\n"}\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn traditional Irish folktales, the elves only understand/respect Gaelic: the English language revolts them, so don\u2019t expect to be winning any of those famous riddle contests or song tournaments in English.
\n
\n\nI\u2019ve idly considered making one of those memes where it\u2019s like [THE IRISH] *brofist* [THE JEWS] and the point of agreement is \u201cour language is magic,\u201d but the joke would take too much explaining to be funny.\n\n
A lot of Irish Gaelic is structured around speech and the power of language. There isn\u2019t, for example, a word for\u00a0\u201cyes\u201d or\u00a0\u201cno.\u201d In order to answer a direct yes/no question, you have to use a form of the verb that was used to ask the question. So basically, if the question is\u2013say\u2013\u201ddid you murder your wife\u201d then there is no way to simply say\u00a0\u201cYes, Your Honor\u201d or\u00a0\u201cNo, Your Honor.\u201d Your minimum required effort involves using the verb that was invoked in the question:\u00a0\u201cI murdered,\u201d or\u00a0\u201cI didn\u2019t murder.\u201d
Of course you can just as easily, in just as few syllables and maybe fewer, change the verb.\u00a0\u201cI was framed,\u201d maybe. Which is to say that the most basic speech acts in Irish involve constructing a narrative, assenting to others\u2019 narratives or challenging them, and most crucially elaborating on the narratives that have already been established.\u00a0\n\n(I chose murder just to be a colorful example, but actually I need to go back to my language reference books and check because I bet this interacts interestingly with the tendency in Irish for the narrator never to be the subject of her own story. You\u2019re always the object, in Irish: you can\u2019t drop a plate, for instance, the plate drops itself at you. You\u2019re not thirsty but a powerful thirst is on you. You didn\u2019t murder that woman but she very well might have gotten murdered in your general vicinity.)\n\n
\n
You see this lots of other places in the language too. For instance there\u2019s also no word for\u00a0\u201chello\u201d or\u00a0\u201cgoodbye.\u201d If you want to greet somebody your required minimum is to cough up a formulaic blessing: Dia duit, God be with you.
Here\u2019s the thing. The second person can\u2019t just be like\u00a0\u201cyup, uh huh. dia duit.\u201d No. The stakes have been raised. The second person\u2019s required minimum answer is now Dia\u2019s muire duit, God and Mary be with you. If a third person joins they have to invoke St. Patrick on top of the two already mentioned. I\u2019m not kidding. At four people you do hit a limit where you\u2019re allowed to just say\u00a0\u201cGod be with all here,\u201d but in the very traditional country pubs it\u2019s an insult to cross the threshold without saying at least that to cover everyone inside. Actually worse than an insult; basically a curse. That\u2019s the burden you bear when you start speaking a magic language.That puts a lot of conversations I\u2019ve had with rural Irish people into a far better context. Because even when speaking English they will speak in this structure, knowing that context makes so much more sense now.
\nThe way Irish structures the speaker as *positional* is also deeply insightful. Not just because the speaker is the object of a narrative- though that is unique and fascinating too- but also because that narrative happens in a conceptual *space* around speaker and subjects. T\u00e1 br\u00f3n orm, sorrow is on me. If I\u2019m missing my coat it\u2019s apart from me; my accomplishments are beneath me; my careers and skills are in me; if I\u2019m to do something, it\u2019s on me to do that. If I welcome you to my home, I\u2019m putting the welcome in front of you.
\nWe distinguish between temporary and permanent and habitual forms of being, even in English. The only other place I know that does this is AAVE. Marcus be playing the drums; aye lads, he surely does be playing them.
\nYou can\u2019t say please or thank you or I love you; those are powerful ideas, and you must put a little effort into articulating them. Le do thoil, with you will. Go raibh maith agat; very roughly \u201ca good is at you.\u201d (Good on you, mate; good going!) I love you, Christ if there\u2019s not dozens of ways to say it, but none simple. The simplest I know translates most closely to \u201cmy heart is at you.\u201d
\nGreat addition!\u00a0
\n
A lot of people are also chiming in to say that the Irish language is called Gaeilge, not Gaelic. I am 43 and American, and when I studied Irish in school the class was literally called\u00a0\u201cIrish Gaelic\u201d (though the teacher just called it Irish and that\u2019s usually how I think of it too). So like, I hear you all that \u201cIrish Gaelic\u201d is wrong, but it is the way I was taught twenty-five years ago. Aithn\u00edm go raibh dearmad orm, I find that a mistake was on me.Please to me is \u201cM\u00e1\u2019s \u00e9 do thoil \u00e9\u201d it\u2019s what I got taught as a kid and it\u2019s the one I use more often than Le do thoill. It literally means \u201cif it is your will\u201d too.