, like GASÚR, which kind of is GARÇON, I think, is also French aligned.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
LAURA: So, there’s lots of loan words and lots of external kind of influences which is really, really interesting. There’re some words that bear absolutely no similarities to any other language that people might have made contact with and then some that are quite similar and easy to remember in that way, then yeah.
HEDVIG: But correct me if I’m wrong, but if you take the big European branches within the European family, so like Germanic, Slavic, Romance, and Celtic, I was under the impression that Celtic was like ever so slightly closer to Romance than they are to Germanic and Slavic. So, some might also be inheritance sometimes, maybe.
LAURA: Mm-hmm, potentially. I wouldn’t be the biggest expert on those kind of things from. From what I know about Germanic languages, I don’t feel as though there’s much of an influence there on Gaeilge, but I wouldn’t know the nitty gritty of who went where and where that all came from. [LAUGHS] And that leaves us with the Gaeilge we have today. But definitely from what I’ve known myself from speaking Spanish and stuff, I have seen a lot of similarities in that sense, yeah, along the way with certain words.
DANIEL: I remember from my study of Spanish, there’s lots of Celtic influence going on in Spanish as well.
LAURA: Yeah. So, I don’t know who gave what to who, but we’re kind of… We have some middle ground there somewhere. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Cool. And by the way, Laura, we are giving you, as linguists, the greatest gift that we can bestow. You get to correct our pronunciation infinity times on this episode. Okay.
LAURA: Exciting. That’s great. I love it.
BEN: Daniel, can I start off with one?
DANIEL: Please.
BEN: So, Laura, my favourite piece of Irish language lore, for lack of a better phrase, is a short film I once watched which… you probably already know what I’m going to say, Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom
LAURA: Yu Ming Is Aine-m Dom. Yeah. [LAUGHS]
BEN: Ainm Dom, okay, so there we go. There’s my first thing. So, for anyone listening, this is a wonderful, wonderful film, which is a really, I’m going to say a tongue-in-cheek critique maybe of Irish people by Irish people, which is… The plot is a bored man in China sort of wants to see something in the world, he wants to travel and he sort of randomly picks Ireland from a list and sort of looks at what their language is and sees Irish, and he goes, “Great, I’m going to learn the language before I go there.” So, he arrives in Ireland speaking Mandarin and Irish and can’t achieve anything in Ireland and it’s a really wonderful, fun short film that I highly recommend anyone who’s got like a bit of an interest in this, go and see. It’s very cute, very whimsical. I like it.
LAURA: Yeah. Yu Ming kind of has this like societal meme status in Ireland and amongst the Irish-speaking community. Like, Yu Ming is our king. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, that was unintentional. [LAUGHS] But yeah, it’s just Yu Ming, it’s kind of one of those cult classics in, I guess, Irish language kind of pop culture in a sense. We love Yu Ming. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DANIEL: So, you’ll notice that there are chat bubbles floating by. That’s because we’re joined by our patrons. If you’re listening to the audio version of this episode, there’s also a video version on YouTube where you’ll see the chat messages just fly on by. Hey, if you’re already there, why not smash that like button so more people will see us? But to our audience, you’re here because you’re a patron. Together, you all support the show. You make regular episodes free for everybody. So, thank you or Go raibh mile… Oh no, maith agat. Go raibh míle maith agat. How close did I get?
LAURA: Not too shabby. Go raibh míle maith agat.
DANIEL: Maith agat. Okay, yeah.
LAURA: Agat. Yeah, yeah. Not too shabby. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Okay, here I am, level zero. Big thanks to our latest patrons at the Friend level, Kirsten W. Our newest free patrons, Dottir Ma, Morgan D, and Antoni. Thanks for making the decision to support the show.
So, Laura, first thing I want to do, we’re just going to be tossing questions. I’ve just thrown some questions around, some avenues to chat. But let’s just start with you. You’re a presenter on TG4, the Irish broadcaster. What’s that like? What do you do?
LAURA: Yeah, it’s crazy. So, I have kind of accidentally, happily, delightedly ended up in the world of media. I’m a primary teacher by trade. I studied through Irish. My course from 2019 to 2023 was the first course of its kind recently in the history of the state. Primary teaching would have traditionally, at different points, been delivered as a college course through Irish. But this was a new course that had started to, I suppose, up the standard of Irish that teachers had in schools, in primary schools.
So, yeah, I did that and that was great. That was my first time being in Irish medium education, because my education for 14 years before that was English medium. So, that was quite a jump going into third-level education and through the medium of Irish. But anyway, that’s what I did.
And then, I ended up going on an Irish language dating show after that when I had just finished college. But always had media in the back of my mind, but I had no idea of how to engage with this. I feel like growing up, you can only kind of, in a lot of cases, imagine possible careers for yourself that you know other people in. I knew teachers, I knew solicitors, I knew doctors. I didn’t know any TV presenters, I didn’t know any radio presenters. I wouldn’t even know how to go about that.
BEN: This is not what real people do. This is what people on the television do and they’re fake people and they come from a fake place.
LAURA: Exactly. That’s not real.
HEDVIG: And it’s not like everyone you see on TV who’s like a TV presenter went to like a journalism school. A lot of them are…
LAURA: I didn’t. No!
HEDVIG: …entirely other routes.
LAURA: Exactly.
HEDVIG: So, when you’re there and you’re like, “Oh, I’d like to do that.” It’s like, “Do I apply? Do I get an apprenticeship?”
LAURA: This is the thing. It’s kind of like, how do you get your in? Do you just email production companies and TV stations and say, “Hey, I want to be on TV”? I had no concept of how it worked at all. But I had just finished my final teaching placement, and we were sent to the Gaeltacht, which are the regions of Ireland where Irish is the predominant language of communication. And our college shipped us off for three months to go and teach in one of those regions.
And I was in the closest city and I saw Nuacht TG Ceathair, so a TG Ceathair news presenter, up doing a report. And I was like, “That looks cool. I want to do that. Let me go and ask him how he got into it.” And I thought I was going to have to start from scratch. Talk about, like, cold call out in the wild. And I was just like, “Hey, this looks fun. How did you get into it?” And he said he had done an internship program with TG Ceathair. And I was like, “Cool.”
And do you know the whole invisible string theory, just that everything works out how it’s meant to? The applications for this internship is open for maybe two, three weeks of the year and it just so happened that I had met him within that time period. And I had went and I looked at the different internships they had available. And that year was the first year they had an education and social media internship. [HEDVIG GASPS] So, they have social media internships in lots of different categories, but this was the first year they had an education one, and I said, “Wow, that’s perfect. That’s what I just did.” So, I applied.
And then, again, like, I just… With my own background, with the language, I wasn’t raised with the language. I wasn’t raised within the community, wouldn’t have known anybody else in the community. It’s such an open community, but it is very… People know who they know and they grew up with who they grew up with. And I went into the interview and I thought, “Jesus, not a chance. Like, I’m a nobody. Nobody knows me.” But I got that job and then within that year, I had then been asked to present Nuacht Cúla4 which is the news service for children in. So, TG Ceathair has Cúla Ceathair, which is the kids TV channel which launched in 2023.
And yeah, it’s all just gone from there. And it’s crazy because I’m like, I’m 24, I finished my undergrad at 21, and by the time I was 22, I’d been offered that position in news and I don’t know what I have ever been so fortunate to avail of the opportunities I have, had I been trying to navigate the English media sector in Ireland. Irish has just gifted me everything that has come my way, which is amazing to know. She’s magic. She’s just given me so much. But yeah, it’s amazing. Being a presenter, it’s so fun. I love it. I’m just like, “This is crazy. Like, what do you mean this is my job?” But it’s really, really fun. Yeah.
DANIEL: And you’re working with children just a lot, or just children’s programming all the time?
LAURA: Yeah. So, I was full time for season 2 of Nuacht Cúla Ceathair, the kids new show and then I was managing the book. So, I took a year freelance to also then to college. So, I’m doing my master’s at the minute in Irish medium and Gaeltacht education. So, that’s what I’ve been juggling this year, the book and the masters. And I’ve been working freelance since. So, lots of shows, dipping in and out between. I’m working on a new kids show at the minute. We’re mid shootings. We were shooting all last week and we’ll be shooting again next week, which is really fun.
So, I guess something interesting about working especially in broadcasting and on TV in your second language, because Irish is my second language, is the struggles of navigating grammar and correct pronunciation, because as much as I’m in front of the camera trying to focus on tone, delivery, remembering my script, interacting with the guests, thinking of my next interview question, responding, body language, that’s what you’re trying to juggle as a presenter. But then, there’s this added level of I’m second guessing everything that comes out of my mouth. It’s really difficult because…
And I’m sure even those who are native Irish speakers and it is their first language, they would still have them same concerns and I never have those concerns when I’m speaking English. But we have on every shoot that TG Ceathair does, there’s a comhairleoir teanga on set, so a language advisor. And I’ve worked as a language advisor on a lot of shoots, so it’s really, really fun. So, I’m working with my comhairleoir teanga. And then, I’ll say something and I’ll be like, “Wait, sorry, just give me a sec. Is that in the genitive? Okay, and what is it then?” It’s just like checking all these little things.
But it’s such a good learning opportunity because if I’m speaking to someone in Irish day to day, I might be thinking something in the back of my head, “Oh, what’s that? Mm, I don’t know if that was meant to be pluralised XYZ, whatever.” But you don’t really have an intense reason then and there to go and check it. So, when you’re working on the show, it’s like, “Wait. No, we have to get this right.” So, whether I’m the language advisor myself or I’m working with my language advisor on set, it creates those learning opportunities which I have found has really, really improved my Irish when you have to sit down and you have to check, when you have to make sure.
HEDVIG: But do you also think that that’s an opportunity for like… Because there are a lot of second language speakers of Irish. And in a way a lot of the people who might be watching what you’re creating as well might also be second language learners. So, in a way, having a second language presenter could in some ways be good because maybe you have a tendency to like simplify or something in a way that makes it a little bit more accessible potentially.
LAURA: Yeah. Yeah.
HEDVIG: But it’s also the reality that like language changes and if there are certain things that are just like a little bit irregular or hard to get wrong, do you think that is where the language change is coming in and like are speakers moving in a certain direction? Or are people more focused on like doing like school correct Irish?
LAURA: It’s a really… Like, the landscape in Ireland and with the language is really, really interesting because you have on hand native speakers and native Irish is so vastly different from what I would have learned in school. I’m not from an Irish-speaking region, so I would have learned Irish growing up very much within the parameters of, “This is a school subject. It’s very robotic, not a lot of link to culture.” Emphasis on pronunciation and rich native Irish. And native Irish, that’s so important to protect and to cultivate and to promote.
And that is one of the, I guess TG Ceathair’s, in a sense, main values to make sure we’re promoting rich, beautiful Irish. But then, also that that’s not everybody’s background. So, although I now have learned Irish to a point where I could align in a lot of cases with native speakers and maybe have that kind of a sound to my Irish, I’m never going to be one. I’m still… I’m never going to have the nuance and the idioms and all the phrases that they have, but I can align with that in a certain sense.
But then, you have the vast majority then of us who are learners and Irish is our second language and who are intimidated by native Irish. And I was for a long time before I got to spend time with and kind of sink my teeth into native Irish. It was intimidating. And it was just… I’d listen to Raidió na Gaeltachta which is the Irish language radio station, and I’d be like, “Oh, can’t even get a word here. Haven’t a scooby.”
So, it’s hard to kind of balance the totem — is that the word? — a lot of times, because you want to try and… Native speakers deserve content in their rich language and rich native Irish. But then, learners and those who have Irish is their second language, they also deserve for content to be accessible. But then, if you do one, you’re kind of leaving one out. Learners can’t necessarily understand native Irish, but then native Irish… They aren’t getting exposed to the nuances in that sense. And so, it’s a really tricky landscape and I think in terms of cuimsitheacht, it’s going to happen a lot. What’s the word in English?
HEDVIG: Inclusivity.
LAURA: Coming together. Inclusivity. Yeah.
HEDVIG: Yeah. We’ll go with that.
DANEIL: Inclusivity.
LAURA: Inclusivity. In terms of inclusivity, there’s a lot that can and should be done there, but again, it’s just… You can’t change the landscape of the language. But a really interesting thing that came up on one day when we were doing the news and I had written my script, and then my comhairleoir teanga, my language advisor, had checked it and was like, “Oh, this is actually wrong.” And I was like, “What? It’s an exception.” There was this one particular grammatical exception that went against everything that all the rules we would all know. And then, I was like, “But if I say this, it’s this tiny exception that nobody knows about or not a lot of people know about, but it will sound so wrong. If I say that, the mass public will think I have made a grave error here.” And they’ll be like, “God, does she not know that you have to séimhiú the noun or the adjective after a feminine noun?” And everyone’s like, “Oh, everyone knows you have to do that.” And I’m like, “I don’t.” Because in this case, it was an exception that you don’t. I was like… Then, it gets tricky because it’s like, do we just go along with what is perceived to be correct or do we try and make sure that these nitty-gritty details are known and are spread? Yeah, so it’s tricky…
HEDVIG: Or just rephrase the sentence to, like, avoid that construction altogether.
DANIEL: [LAUGHS] Yeah.
HEDVIG: Is there another option?
LAURA: The amount of times I do that, oh, my god, I’m a pro at shuffling things around to make life simple for myself. Oh, Jeanie Mac, I do it so often. But yeah, it’s a really interesting landscape and it’s really tricky, but yeah.
HEDVIG: Well, some national broadcasters have broadcasts in what they call, like a simple version and a native version. So, here in Germany, there’s like news in simple German and regular news and Sweden does the same.
LAURA: Lovely. Wow.
HEDVIG: I think Australia does the same for English. So, like, already now having Irish broadcasting is nice, but, yeah, next step up would be maybe to have a special broadcast for simple Irish. If there’s a market, if there’s a need.
LAURA: I guess in a way we achieve that through the different presenters, and I’m kind of in a nice middle ground where I could code switch in a certain way. I can kind of go back to the Irish I would have learned at school and simplified a bit that it would be more accessible to learners. But then, I suppose we achieve that through different presenters. If you have a native presenter or then a presenter who Irish is the second language. That’s really interesting though.
DANIEL: There’s an interesting parallel here with Australia’s national broadcast at the ABC, because it used to be the case that every presenter sounded in a very, almost British way of sounding, what’s perceived as painfully correct way of sounding. And that was a standard that people felt like… we’re talking in the 1950s, 1940s, even 1960s, a standard that people felt had to be maintained. But then, there came a push to have different voices, to feature different sort of people. Even so, I know that presenters on ABC Radio get people phoning up and saying, “You did a thing wrong.” And I wonder, are you getting any of that sort of thing?
LAURA: Yeah, definitely. And I always say if I make a mistake, I’ll hold my hands up, and if there’s somebody there who knows more than me who can help me acquire that information, absolutely, go for it. I see a lot of that online as well, and I would get a lot of that on my TikToks. And the really interesting thing is the community of native speakers that have kind of come together to help me align my Irish with native Irish more. They’d be like, “Oh, this is great. But actually this is the word we’d have for that or you should just be a little bit more careful, maybe specific with this particular pronunciation note,” which I love, which is so amazing. The support that comes in is fantastic.
It’s so funny. Recently, I had to block one person in particular who was doing my head in with the way they gave feedback. Especially being an educator, I’m like, “Okay, there’s a way to give feedback that’s helpful and constructive and a way that’s not.” I said that he was do mo cháineadh, which is basically just kind of taxing me instead of helping me. It’s like, okay, I’m not a native speaker, I never will be. So, there are going to be gaps in my knowledge and how things come out of my mouth I suppose. [LAUGHS]
But yeah, absolutely, people… There’s all sorts of feedback. We get the feedback that it’s too hard to understand in different circumstances, or I get all the time that I speak too fast. I’m like, “Okay, well, look, I speak fast in English, I’m going to speak fast in Irish. But then, again, when needs be, I will code switch and slow it down based on the scenario.” But yeah, funny enough, in terms of what feedback I’ve gotten online, it has largely been positive because of the discourse around the Irish language in Ireland, I thought when I started posting that every second comment would be, “It’s a dead language. Why do you bother? Blah blah, blah blah.” And I was kind of ready for that. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to have to support her. I’m going to have to stand up for her.” But no, it’s been largely so positive, which is amazing, but I also think that reflects, or is reflective of the kind of mindset shift in regards to the Irish language that we’ve seen here in recent years.
DANIEL: Let’s talk about Irish as a language. You say in your book, in Irish: History and Culture Through Language, there’s about… what did you say? 1.8 million, just a bit under 2 million speakers in Ireland, but about half say that they don’t speak it well. I know that there are people who don’t see the need or who don’t think that the resources spent are necessary. What’s going on there? What kind of attitudes are you seeing about how people are feeling about Irish? I know there’s a lot of love there. There’s also a lot of detractors going on.
LAURA: Yeah, it’s a tricky one. And as kind of encouraging as it can be sometimes, also it’s heartbreaking. Some of the discourse I see and opinions I see, essentially, it’s very historical, and there’s a lot that goes into it. When Ireland would have been at a point historically when Irish wasn’t the main language of communication or permitted to be the main language of communication, it survived and thrived and in rural communities. So then, Irish kind of had this status of being an informal language of communication amongst rural communities, whereas English was seen as the formal language of official proceedings and the language of education. And to survive then and to… I guess not even to thrive, just to survive, the native language survived in these rural areas and the Gaeltacht areas. But then outside of that, for the vast majority of the country, it had to be squashed down into a school subject. And that was the only context for a lot of people in which the language existed.
And when you’re confining something to just being a school subject without the historical context, without the cultural context, without the link and the passion and the love for it, there’s going to be subjects that people just don’t like. I’m not a maths girl. I’m not a numbers girl at all. You could not beg me to sit down and do Sudoku in my own free time as an adult. I’m like, I left that behind in school. I don’t want to see numbers again. So, you have people who just couldn’t I guess align with the subject and with the language, and that happens and that’s fair.
So then, when people were only seeing it as a school subject, if it was a subject they didn’t like or they perceived to be difficult, that impacted their, I guess, outlook on the language. And then also I think something historically important is a lot of the older generation would say, “Well, this language was bet into us, was shoved down our throats.” At a time in Ireland where corporal punishment was still in effect in schools, children would wear a bata scóir, and it was kind of this wooden… this is in the book, it was kind of wooden stick, almost, that would be worn around the neck, and a notch would be carved into it for every time they were caught speaking Irish and then the number of notches on their stick at the end of the day would equate to their beating.
So, I’m like, okay, I get why people have this kind of thing about Irish. I absolutely do. But what we’ve seen, and I guess my understanding of it in recent years, with how much more forthcoming Irish language media and music and pop culture, I guess, has become, is that it’s allowing these people who have only ever seen it as a school subject, which they mightn’t have liked to see it as something that’s so much more than that. It’s been taken outside of the four walls of the classroom, and people are saying, “Oh, this is something I can use socially. This is something that people have fun in.” You’re seeing people going to concerts and everything and engaging with the language in that sense, something people have fun with. It’s not something that only equates to a grade for me in school and the pressures associated with that.
So, I think that’s why Irish language media, social media, is really, really lucrative because it allows people in different regions to see the impact and the role of the language if that’s not present in their region. And that was my case, I didn’t grow up with Irish being anything other than a school subject, and it was one that I happened to be good at fortunately and that’s why I am where I am now.
But if I didn’t like Irish in school, I can’t see why I’d particularly care to engage with it as an adult if I hated it in school and it was a source of dread and fear. Fair enough, if you don’t want to, if you don’t see the context. But now, people, I think even people who are like, “Okay, fair enough, I’m never going to be an Irish speaker. It’s just not something that fits into my life or would necessarily have a purpose in my life. But yous that are, go you.” I love that. And that’s kind of, I think, where we’re at now. It’s that, okay, we’re going to have our Irish speakers, we’re going to have our people who might just use it socially very informally, a little bit here and there. And then, you have people who are like okay, they mightn’t do anything with the language, but they’re happy for us to do our thing. And we’re not combating as much anymore that constant negative feedback.
If you put into comparison, when I started college in 2019, a lot of the times when I’d tell people that I was studying a course through Irish, the response was kind of, “God, you’re limiting yourself a bit there, aren’t you? Would you not be better off working with a modern language that might take you further?” And I was like, “Oh.” Whereas now people see what I do and I tell people what I do, and it’s like, “Oh, that’s so cool. I’d love to be able to speak Irish more,” because people have seen now that it actually is not just a subject, that it is living and it’s breathing and it’s beautiful and oh, it’s just…
I think when people… Now that people have this understanding of the language, it helps us understand ourselves as a people so much more because so much of our country and us as a people has been formed and shaped by the language, and that’s a lot of what the book goes into. It’s looking at historical and cultural factors through the lens of the language and how present the language is even now in the country and within Irish people, even without us knowing.
So, look, it’s a tricky landscape. There’s a lot that goes into it. And that’s just my take on it. Other people might have a different take but yeah.
HEDVIG: I was wondering… So, a couple years ago, I was in Cardiff visiting a friend of mine, a friend of the show, Sean Roberts, who speaks Welsh, and he took me to a Welsh concert and he said that something that had changed with the Welsh language over time was that it used to be more… I hope I’m paraphrasing him correctly here… That, for example, Welsh songs used to be more about Welsh and Wales, and now there were more songs about your girlfriend having left you and going to a party, because there’s only so many songs maybe you can make and relate to that are about the struggle of the language and the culture. And now, people would just like using Welsh as a more broad domain language to do other things and not just talking about Welsh language revival.
DANIEL: It’s fun now.
LAURA: Exactly. 100%. Yeah.
HEDVIG: And that seems like a big change where like… Yeah, I’m not saying that it’s not important…
LAURA: No, absolutely.
HEDVIG: …to make culture about those topics but you could imagine that limits to somewhat.
LAURA: Yeah, it’s. It’s people seeing it in a different context that’s more global and I guess modern in a sense. I guess it comes into a modernisation of the language and shaping the language in a way that is reflective of people’s lives now. There are shows that people watch just because they’re funny and they just happen to be in Irish. There’s books that people want to read because they’re good books and they might just happen to be in Irish. Same with music. There’s good bands. Their music just happens to be in Irish. And it’s just, I think, normalised in a sense now and a lot more integrated. I see Kneecap popping up there. Yeah, we’ve probably all heard of the Kneecap effect.
DANIEL: I haven’t.
LAURA: And yeah, there’s a rap group from Belfast.
DANIEL: Go back, tell me more. What is the Kneecap effect?
BEN: Whoa, Daniel!
HEDVIG: Daniel, Daniel!
DANIEL: Sorry.
LAURA: Yeah, Kneecap are a rap group, an Irish language rap group from Belfast, and their music is just unbelievable. They rap in Irish. They rap bilingually also. And a lot of their music, it mightn’t have anything to do with Irish history, but then a lot of their music is to do with Irish history and the discourse around the Irish language and people have just, I think, also leaned into that level of patriotism alongside Kneecap. And it’s just they… I guess they started quite or were part of a movement in making the language cool or accessible or it wasn’t just something that was terrifying in school. It’s like, “Oh, these are class. I want to go to this concert.” [LAUGHS]
HEDVIG: Yeah. It’s worth mentioning, Daniel, that one of the reasons I think that me and Ben know about Kneecap, besides them being a very interesting group, is that they have also been very outspoken supporters of Palestine and been critiqued for that. And there’s also been many Irish politicians who have been outspoken for Palestine. So, they’ve been in the news a lot for that as well. And it’s one of the reasons they made like global news, not that they’re not also very interesting positions. Yes, but yeah, I think that contributed a lot.
DANIEL: Okay.
LAURA: They’re very outspoken about marginalised communities and the Irish language community would come into that as well. So, yeah, they’re just class. [LAUGHS]
BEN: I think there’s something also to be said about, in relation to Kneecap, but also kind of going back to the broader point about it not being about Irish language revival is like you know something is going well when scungy reprobates are doing it. Like, it’s all well and good for like, well-off good boys and girls who do the right thing or like really diligent, hard-working people are like, “Oh, look, I know Welsh or I know Irish,” or whatever. But when like people have more tattoos than teeth and they’re just spitting it raw and an Irish rap, it’s really, really, I think that is indicative of something like… [LAUGHTER] I really got Hedvig with that one.
HEDVIG: Well, tattoos and teeth was just such a… Yeah, anyway, sorry.
BEN: I think that speaks to a really healthy shift in the tenor and the temperament of like a language revival, because as soon as you can get teenagers being like, “That’s fucking great…”
LAURA: A grassroots movement. Yeah.
BEN: …that’s fucking great. That’s when you know stuff is going good.
LAURA: This is what it’s coming down to. It’s just a mindset shift. The people are like, “Oh wait, cool people actually speak this? People actually speak this on nights out?” I was out with all my Irish-speaking friends last night and there’s a lot of times we’ll be out in the club, we’ll be dancing the night away, like in Irish to each other. And the amount of people that like would come up to us and be like, “You’re speaking Irish?” They’re like, “Wait, you actually choose to do that?”
I think a lot of people didn’t realise for a long time that, “Oh, no, like this is something we actually choose to do. It’s not just something you’re forced into studying in school.” But definitely, it’s a grassroots movement and it’s just people seeing the broader context of the language and linking it to our culture and to our national identity. And I think that’s what it is now and people I guess, being, becoming more aware of the impact that colonialism had in Ireland and the detrimental impact it had on the language. And they’re like, “Wait, no. Actually, no, no. Okay. I didn’t like Irish in school, but I actually don’t stand for everything that happened here historically, so I’m going to say that Irish is cool. I’m down with those people that speak it. Great, keep going.” It was a language that had to, I guess, be confined to, I guess, academic parameters to survive and to be officialised so that we would have it. But yeah, it’s just becoming a lot more social now, I guess, which is just amazing to see. And I can see that in the general people’s general mindset towards it. 100%.
DANIEL: So, the scene feels good. Doesn’t feel like you’re fighting a losing battle. Feels like it’s turned around?
LAURA: Yes, definitely, in terms of the mindset now. Of course, a big issue is always going to be funding. It’s always going to be, have we the necessary resources to do what we need to do to protect the language and to… not just protect it… I’m like, “Okay, we’ve protected her. She’s still here,” but we need to push through the ceiling now. Okay, we need to be able to take her to the next level that we need to and have the necessary funding to do so.”
And the Gaeltacht community, there’s an awful housing crisis all across Ireland, which I’m sure is mirrored in other parts of the world as well, but in particular, Gaeltacht areas, and there’s a group, Bánú na Gaeltachta, who are fighting for Gaeltacht’s housing crisis, I suppose. And yeah, it’s just… the Gaeltacht is where, I suppose, in a sense, the heart of the languages and if people are being forced out of those areas, what impact does that play have on the future of the language? But in terms of the mindset, in the country, people are pro-Irish, which is great. And I’m like, “Okay, a lot of my work is done here. I’ve convinced you all. I did it.”
DANIEL: Nice going.
LAURA: Yeah. [LAUGHS]
HEDVIG: I think an advantage of being pro-Irish is that it also means maybe being not English, which maybe helps.
LAURA: Yeah. That’s where it comes from. As I said, people, I guess, taking the time to look at the history and they’re like, “Actually, no, no, no, no.” And it’s the national identity and it’s the pride and it’s the patriotism, and it’s saying, “Well, that was terrible what happened. Absolutely not, we lost Irish as a result of that. So, nothing can ever make it right.” But I guess in an attempt to maybe undo what was done or I guess fight back against it, people are claiming Irish in that sense as pushing back on the English, which is what people are doing and it’s that national identity, and we’re proud to be Irish and speaking Irish aligns with that. Yeah.
DANIEL: I can’t get over the fact that… Because I looked at your name, hmm, Pakenham, hmm.
LAURA: Yeah. I do not have an Irish name, no, no, which has been said to me. Yeah.
DANIEL: So, you really are sort of this Irish language advocate, but you’ve come to it. It’s like you’re a convert, and people love that stuff.
LAURA: Yeah. And I guess that’s a big thing that I suppose wanted to campaign for, bring awareness to and I guess show that the language is accessible. You don’t have to be raised with it, you don’t have to be educated through it to have it in your life and to speak it and that’s the main message I wanted to spread initially on my TikTok. And so, it was like, “Hey, I went to English medium schools. I’m not from the Gaeltacht. My parents don’t have Irish. I wasn’t raised with it. It wasn’t bestowed upon me by the greater language gods. I chose it and I worked at it and it’s doable. It’s a difficult language, but as is learning any language, but I did it and anyone can.”
But yeah, that’s a comment that has been said to me a lot about my name. It’s like, “Oh, well, why would I want to learn Irish from someone with a name Pakenham, the people who took it from us in the first place?” And I’m like, “I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t do nothing to y’all.” Yeah. My name would inherently be English, and the Pakenhams would have come to Ireland from England and served as landlords and ladies in the particular region where I’m from. But the story is that my great-great-granddad lived in Tullynally Castle, Pakenham Hall, which is only like 10 minutes up the road from where I now live. But he fell in love with a maid who worked on the estate and was given an ultimatum. And he chose her, he chose love, and he left it all behind, and he was written out of the family history. And yeah, moved 10 minutes down the road, started a new life with her. So, we’re the poor Pakenhams. We’re the poor Pakenhams. We have nothing to do with those people up in the castle.
So, yeah, but it’s funny, there was actually a man, and my brother has done a lot of work in kind of uncovering, I guess, our family side of it, just to know. And there was a man… No, he was called Eamonn. What’s the English for Eamonn? Edward, Edward. He was Edward Pakenham, Sir Edward Pakenham, and he lived up in the castle. He was having a grand, jolly old time, living his life I guess as the gentry. And he decided to learn Irish. And yeah, literally taught Irish to his English wife. He was a patron of the arts. He bankrupted the Pakenham family, more or less, in trying to protect Irish arts. He wrote plays in the Irish language. And yeah, then he was then called Eamonn de Longphort. So, they Gaelisised his name to Eamonn de Longphort, Eamonn of Longford. Edward of Longford, where we’re from.
So, yeah, I kind of, in a weird way… He had no reason to do that. It was so funny he went over to Eton College, which is where the royals are sent for their secondary school education, I think. And on his first night, he was in the debate team when he debated in favour of Irish independence and was kicked out and came back home.
So, in a weird way, I’m kind of like, am I carrying on a legacy that was started? Because I kind of don’t know where the Irish came from other than maybe there was a story I had to finish or work I had to do maybe to set something right, balance the totem, I suppose, but yeah, that’s a comment I get a lot of times. And I feel very out of place sometimes in the Irish-speaking community. Like, even when I was in college, the names would be like, “Oh, Síle Ní Shúilleabháin,” and then, “Laura Pakenham,” and it’s like, “Oh, well, Jesus, there we go. My cover is blown.” [LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: We’re talking to Laura Pakenham, author of Irish: History and Culture through Language. We have been asking a lot of questions, but listeners, we want to hear your questions too. So, getting ready because we’re going to tackle them on the other side of Related or Not.
BEN: Ooh.
HEDVIG: Whee.
BEN: Which theme have we got today, Daniel?
DANIEL: Ooh. I decided to go with David’s theme because I was just feeling it. The liquid jungle version.
BEN: I hope you’re ready to get rinsed!
HEDVIG: Oh, yes, that one.
[RELATED OR NOT THEME]
DANIEL: Related or Not?
HEDVIG: [LAUGHS]
BEN: Every time. Every time I hear that, I am immediately transported to playing a snowboarding game on the PS2. Like, that is…
LAURA: [LAUGHTER] It very much gives that energy, that’s for sure.
HEDVIG: Is it you at the end pitched weird, Daniel?
DANIEL: What’s that?
HEDVIG: Is it your voice at the end pitched funny or is it…?
BEN: It does sound like it.
DANIEL: I do not believe it is. I think it’s David’s.
BEN: Okay.
DANIEL: He’s got in there. Do you think maybe I’m…?
BEN: Yeah. I hear a bit of Daniel in the robot.
DANIEL: Have I been sampled?
BEN: I think the call is coming from inside the house, my guy. Yeah.
DANIEL: Okay, well, let’s see if I can reverse engineer that. Okay, this is the time when I give you a few words and we try to see if they are related or not. We’re launching the first poll. Here we go.
BEN: Ooh.
DANIEL: Now, I’ve picked some words. Don’t vote yet. Don’t vote yet because we have to argue about it.
BEN: Okay, I got you.
DANIEL: But I picked some words that I think are kind of relevant. One is JIG, the dance. Another one is GIGUE, the dance, which might not be a word you’re familiar with, and then JOG, not really a dance. So, let me tell you about GIGUE. If you do a lot of sort of… not early music, but like 1500s, 1600s classical, you’ll find that it’s very four-square [SCATS in 4/4]. And then, there’ll be a bit in the middle that it’s like [SCATS] that’s in 3/4, [SCATS], and that’s the gigue and it’s dance.
BEN: What we would call a bridge in contemporary pop music.
DANIEL: It really is. In an electronic song, it would be the bit in the middle where everything goes quiet and then you start the song again and wrap it up. All right, so one of these is the odd one out, or at least as close as possible to being the odd one out. Is it JIG, the dance, GIGUE, the dance or JOG, not really a dance? What do you think?
BEN: Well, Daniel, before we get to this, I’m immediately going to derail, as is my favour. Why not do JIG, JIG and JIG?
DANIEL: JIG, JIG and JIG? What’s the other JIG?
BEN: Well, you’ve got JIG, the dance. You’ve got JIG…
HEDVIG: Oh, GIG?
BEN: No, the JIG, the thing you catch squid and octopus with. Or JIG, the thing you use to frame when you were trying to construct things in like woodwork or metal work. Anyway, it’s fine. We’ll do your one. It’s cool. Whatever, that’s fine. Like, I mean, you had three jigs, but that’s cool.
DANIEL: I didn’t want to do those.
HEDVIG: No, I didn’t want to do that. One thing about jogging and dancing is that I think I’m terrible at running, but I understand that it’s good to have a good rhythm, like, that is semi regular and you’re moving your legs minimally.
DANIEL: It’s true.
DANIEL: It is definitely done with the legs.
BEN: I think the… Because I hate running with the passion of a thousand suns. Like, I’m a relatively active person, but it is one physical enterprise that I abhor. The similarity, the bigger through-line between JIG and JOG is that one jiggles. Eh? Eh? Eh? I’m just saying.
HEDVIG: Some of us do.
BEN: I assure you, I do, Hedvig.
HEDVIG: Oh, gosh.
BEN: I’m 40 now. There’s stuff… As we have explained multiple times on the podcast, white people just slowly melt like a candle over time and now there’s just loose skin and it’s just…
HEDVIG: I think that… [LAUGHS] I’m going to…
DANIEL: I feel like that all is going to be a frequentative, like SPARK and SPARKLE.
HEDVIG: I’m going to… I’m not the TMI person usually, but I’m going to try and expel my information from my brain.
DANIEL: Now, I want to watch.
HEDVIG: No, I do not want to watch. Anyway…
DANIEL: Suit yourself.
HEDVIG: …two dances and one running. I have a feeling that I’m going to say that the middle GIGUE is the odd one out. That’s what I’m going to vote for.
BEN: I second that motion. And I base it on wackadoodle spelling. It’s so rare in Related or Not that we come across a thing that sounds exactly the same but is spelled hell different, and it turns out, “Oh, yeah, it just slowly got spelled hell different over time.” That doesn’t really… like, if it’s similar, it’s similar-ish whereas the second GIGUE is really different.
DANIEL: Magistra Annie says, “Does it give anything away if I say that GIGUE is pronounced with a soft G in French?” A gigue. Is that right, Annie?
BEN: Okay. Okay.
DANIEL: Okay. Good to know.
BEN: I’m still going no.
DANIEL: I thought that JOG was the odd one out. It’s a short… They’re all short. But it seems like words for dancing would be similar or easily borrowed. Okay, Laura, what do you reckon?
LAURA: I said JOG was the odd one out because I play Irish traditional music and Irish jigs are in six-eight time. It felt right in my bones and that’s how I make the majority of my language decisions in life, based on vibes alone.
BEN: Can we also just acknowledge yet another way that Irish is just inherently better than English everything? Because the English do boring, stately, three-four. The Irish are like, “Fuck that noise. Double that shit up.” [LAUGHTER]
LAURA: [SCATS] So, Irish jigs, Now, we have our reels there in four-four time, but our jigs are in six-eight. And yeah, it just felt right in my soul.
HEDVIG: I do think that is how I would have felt like 10 years ago. But then, Daniel started doing these Related or Not quizzes to us regularly and now Ben and I have entirely lost our ability to smell things out.
LAURA: Yeah. That’s why you’ve just got to go back to the vibes. You’ve got to go back to what your heart tells you. That’s how I make grammatical decisions. I’m like, “Mm, that feels more right than that.” [LAUGHS]
BEN: What’s good here is we have attempted… We have acquired tribes here amongst the speaking presenters. So, I am looking forward to winning, with Hedvig, which is unusual.
DANIEL: Okay, I’m going to end that poll. I’m going to share the results. Nobody voted that JIG was the odd one out, but a third of us said that GIGUE /gig/ or GIGUE /ʒig/, the dance was the odd one out. And two-thirds of us said JOG was the odd one out. The answer is JOG is probably the odd one out, but there’s a story here.
BEN: Oh, I’m hearing an asterisk and a half.
DANIEL: Yeah, there is a bit of one. So, there was once in the 1400s, an old French word, GIGUE /gig/ or GIGUE /ʒig/. I’m going to go with Annie, GIGUE /ʒig/. It was the fiddle, and by the 1560s, that became the name of the dance. It also became the name of the jig. But the OED, Oxford English Dictionary, says that there are some problems, like JIG came up too late. It came up after GIGUE was already… or GIGUE was already obsolete. It may be that GIGUE had been borrowed from JIG. So, it’s complicated. But many etymologists are willing to say maybe.
On the other hand, JOG, probably from some German word, shog, which means oscillation, which Ben has ably described in his own jogging activity. The OED also says, “The suggestion of a Celtic origin for jog is not tenable. English phonology knows nothing of a change from /g/ to /ʤ/.”
LAURA: Our word for JOG is bogshodar, if that gives any…
HEDIVG: What do you call a violin in Irish?
LAURA: Fidil. So, in Irish traditional music, it’s not called a violin. We just called it fiddle and in Irish it’s fidil. Yeah.
HEDVIG: Because in some languages, it’s called a giga. Like a jig, like an instrument.
LAURA: Oh, that’s cool. I like that. We just have fidil.
HEDVIG: You know that funny metal thing you put in your mouth and you play like boing, boing.
DANIEL: The mouth organ.
HEDVIG: Mouth organ, that can also be a gigue.
LAURA: Oh, very fun.
DANIEL: Wow.
LAURA: Very fun altogether.
DANIEL: Mouth organ. Thank you.
HEDVIG: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
DANIEL: I’ve heard organ as well. Let’s go on to our second one. And this one is HEATH, HEATHER and HEATHEN. This one is from Corrine via email. She says, “Probably too easy for you all, but HEATH, HEATHER, HEATHEN, Love the show.” Which one is the odd one out? Two of them are related, one is not.
HEDVIG: This is when I need a reminder of what a heath and a moor is.
DANIEL: I do not know the difference between a heath and a moor.
HEDVIG: There is just some sort of one plant grows on one and not the other something, something.
DANIEL: Does heather grow on a heath?
BEN: I’m googling.
HEDVIG: What is a heath?
BEN: [READS] A HEATH is a shrubland habitat characterised by open, low-growing, woody vegetation found on acidic, infertile and often waterlogged or sandy soils.
DANIEL: Vegetation, you say?
BEN: Yeah.
HEDVIG: Right. And what is a MOOR? As in Dartmoor, where all the murders are happening all the time?
BEN: [READS] A MOOR is an open, uncultivated habitat found in upland areas characterised by acidic soils, low-growing vegetation and grasses, and often wet, boggy terrain.
HEDVIG: See? Fucking hell.
DANIEL: Well, that clears it up for me.
BEN: Yeah. [LAUGHS]
HEDVIG: Fuck. Sorry.
DANIEL: [LAUGHS] English, goddamn it. Well, I feel like HEATHEN is a bit different. I feel like heather could grow on a heath. That’s how I feel. So, I feel like heathen is the odd one out.
BEN: Can I ask, Daniel, is there no choice for all related?
DANIEL: There is no choice for all related. I decided to keep it simple.
BEN: Well, because, and I’m guessing this can’t be possible because you didn’t give the choice, but it could… It struck me that all three could very easily be related. Like, a HEATH is where HEATHER grows and a HEATHEN is some sort of ne’er-do-well who lurks in said place.
DANIEL: That’s definitely possible. A heathen could live on the heath. It’s true.
BEN: I’m going that HEATHEN.
DANIEL: HEATHEN is… You think HEATHEN’s the odd one?
HEDVIG: I’m gonna use my Swedish superpower because I know that HEATH is hed and HEATHEN is hedning and Heather is just a random name. So, that’s the odd one out. It sounds like it could maybe be like old biblical, I don’t know, like Rachel, Heather, Ethel.
DANIEL: The Swedish gambit. I love it.
HEDVIG: Yeah, Heather is the odd one out I say. Names are weird.
DANIEL: Names are weird. Okay, well, we are seeing the votes piling in. Laura, before we close it off, what do you reckon?
LAURA: I said HEATHEN. Yeah, we went on HEATHEN. Heather, the plant, could grow in a heath, a heathen.
HEDVIG: Maybe.
BEN: That was my logic as well in the… There’s just a… If we were playing Semantle, HEATH and HEATHER would be like, whoa, the score would be through the roof.
DANIEL: Okay, well, I’m closing it. Three, two, one, bomp. Okay, now I’m going to share the results. Let’s see what people said. Hmm, it looks like HEATH, nobody thought that was the odd one out. Just like JIG, everyone seems to think of that as the basic form, and then the others are just deviations therefrom. But 39% of us said that HEATHER was the odd one out and 61% of us said HEATHEN was the odd one out. This looks a lot like the last one, doesn’t it?
BEN: Mm, nearly spot on.
DANIEL: If you said HEATHER was the odd one out, then you’re probably the most correct.
BEN: Whaat?
DANIEL: A HEATH and HEATHEN are related. A HEATHEN is just somebody who lives on a HEATH.
BEN: Whaat?
DANIEL: It really is a HEATHEN. Etymonline says: perhaps — perhaps! — literally, dweller on the heath, one inhabiting uncultivated land. Whereas HEATHER comes from a different word from HEATH. HEATH is just hæð. HEATHER was *hæddre. Anatoly Lieberman, our pal, the Oxford etymologist, says: probably altered by HEATH, but real connection to that word is unlikely. We know that words can grow together if they feel, but they’re not…
BEN: I am sorry, Daniel.
DANIEL: They’re not… or they don’t originate from the same place.
BEN: Point of information please, adjudicator. When we started this particular one, I was like, “I reckon all three could be related.” And you were like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I didn’t set it up that way,” or something like that. Maybe I said that. Who knows? It was a long time ago.
DANIEL: Yes, it was.
BEN: Point being, your point is that the word HEATH and HEATHER originated from a different place, but that one of them, HEATH, has impacted HEATHER so that they look nearly fucking identical and you still can look me in the eye and be, like, “Mm, not related.”
HEDVIG: Yeah.
DANIEL: Yep. Not related. Just like any and many from last time, from the episode that dropped in.
BEN: Fucking shenanigans. I am calling shenanigans on this! If HEATH wasn’t around, HEATHER would be like: hækabløådeð. And HEATH turned it into HEATHER and you’re like, “Unrelated.” [DANIEL LAUGHS]
HEDVIG: It’s called… People just call it analogy, like analogical language change. It happens all the time.
BEN: It’s like if I had a mate in school whose name was Douglas, and by the end of school, everyone called him Benlas, and people were like, “Well, those two names are unrelated.” Clearly not. [LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: But they are. [LAUGHTER]
BEN: Really not. A relationship has been forged.
DANIEL: This is a weird example, mm. But, Hedvig, what do you think? Do you think with all your knowledge of language taxonomy… or language typology, do you feel that when words grow together, that’s a kind of relatedness? How would you regard that?
HEDVIG: Yeah, I think the game here is like traditional historical linguistics going back to the root and that’s the game we’re committing to. It will get really muddy if we do a logical sound change as well. [SIGHS] I don’t know, it happens all the time, and the cases we’re going to be discussing are ones that sound alike, so we’re more likely to pick these. So, we’re going to get more of these examples than if we picked random sets of related words. I don’t know.
DANIEL: In other words, we’re fine.
BEN: Yeah, yeah, in other words, shut up Ben!
HEDVIG: I like to be…
DANIEL: Ben’s wrong.
HEDVIG: I like to pick a set of game rules and then apply that and then be unhappy but I like consistency. [BEN LAUGHS] I like following rules to the end.
BEN: [IN A GERMAN ACCENT] That must be order. That must be a system.
DANIEL: Our final one. We’re moving on. I am going to give you one from the discord because James gave us this one. SCRAP and SCRUPLE.
BEN: Ooh.
DANIEL: Do you have any scruples?
HEDVIG: Ooh, that’s really fun.
DANIEL: Mm-hmm.
BEN: I do as depressing as it is to say, because for much of my life, I would have been like, “Hell, nah. I’m like wild and free, man.” And then, I got old and boring. I’m like, “No, I scruple now.”
DANIEL: Now, I scruple. It’s a weird word, isn’t it? You can have scruples or you can be scrupulous. I guess if you’re… Here’s my answer. I think that they are related, because if you’re scrupulous, you are after every scrap that you can get. You want to get every little, tiny piece in order. So, that was my logic. I’m saying yes, related.
BEN: Alright. Okay, okay. I’m going to go unrelated. And I’ve not been doing well in this game so far today. So, this is probably a surefire bet, everyone, that you should vote differently from me. Yeah, I don’t know. There’s… I’m thinking SCRAP and SCRUPLE. SCRAP sounds like an older word to me and it’s probably been around for a long, long time, like maybe from Middle English. Whereas SCRUPLE smells acquired maybe, or just a modernish confection from the Romance period onwards. And so I’m guessing just… Yeah, not related.
DANIEL: Okay, I’m going to Laura.
LAURA: Again, it’s got to be vibes here. This is based on the science of vibes. And the science of vibes were pointing me in the direction of not related. They just feel like they… To me, they don’t know each other. They’re strangers. They’re strangers. They don’t know each other.
DANIEL: [CHUCKLES] Okay. This is a case of beginner mind because you haven’t been playing this game with us for a long time.
BEN: Yeah. Yeah.
DANIEL: We’ve gotten twisted around the axle.
BEN: Absolutely storming.
LAURA: You are into this! Into this. [LAUGHS] Yeah.
DANIEL: And we’ve learned nothing.
LAURA: I could never compare… Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe you’ll have learned today to go with vibes. Have I been two for two so far?
BEN: Yes.
LAURA: Did I get the first one?
DANIEL: Are you?
LAURA: I got the first one.
BEN: Yeah. Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah.
DANIEL: Beginner mind. I’m telling ya.
LAURA: If I’m wrong on this one now, I’m quitting. Sorry, I’m gone. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Okay, well, people are…
HEDVIG: I think it smells FALL/FELL, that kind of thing. Like, there’s like a twist in the order argument, something like that. You know what I mean? Like, I’m falling, you felled me.
DANIEL: Oh, you mean like a causative thing?
HEDVIG: Yeah, like something is shuffling around. Like I scrapped it, it scrupled me, blah, blah. I don’t know.
BEN: Hmm, okay.
HEDVIG: I went with related.
DANIEL: Okay, let’s get those votes in. There’s still a few people who haven’t committed. I will end the poll in a-three, a-two, a-one, all right.
DANIEL: And now let’s share those results. 19% of us said related. 81% Said not related. It’s pretty lopsided. Anybody want to switch? This is one of those Monty Hall things.
BEN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] With only two choices. Here’s a goat behind one of the doors, would you like the other door?
DANIEL: James says, and I have checked this, it looks pretty good to me, unrelated. If you said unrelated, you were correct. SCRAP goes back through Norse and Proto-Germanic to Proto-Indo-European *skerb to cut. SCRUPLE comes from Latin scrupus. Sharp stone or pebble, which could be used to cut, although OED has small weight or measure, a small pebble, that kind of thing. Anyway, James continues, “Though etymology is unknown before that, so it’s possible.” But for the moment, we’re saying, mm, probably not related and that’s what we must be.
BEN: I wonder, do we know how small tool to cut turned into scruples as we use them? Is anyone else seeing the semantic through-line there that I’m missing?
HEDVIG: I think scruples are small sins, right?
BEN: Uhhhhkay.
HEDVIG: There’s a small weight on your character.
BEN: Got it. Okay. So, my heathen upbringing, to just do a little bit of a callback, has not helped me with this one.
DANIEL: Well, thank you, James, and thank you to everyone who’s given us Related or Nots. Thanks to David for that jingle. You can send us Related or Nots and jingles all the regular ways. Discord, socials, or good old email, hello@becauselanguage.com.
Let’s bring it back to our special guest, Laura Pakenham. Laura, I’ve got a question. I wonder if you can help me with Irish orthography. You’ve learned this. You know the tricks. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to an English speaker, but it probably makes a lot of sense to an Irish speaker. So, can you help me with terms like broad and slender letters or eclipses?
LAURA: Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah, see, this is actually interesting because I had to learn the English. I didn’t know what lenition was because I just knew that things were séimhiú. I didn’t know what lenition was, so it’s been fun learning, I guess, the English terminology for this because it’s not terminology I would have in the context of English.
Right. So, an eclipse is an urú. And an urú, it’s an extra letter that gets placed before another letter in certain circumstances. And we have a little rhyme to remember it. So, I want you to all say the rhyme after me. So, my brother.
IN UNISON: My brother.
LAURA: Got caught.
IN UNISON: Got caught.
LAURA: Not doing.
IN UNISON: Not doing.
LAURA: Dishes tonight.
IN UNISON: Dishes tonight.
LAURA: Nobody gets.
IN UNISON: Nobody gets.
LAURA: Blueberry pie.
IN UNISON: Blueberry pie.
LAURA: Before he finishes.
IN UNISON: Before he finishes.
DANIEL: Okay.
LAURA: So, I’ll say that one more time for you, remember it, and then I’m going to see if you can tell me some eclipses. So: “my brother got caught not doing dishes tonight. Nobody gets blueberry pie before he finishes”. What is the appropriate eclipse for a word that starts with the letter B?
HEDVIG: Yeah.
LAURA: Think at the start of the little rhyme.
DANIEL: Blueberry pie. Oh no, my brother, it’s an M.
BEN: My brother.
LAURA: My brother got caught. So G is the eclipse for C, got caught. Not doing, N is the eclipse for words that start with D. Dishes tonight, D before T. Nobody gets, N before G. Blueberry pie, B before P. Before he finishes, B-H before F. So, for example, like there’s lots of different circumstances in which you’d apply the eclipses. Yeah. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Okay, so…
HEDVIG: I’m at sea.
DANIEL: We got “my brother”, what does the M do to the B if they’re placed together? What happens to the B?
LAURA: You apply an urú after M, a lot of times after kind of prepositions. So, an bord, the table, beginning with B, but if something is ar an mbord, it’s on the table. So, B-O-R-D, but ar an, on the mbord, M-B-O-R-D.
DANIE: Oh, okay.
LAURA: Yeah, so it can be at the, on the, beside the, in front of the. A lot of time it’s, I guess, directional when we apply our eclipses. So, another one would be like the gate, an geata, but if I am at the gate, I’m ag an ngeata. Nobody gets, N before a G. So, there’s a… And that’s why I think a lot of things like that throw people off because they’ve learned that an bord is table, but then they see ag an mbord and they’re like, “Where is this M coming from?”
And then we also have our séimhiú, which I believe that the correct term is lenition. It’s a funny one because so in in Cló Gaelach, you may have seen it before, if not, I advise you to look up a picture, but it’s beautiful. It’s the old Irish script, how Irish used to be written. I’ve not yet mastered it. But I think what’s really important and I think what has created this in understanding spelling is that when Irish, when Cló Gaelach was left one side to prioritise, was it Roman or Latin script when everything was kind of standardised for like typewriters and stuff and all the letters were kind of standardised, they couldn’t… They could do the fada, they could do the accent, but we had to say goodbye to how we represented this séimhiú, this lenition.
So, it was originally… If you look at any Cló Gaelach scripture, you’ll see dots above a lot of the first letters in words, a little dot. So Irish had… we still have the accents, the fada, which literally means an síneadh fada, the long stretch. That’s what our accents are, because you stretch out the letter, an síneadh fada, the long stretch. And then, the séimhiú used to be these little dots. And that just means séimhiú, séimh in Irish just means softening. So, you just soften it.
So, an example would be, you would apply séimhiú to express for yourself. So cóta is coat, but my coat is mo ċóte. Okay, so mo ċóte. But now, we represent that séimhiú with the letter H. So, this is why people get confused because they’re like, “Why is the spelling different?” It’s not really that the spelling is different, just the sound changes after certain prefaces. You know, it’s like, well, it’s my coat and when it’s my coat, it’s chóta. Or if it’s his coat, it’s a chóta. And that’s how you determine the difference between his coat and her coat. His coat is a chóta, her coat is a cóta. So, it’s a difference in sound, but now it’s been kind of confined to this letter, this letter H and it’s like, well, it’s not a letter, it’s a change to a sound in certain circumstances.
So, that’s why people get so confused with Irish spelling. They’re like, well, I’ve seen ċóte, but then I’ve also seen chóta, because they haven’t looked at it the full context of it’s mo ċóte. So, then they’re like, “Well, I don’t know, there a H in ċóte, is there not?” And this is what leads to lot of confusion.
HEDVIG: Mm-hmm.
DANIEL: I’m having a little trouble figuring out why M plus an H results in a /w/ sound or a /v/ sound. Can you talk me through that a little bit? That’s the one thing that I look at that and I go, “Wow, that’s so different.”
LAURA: Yeah, again, not a linguist. I don’t know exactly, you know why, but there are words in Irish that have an M-H, also is different across dialects. So, for example, if I was to say, I would like: “ba mhaith /wa/ liom”, that’s spelled B-A-M-H-A-I-T-H, but people also say “ba mhaith /va/ liom”. You know, “Ba mhaith /va/ liom dul chuig an siopa.” I would like to go to the shop or “Ba mhaith /wa/ liom dul chuig an siopa.” You have like Bá Báith Lom, ëa bhá, Má Ddin Bá, good night, good morning, ëa bhá. But yeah, it’s just depending on the word, she makes a /w/ or she makes a /v/.
DANIEL: Okay, Colin is also saying M-H is a bilabial continuant which has lost its nasal component. So, it’s not nasal any more like an M is. It’s just changed over time to be just oral. That’s cool. I get that. That’s good. Okay. I feel like I’m getting something. I’m getting somewhere here with the help of your book.
HEDVIG: I always think it’s funny as well, like, whenever languages are described, people make up… so, this broad and slender terminology or this calling it an eclipse or calling it this not… Because I’m used to people talking about Celtic initial mutations, which is like the broader term for a lot of these things, but I find it so fascinating the kind of metaphors people use to make them more accessible.
So, in Swedish dialectology, people talk about thick of certain consonants. Like, “Oh, that’s a thick L.” And when you hear it, you can understand iconically a little bit what they’re getting at with thick. But of course, sounds aren’t thick and slender or broad or eclipsed or anything like that. These are all metaphors, but I find it really interesting what metaphors people grab onto. This is really cool. Thank you.
DANIEL: Since we’re talking about metaphors, let’s talk about some of the entries in the book. Because a lot of the book, there’s big sections of history and culture, which is great. But then, a lot of it is like one-per-page entries of proverbs or greetings, and there’s just so much culture that’s found within these. And was it fun sort of working your way through these entries and finding the cultural elements? What are some of your favourites?
LAURA: Yeah, I will say that the interesting thing about the book is that there wasn’t a crazy amount of research to be done. The majority of that, I’d say 85% of that, is just what I’ve known already and stories I know from my family and from my community and my upbringing and things that I’ve learned along the way about the language.
Yeah, it was really, really fun, but also, when we were coming up with the concept of the book, we kind of wanted it to be nearly like a TikTok a page. So, in different TikToks, I’ll take one phrase and I’ll teach one phrase and just we wanted it to be clear and concise and kind of just bite-sized phrase that you could use every single day. And then, also a little bit of a deeper delve into it and what it tells us about culture and history.
Probably, oh, god, there’s so many favourite favourites. I love a lot of the… What we have is… And the kind of like extra little tidbits of information at the bottom on some of the pages. It’s kind of like relatively linked, but not necessarily. And I talk a bit about the phenomenon of the Irish goodbye and how the Irish goodbye has gained notoriety in media. Like, everyone talks about the Irish goodbye. How it’s characterised is so not accurate at all as if it’s just this magical disappearance that you just leave an event without saying goodbye. If you did that, there would be search parties sent out for you. Like, that is not okay. People are going missing on the daily and blaming it on the Irish goodbye. And I’m like, “I don’t want to take any credit for this. No, that’s not how we say goodbye.”
But yeah, another thing I loved was the sentiment of the Irish wake. And this was a nugget of information that actually an ex of mine told me. So, hope he’s delighted that I made it into the book. [LAUGHS] But that’s the Irish wake, the tradition of the Irish wake, which you don’t necessarily see mirrored in other cultures. It came from basically Poitín, so the traditional Irish distilled drink, alcoholic beverage. And Poitín used to be distilled in lead barrels and also just had such a high concentration of alcohol because it wasn’t regulated. So, in many cases, either as a result of lead poisoning from the barrels or from just the amount that was consumed at the alcohol percentage, it obviously happened enough that people were prepared to be buried thinking that they were dead. Everyone thought that they were dead, but then they would “wake” up.
So, it became a tradition in Irish culture to lay the deceased or the presumed deceased out in the house for two or three days before the funeral proceedings to make sure that they wouldn’t wake up. So, yeah, because people ended up comatose either from the sheer concentration of the Poitín or because [CHUCKLES] of lead poisoning. So, yeah, lots of lots of there’s just so much in there.
And then, another one I love is the midnight munch. So, it was a regulation in Irish nightlife, I suppose, anywhere that had a late license for serving alcohol, that in the nightclubs, in the pubs, if they’re staying open past midnight, they had to serve a meal at midnight to keep the people going and give them sustenance.
HEDVIG: That’s similar in Sweden.
LAURA: Really? Does that happen as well?
HEDVIG: Yeah, well, so it used to be that everywhere, they served alcohol had to also serve food. So, you would get like a sandwich being brought out. Like, you’d order a drink and there’d be a sandwich, but everyone knew you didn’t eat it. You just send it back into the kitchen because you had to order it, because you ordered alcohol.
LAURA: Yeah. No way.
HEDVIG: So, it would just go back and forth, the same sandwich, you would know which one it is. [LAUGHTER]
HEDVIG: But then also at weddings, it’s still traditional, which we did at our wedding too, at midnight serve another meal. So usually, it’s hot dogs, but you can serve any kind of food. But that’s mainly for weddings now. I don’t…
BEN: To keep the people going.
HEDVIG: It sometimes happens.
DANIEL: That’s right, keep punching on.
HEDVIG: [LAUGHS] Some carbs and fat to cushion that hangover as well mainly. Yeah. Yeah.
BEN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
LAURA: Exactly. But yeah, loads of… it’s a really, I think a cozy book to me. And it was written with the international audience in mind. But even for me, myself and my fellow Irish people who’ve read it, they said it’s so cozy and kind of sentimental and quite nostalgic, and just a nice way, looking at all our little quirks that we have, and kind of from an outside perspective and just seeing it being framed in that way is really beautiful. And it’s nice to just kind of revisit that and pay appreciation to it.
But yeah, there’s a little Irish phrase on every single page that you could easily integrate into everyday scenarios and that’s what we wanted. We wanted people just to take little bite-sized pieces of the language and learn a bit of culture and history along with it and implement it.
DANIEL: Let’s open it up to our listeners who have been waiting patiently. If you would like to ask a question to Laura, it doesn’t matter which language it’s in. If it’s Irish, we would love to hear it. Colin has a question. Hey, Colin, good to see you.
COLIN: Hello, Laura.
LAURA: Hello.
COLIN: I’ve noticed I think five times you have talked about things as SHE and I’m wondering is that a personal foible or is it something from your Irish language?
LAURA: [LAUGHS] So, there’s a linguistic explanation, but there’s also just cultural. In Ireland, everything is SHE. If you get a new car, “Oh, Jesus, may she be good to you. She’s a fine motor. She’s a good sort.” Just in general, everything in Ireland is SHE, a bike, a car, a pub, building, a bus, a lot of things are just she. But then, in terms of when I talk about the Irish language, if I talk about the Irish language or Ireland, I refer to her as SHE.
It’s just a personal thing, I think it’s a way for me to pay homage to the Irish language even when I’m speaking about her in English because she’s a feminine noun. And yeah, Ireland is named after the goddess, Ériu. From that, stemmed Éire, which is the name of Ireland in Irish. And yeah, so Ireland is a matriarchy, culturally, historically and linguistically. And yeah, Gaeilge is a feminine noun because she’s the language of a feminine country.
And yeah, I just love it. I think it’s a lovely way to pay ode to the language and even when I’m speaking about her in English as well as just saying it, I just feel very impersonal.
COLIN: It wasn’t just the Irish language you referred to. I can’t remember now, but it was several different inanimate things.
LAURA: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah.
HEDVIG: Yes, other things as well.
DANIEL: Bunch of things, bunch of things. That’s neat. Thank you, Colin.
COLIN: Go raibh míle maith agat.
LAURA: Thanks Colin. Go raibh míle maith agat.
HEDVIG: Laura, have you heard a popular expression in Australia is “She’ll be right”? Which is like, it’ll be okay, and it’s always she. It’s whatever you’re doing, she’ll be right.
LAURA: Yeah. [AUSTRALIANLY] She’ll be right. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I think it’s just because we’re the ones, aren’t we? The ladies are always the ones that figure it out. [LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: Pretty good Australian impersonation there, I’ve got to say.
LAURA: Thank you. I like to try my best. I’m a bit of an accent fiend, I won’t lie. Yeah. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Nice. Ariaflame is here.
ARIAFLAME: Hello.
LAURA: Hello.
ARIAFLAME: There’s a lot going on and I’ve forgotten most of it, but I’ve learnt Scottish Gaelic rather than Irish. So, it’s Gaelic rather than… I think Scottish Gaelic uses Gaelic for Irish, but I could be wrong. I’m a little rusty on that. Do you have a favourite Irish word? I have two in Scottish Gaelic, which is dòigh. For some reason, I love the word “dòigh” which is way and smaoineachadh which is thinking. Do you have a favourite?
HEDVIG: Lovely.
LAURA: Yeah, just to show how similar the two are for dòigh is how we say that in Irish and then smaoineamh is thinking. I’ve lots. I’ve lots. One of my, I love cacamas. Cacamas, I just love the way it sounds. It’s kind of like bullshit. Because cac, C-A-C is like shit, poo.
DANIEL: It’s poop. Caca.
LAURA: It’s poo. And it’s like, it’s so funny because like, I’d be out walking with like my friends and my family or whatever. And like, I just slip in and out of Irish. So, I just be walked, walking down the street. And I’d like, if I see a dog, I’m like, “Oh, watch the cac.” And they’re like, “No, you can’t just say that without the rest of the sentence being in Irish.” [LAUGHTER] I’m like, “Okay.” I love shachin, and shachin just means like, watch, like be careful. If you’re about to walk into said cac on the floor, you’d say shachin.
And I love, yeah, I love seafóids. Seafóids means nonsense or if something is seafóideach, it’s just nonsensical, like, “Oh, she’s a seafóideach,” if you’re calling someone out. There are a few favourites. I love the word for sneeze. It’s snaofairt. I just think it’s very onomatopoeic. Snaofairt, you say it and you kind of nearly want to sneeze. And yeah, there are definitely a few favourites that go on and on. I just love how Irish words sound. And yeah, there are definitely some favourites. Yeah. Thank you so much.
DANIEL: Thanks, Ariaflame.
LAURA: [LAUGHS] Thank you.
DANIEL: Magistra Annie’s here.
MAGISTRA ANNIE: Hello. Do you have any thoughts about Irish diaspora? I guess there’s a lot of influence from Irish in Canada and Newfoundland. And the way that they speak is very mapped onto the way like the Irish language speak, like she’s after doing something or some things like that. So, I don’t know, like other examples of like where Irish has left Ireland and influenced other languages or cultures that you know. Or talk about Newfoundland, I love to talk about Newfoundland.
LAURA: Yes, I literally… I’ve only seen TikTok. I don’t know what’s crazy about it, but I literally only seen TikToks of like the people from there speaking and I was like, “Whoa.” That is crazy. But yeah, there’s a section in the book about Hiberno-English and kind of idioms. And yeah, I just love Hiberno-English. So, like the biggest one that you would hear a lot is like the do-be tense in English and it’s the continuous present tense in Irish. So, he does be doing XYZ.
And yeah, so everything in Ireland is do be. He does be busy over Saturday morning. He does be busy. He does be going to the shop. It’s just like, you don’t need it grammatically, you just say, “He goes to the shop every Saturday,” but he does be going to the shop every Saturday, that’s one I love.
Another one… Now, I don’t know how true or not this is. There’s some debate on its factuality, but the phrase dig it, you know to like, “Ah, you dig, like, did get me?” That is believed to have come from Irish over in America who were working on the trains and saying to each other an dtuigeann tú. An dtuigeann tú is, “Do you understand?” An dtuigeann tú, and then dig it came from that and it’s believed that it doesn’t actually have anything to do with actual physical digging, but that it comes from an dtuigeann tú. It’s believed… again, there’s debate around the trueness of that.
And another one I love is, in Irish, the format is that like emotions and states of being and things are on you instead of possession. Like, “I have a cold,” in Irish, “There’s a cold on me or a flu.” Irish people say that in English all the time, “Oh, jeez, I have an awful cold on me. I have an awful stomach bug on me.” And you’ll hear lots of people using that as well. And then, the biggest one, this one, “I’m giving out.” The amount of times I’ve said that to people and people don’t get what I mean. So, if I was to say, “Oh, I was given out to your one,” what meaning would you extract from this?
MAGISTRA: That one’s made it together.
LAURA: Do what?
DANIEL: Yeah. Could it be like, he told somebody about you?
LAURA: I got an awful given out too.
HEDVIG: Oh, you got a scolding.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah. I got an awful giving out to. My mom was giving out to me, because that’s what it is in Irish, ag tabhairt amach. ná bí ag tabhairt amach . Don’t be giving out, don’t be complaining. And so, that has been just literally directly translated into English. And now we say it in Ireland here. And the amount of times I’ve said that to other English speakers who haven’t a scooby what I’m on about, I’m like, “What do you mean…?” Because I’m like, I wouldn’t even know, like I’d have to rack my brain to try and think of like what it is in English. I’m like, it’s just it’s just given out, because we don’t know any different.
But yeah, Hiberno-English absolutely fascinates me. And this is something I wanted to highlight in the book for people who might not actively engage with the Irish language every day. I’m like, you already are without even realising it. Like, the influence of Irish is there in the… Sorry, just seeing the comment there. They haven’t a scooby what I’m on about. That’s what I just say for like having denotion, like he’s no idea what I’m on about. I’m just… scooby! That doesn’t come from Irish or anything. That’s just a lower thing, having a scooby. And so, having a Scooby Doo is what I would say, that doesn’t come from Irish. But yeah, so they’re some of my favourite kind of Hiberno-English tidbits that we would hear echoed among Irish speakers and… Yeah, around the world. So, yeah, I love it. I’m so fascinated by how far we’ve sown our seed.
DANIEL: Thanks, Magistra Annie. All right. I just want to ask one more question. Laura, what advice would you give to other language communicators or language advocates? What’s worked for you in being an advocate for Irish that other people could maybe use?
LAURA: Just being personal about it. My biggest advantage, I suppose, or what’s worked the best for me is just being honest, really, really honest about the struggles I’ve had. And even though I’m fluent now, I wasn’t always. And I shared anecdotes from my times in college when I wanted to drop out, I wanted to change to the English course, how that made me feel because I guess it validates how other people might be feeling at that current point in time. You don’t want to feel alone in it either. I’m the only one who can’t wrap my head around this. No, I was there. I’m still there. I’m on shoots every day and still can’t wrap my head around X, Y and Z and making loads of mistakes here, there and everywhere.
But yeah, for just in terms of like advocacy and trying to promote people to learn, be personal about it, share how you felt, maybe any strategies you took to kind of help get around that and what worked and what didn’t, and to say that it’s okay, it’s not going to be perfect right now, but once you keep the ball rolling, all the pieces of the puzzle will fit together eventually.
And yeah, just try and I think also understand different groups. So, say inter… In the context of the Irish language, I’ve tried to, as best I can understand native speakers and their challenges and what the reality is like for them. Also, complete learners and people who maybe only have a bit of Irish from school, just try and understand them. You might always be able to relate to each group individually perfectly, but if you can understand a little bit of where they’re coming from and just see everyone’s side of the story and try and be as understanding of that as possible and be a bit of a… Try and be a middle ground, just to be a safe space for people to share their thoughts and feelings about the language and the difficulties. But yeah, I think just be open and honest and personal about it. That’s what has worked the best for me so far. Yeah.
DANIEL: The book is Irish: History and Culture through Language. It’s available now from Simon & Schuster. You can find a link in the show notes for this episode. We’re talking to Laura Pakenham, star of TikTok, star of TG4. Laura, thanks so much for coming and hanging out with us and talking about this great language.
LAURA: Thank you guys so much. Go raibh mile maith agaibh. Woo! [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Thanks also to everybody who gave us ideas, words and news. Thanks to SpeechDocs for transcribing all the words and to you great patrons. Now, listen, Because Language lovers, we would like there to be some things that you do. We’d like you to follow us on the socials, we’re becauselanguage.com on BlueSky. We’re @becauselangpod just about everywhere else. People have done a great job of sending us lots and lots of material words, news and you can do that as well. Use SpeakPipe on our website or you can just email hello@becauselanguage.com. Another thing you can do is if you like the show, tell other people about it because word of mouth is one of the most important ways that we get noticed.
HEDVIG: And if you really, really like us. Yeah, if you really, really like us… I can’t… I was going to merge into Spice Girls, but I couldn’t figure it out. [BEN LAUGHS] Anyway, if you really like us, you can also become a supporter on Patreon. You get stuff depending on your level. You get, for example, invited to live show like this where we talk to either just amongst the ourselves or with a guest and you can submit questions and talk directly to us, which is quite fun and we enjoy it a lot.
We also do mailouts every year. We do bonus episodes and we do shout outs and we talk about things on Discord, submit little language news. Or Related or Not are really fun to get from our audience.
And if you do become a Supporter on Patreon you can be on the free tier level but you can also give a little bit every month. And what do we use that money for? Well, we recompense our guests. We give them a small honorarium that they get to spend however they want. We also use it to pay SpeechDocs to transcribe our episodes. We have various supplies. I think it’s been like almost a year now. I’ve got a new mic boom and it’s really good and a lot better than the previous one I had. So, I’m very glad we could spend some of the Because Language money on that.
DANIEL: Might be time for a new one.
HEDVIG: No, it’s holding up really well. Much better than the previous one. Really, really a lot better.
DANIEL: Keeps getting buffeted by those sound waves. They can only withstand so much pressure.
HEDVIG: No, it’s a really good one. I really like it. And it also means that we can keep doing the show and have regular episodes for people who aren’t supporters on Patreon, so we can keep those episodes free. So, you’re supporting the greater community as well.
DANIEL: Now, we’re ready to do the madness that is the Supporter names now.
HEDVIG: [LAUGHS] What now?
LAURA: Okay.
DANIEL: Okay. We do it a different way every time. And this time I wanted to find the names that best fit the patterns of Irish spelling.
BEN: Oh, checks out. Yeah, fair enough.
HEDVIG: Oh, god, okay.
DANIEL: So, for example, in English, this is… We’re just talking about English. If you see the letter B, what’s the next letter probably?
HEDVIG: A.
DANIEL: Could be an A or an E or a vowel, or…
LAURA: L.
DANIEL: Could be an R or an L. Yep. Probably not an H unless you’ve got a compound like CLUBHOUSE or SUBHUMAN, but those are kind of rare. But in Irish, B and H go together all the time. Same for D-H.
LAURA: They do, they’re besties.
DANIEL: They are.
LAURA: Yeah. They’re besties. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: So, I got a big list of words from the National Corpus of Irish and I vibecoded a script. [BEN LAUGHS] Yes, I did that.
LAURA: It works. It works. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: It calculates the transition probability from every letter to every other letter, ignoring diacritics and including word boundaries. Those are for [???] characters as well. Then, for every one of our supporters’ names, [LAURA LAUGHS] I got a score for how well it fits those transition probabilities. Does it flow like an Irish word or not?
LAURA: Okay.
HEDVIG: This has got to be one of the weirdest ones.
LAURA: And am I the one who gets to judge if it’s right or not? Am I to say like, “Yeah, it vibes right. It vibes Gaeilge or not?”
DANIEL: No, this one’s maths.
HEDVIG: Let’s see what you think. Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
BEN: Nerd.
LAURA: This is about to… ah! Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
DANIEL: But your input is certainly welcome if you think like, “Argh, it doesn’t ring true. Nah.”
LAURA: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Leave it with me, I’ll see what jumps out. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Take it away.
HEDVIG: Okay. It’s still me. Okay. So, do I go from most to least?
DANIEL: This is most Irish to least Irish. So, the most Irish ones are first.
HEDVIG: And remember, it’s the spelling, but I’m going to pronounce it the way we think those names are pronounced.
DANIEL: Good point.
HEDVIG: Not in Irish.
DANIEL: Good point.
HEDVIG: So, it’s Rach. R-A-C-H is the most Irish in this list. Does that seem right, Laura?
DANIEL: You’re not going to spell them all, are you?
HEDVIG: Does that sound like a plausible combination of sounds?
LAURA: If that was a name in Irish, it’d be Rach.
DANIEL: That’s true.
LAURA: I vibe with that Rach, yeah.
HEDVIG: Yeah. That sounds like it could be a word. Maybe it is a word or a name. And then, it goes Stan, Martha, Rachel, Fiona, Keith. I’m not surprised by that. Chris L, Luis. That’s fun. Amanita, Lance, and then Ben, not that unexpected, I think. Meredith. It’s all these H’s, right? Amir, Manú, Rene, sæm, Colleen, no one should be surprised that sounds British, if not specifically Celtic something. Steele, Linguistic C̷̛̤̰̳͉̺͕̋̚̚͠h̸͈̪̤͇̥͛͂a̶̡̢̛͕̰͈͗͋̐̚o̷̟̹͈̞̔̊͆͑͒̃s̵̍̒̊̈́̚̚ͅ, that is…
DANIEL: We’re going down the list now. We’re down a ways.
HEDVIG: I’m noticing that U-I seems to be liked.
DANIEL: Good point.
HEDVIG: So, Luis and Linguistic C̷̛̤̰̳͉̺͕̋̚̚͠h̸͈̪̤͇̥͛͂a̶̡̢̛͕̰͈͗͋̐̚o̷̟̹͈̞̔̊͆͑͒̃s̵̍̒̊̈́̚̚ͅ. Canny Archer, Larry, Mignon, Nasrin, Helen, Kevin, Laura D. There we go, there’s Laura. Elías, Ariaflame, Daniel is at this point. Gramaryen, that’s a lot of words. Rosemary, I guess I’m not that surprised by that either. I have a suspicion that people in Ireland have sort Catholic names and Rosemary sounds Catholic to me so.
LAURA: Yeah.
HEDVIG: I don’t know. Ignacio, LordMortis, that’s funny. Tony, I guess it’s not that many letters. Nigel, Kristofer, Joanna, Amy, Becky, Molly Dee. Molly, I’m not also… My suspicion is that more people are called Molly in Ireland and Scotland than in England. I don’t know.
DANIEL: Well, this is words though, not names, although some names might have snuck into the training data.
BEN: We’re into like the second half of the list. We’re in the half that’s like not very.
DANIEL: That’s true.
HEDVIG: That is very true. We’re actually beyond the half, I think. James C, Kathy, Rodger, Andy from Logophilius. That’s just very long, right?
DANIEL: Yeah, but this was normalised over a number of letters, so long names would be punished, but they aren’t.
HEDVIG: You’re so smart, Daniel.
DANIEL: Mm-hmm. I am.
HEDVIG: You’re too smart for your own good.
DANIEL: I am.
HEDVIG: Aldo, Faux Frenchie, O Tim, Ayesha, and Laura Pakenham is at this point.
DANIEL: Your entire name.
HEDVIG: So, there you go, Laura.
DANIEL: Not very Irish.
LAURA: Am I at that bottom? [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Mathematically, it’s been proven: not very Irish.
HEDVIG: There’s one below you, at least in this call.
LAURA: I’m not Irish. [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: Well, your name.
HEDVIG: Lyssa, Lucy, Whitney, Nikoli, J0HNTR0Y, PharaohKatt. And I’m at this point, Hedvig, so yeah.
LAURA: We don’t have V in the Irish alphabet, so you would be bottom, bottom, bottom.
DANIEL: Penalised for V. Mm-hmm.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah.
HEDVIG: Hedvig. Diego, John Mac, Iztin. Yeah. Z, I’m guessing not long of Zs.
LAURA: John Mac. It. It’s Irish by nature, but not linguistically, like John Mac and I’m like, “That’s a fella from home.” [LAUGHS]
HEDVIG: Sydney, Andy B, Sonic Snejhog. J-H, I’m going to guess is not super common. [BEN LAUGHS]
DANIEL: It’s the J-H.
HEDVIG: And Wolfdog, F, D, L, F. Yeah, yeah. I can believe. I can believe this ordering.
DANIEL: There’s still two more. There’s two more. You’re not done yet.
BEN: You’ve got to scroll.
HEDVIG: I got to scroll down. I’ve got to scroll more, sorry. John K. and Xekri. And Xekri is spelled with an X. So, it’s X-E-K-R-I. That is not a very common combination of letters.
DANIEL: That’s the lowest.
BEN: Mm-hmm.
DANIEL: Mm-hmm. Thanks to all of our patrons.
BEN: Our theme music was written and performed by Drew Krapianov, who also performs in Ryan Beno and Didion’s Bible. Thank you for listening. We’ll catch you next time. Because Language.
IN UNISON: Pew, pew, pew.
HEDVIG: Which is what we always do at the end of recording.
BEN: They know. They’ve been here. They’ve seen it.
DANIEL: Does everyone want to go pew with us?
HEDVIG: Laura doesn’t. [LAUGHTER]
BEN: True, true.
LAURA: I’ll join it next time. I’ll be ready for it. [LAUGHS]
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]