language lost

on rediscovering my grá for my native tongue

It all started with cúpla. You see, for the past year, I’ve been losing my mind over the phrase ‘a couple’. I don’t remember why- or how- it came to my attention, but I realised that the rest of the English-speaking world seems to use this term to strictly mean two. In Ireland, when we say ‘a couple’, we always mean ‘a few’. It’s never just two- a couple of friends, a couple of drinks, a couple of songs… this means at least three, but likely even more. This had been nagging at me for months and I investigated with friends, family and classmates- I would ask, “what do you mean, when you say a couple?”. I thought it was just some funny idiosyncrasy, another Irish turn of phrase. I noticed it in the British and American films I watched, the phrase jumping out at me from the screen every time I watched somebody invite a ‘couple of friends’ over only for two to arrive. Why do we use the phrase differently, I wondered? What happened in Ireland for the phrase to change, shift, begin to mean something new?

“The sound of Irish seems to be locked in the subconscious mind of our people”- Kate Fennell

Last week, I finally found my answer, and it had been staring me in the face the entire time. In Irish, the word cúpla means a few. Of course it makes sense that we would blend its meaning with the English word that sounds almost the same. Everything clicked into place and I couldn’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner. The English we speak here is something called Hiberno-English, turns of phrase and tenses taken from our native Gaeilge and incorporated into English, subtly, almost unnoticeable until we say something that leaves the American tourists scratching their heads in confusion. ‘Giving out’ to somebody, saying ‘he’s after having his dinner’, or that ‘I do be going’ to the pub quite often- these are all phrases that take their structure from Irish and are translated into English. The way we speak in Ireland, although not in our native tongue, is still coloured by it in every word, every syllable.

“All Englishmen and the Irish dwelling among them must use English surnames, speak English, and follow English customs. If any Englishman, or Irishman dwelling among the English, use Irish speech, he shall be attained and his lands go to his lord till he undertake to adopt and use English.”- Statutes of Kilkenny, 1366.

I love the Irish language but I can barely speak it. Its musical tones, depths of meaning, the vivid images it evokes- pulls deep at my heart, calling to me even though I cannot fully understand its song. Irish, Gaeilge, is the most beautiful language in the world (in my unbiased opinion). It is a language of poetry and song, a language of the land and of the heart. Today we struggle to speak it because of English colonial rule. For more than eight hundred years our country was occupied by the English and our language was wiped out- children would be punished for speaking it in schools, parents forbidden to teach it to their young. The language almost died, but it hung on by a thread, tenacious in its refusal to abandon the people. I want to include a story here, one I heard on The Blindboy Podcast about the mythology of Ireland and its language. The Leabhar Gabhála (Book of Invasions) is a fictional history of ancient Ireland dating back to the earliest settlers there. This is the mythical story of how Ireland came to be, and how the Irish language was instrumental to the beginning of our homeland.

The story goes like this: thousands of years ago Ireland was ruled by gods and goddesses with magical powers, the Túatha Dé Danann. These were beings who, it is said, were exiled from heaven because of their forbidden knowledge of magic. They ruled over Ireland in peace and prosperity. The land was beautiful and free, nobody grew sick or old, and they lived in harmony with nature. One day a group of Celts arrived to the island and made clear their intentions of invasion. These men, the Sons of Míl, sent their chief poet, Amergin, ashore to speak with the gods. Amergin recited a poem that aligned him with the essence of creation, made him one with the land and the sea. The poem, spoken in the Irish language, convinced the gods to surrender to the Celts and promise the land of Ireland to them forever more. The goddess Éirú asked them to name the island after her, and so Éire was created. The language of poetry, not the cruelty of battle, is what gave the Irish people the right to the land. Language, poetry, storytelling and song has been important in our culture since its conception. This is why we are a people of music and art, a people of words. But those words were always supposed to be in Irish, not English.

“I am the God who inflames desires;
I am the giver of fire;

Who knows the ages of the moon;
Who knows where the sunset settles;
Who knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen.”

-‘The Song of Amergin’ translated from Gaeilge by Michael R. Burch.

Still, today, we have not fully reclaimed our native tongue. It’s been having a resurgence these past few years, one that I have been observing with delight. Hozier has some song lyrics as Gaeilge, the film An Cailín Ciúin was nominated for an Oscar, and Irish rappers Kneecap have been making a splash with their raucous raps and semi-autobiographical film. The language feels alive, feels relevant, is teeming with vitality. The thing is, it always was, I just hadn’t noticed. The Irish-speaking areas of Ireland, Gaeltachts, have always been a place for native speakers to live their lives fully through Irish. There, the language has not been stiff and cold, has not tied the tongues of those who try to speak it. The way Irish was taught to me at school left me with the sense that I would never be able to speak this language- and that there was no point in even trying. I have loved it, but I simply didn’t have the motivation or dedication to properly learn it. Since Ireland was colonised, the Irish language has been one of resistance. Still, in Northern Ireland, debates rage about its place in schools or on street signs. We have had to fight to speak this language yet still we do not appreciate it as we should.

“Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste”- broken Irish is better than clever English (old Irish saying)

We speak Irish at home, sometimes, just little words or phrases here and there. When we are rushing my dad will call for us to brostaigí, and my sister will sometimes tell me I look go hálainn instead of pretty. When we clink glasses we say sláinte. I have a younger cousin, a four year old girl. My sister and I told her that Irish is the language of the fairies and that if she spoke it, the fairies would understand her. It’s a magical language, we said, her eyes round as saucers even as she pretended not to be interested. A few weeks ago she started school and was so excited to tell me that she was learning the fairy language. The language has woven itself, quietly, through the fabric of our lives.

When I studied in the Netherlands for a year I happened to live with an Irish boy who studied Irish at home, and was taking classes in linguistics for a year instead of his normal Gaeilge. His passion for Irish reignited mine- he would talk about mythology, culture, heritage and the importance of having a language to call our own- and I began to agree with him. We would sit and speak in Irish sometimes, laughing around the jumbled-up syllables or growing excited when the phrase we had been searching for came clattering, go tobann, into our minds. He was patient with me as I stumbled through sentences and at night, before bed, we would say oíche mhaith to one another. These conversations were like little pieces of home, glimpses of Ireland shining through from across the land and sea. I guess that was the year I truly began to appreciate my language, and I have him to thank for it.

The complicated aspect of this is that I do love English; I studied English and History for four years in college. Reading and writing are my greatest passions. I can never hate the English language because of its bloodstained past- and make no mistake, I am painfully aware of this legacy. I am a historian! I am no stranger to the sins of the British Empire. Once I made the mistake of suggesting to the aforementioned roommate/Irish student that teaching English as a foreign language would be an easy way to earn money around the world. I was treated to a long lecture on the evils of English as an invasive language, spreading with insidious speed around the globe, decimating local dialects in the process. I agree with him, to an extent. I can see both sides of the argument: English as a useful tool for promoting understanding between nations across the world, and English as a tool of colonisation, seeking to uphold white western culture as superior to all others. I can’t ignore this awful side of the truth; however, it doesn’t negate the other, concurrent truth that English words, in books and in poems, have been my close companions ever since I learned how to read. I can love English while still appreciating Irish, a doublethink made possible by the privileged position I find myself in today, where my identity as an Irish person is not under attack.

“There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.”- John Millington Synge.

There is a saying in Irish that goes “tír gan teanga, tír gan anam”. It means “a country without a language is a country without a soul”. This rings true for us Irish whose hearts are crying out to express themselves in the language of poets, the language that ties us to this land. In Irish we don’t say that we are sad, or happy, but that sadness and happiness are upon us- a way of speaking about emotions that acknowledges both their all-encompassing nature, and their transience. How many of our feelings, nameless now, could be given clarity with an Irish word? How many of our thought processes, our turns of phrase, only truly make sense when you consider them as Gaeilge? Even if our conscious minds do not think in Irish, some part of our DNA must remember these words, memory stored and passed down for generations. The word cúpla did it for me, brought everything shining down into the light, the meaning of things clear at last, beautiful in its clarity. Even if my voice speaks English I know, somewhere deep down, my heart and my soul sing as Gaeilge.