S is for strategies The Irish problem is

S is for strategies… The “Irish” problem is a good test of strategies…

The “Irish” Problem… garra amháin gasúr déag ocht mballa is dhá fichid dhá gharra déag is ceithre fichid trí bhád seacht ndoras déag seacht mbád déag is dhá fichid naoi nduine déag is fiche ceithre fichid doras cúig bhalla sé ghasúr is trí fichid deich mbád sé dhuine trí dhoras is dhá fichid 1 garden 11 boys 48 walls 92 gardens 3 boats 17 doors 57 boats 39 people 80 doors 5 walls 66 boys 10 boats 6 people 43 doors 2. 1. Translate the following phrases into English: a. naoi mbád déag is ceithre fichid b. sé dhuine déag c. naoi nduine d. fiche gasúr e. garra déag is fiche 2. 2. Translate the following phrases into Irish: a. 2 boys b. 38 walls c. 14 walls d. 71 doors e. 21 boats f. 90 people

Remember, “S is for Strategies” try your ‘ways in’… • COGNATES? Irish is an Indo-European Language, so are there ‘cognates’ [lexemes OR particles that are related to English, or to other Indo-European languages that you know]? • LEXICAL PATTERNING? Which root lexemes occur more than once? Can you identify correspondences between lexemes that occur the same number of times in both languages [lexemes for the same thing in both languages]? • ELEMENTS Are there elements of Irish that don’t appear in English? If so, is there a pattern [in the distribution of the Irish elements &/or in the corresponding English phrases]? • WORD ORDER? From the correspondences, what can you say about word order – which element of each phrase corresponds to which element in English [Same word order in all phrases? Same as English? ] • MARKING? Again, from the correspondences, are there lexemes which have different forms in different contexts [positions? what is being counted? ] How are they marked, and why? [this problem is a timely reminder that English is a language too, so you can apply all of these approaches backwards – e. g. English inflects for grammatical number by ‘marking’ plurals with ‘s’…!]

Lovely ‘cheats’… • • One to three in Irish One to ten in Irish Counting People in Irish A lesson in Irish counting [and loan words from Irish into English!] • Everything Irish! • FINALLY – a full explanation of the Irish counting system!

The answers… 2. 1. Translate the following phrases into English: a. naoi mbád déag is ceithre fichid b. sé dhuine déag c. naoi nduine d. fiche gasúr e. garra déag is fiche 2. 2. Translate the following phrases into Irish: a. 2 boys b. 38 walls c. 14 walls d. 71 doors e. 21 boats f. 90 people 2. 1 a. 99 boats b. 16 people c. 9 people d. 20 boys e. 31 gardens 2. 2 a. dhá ghasúr b. ocht mballa déag is fiche c. ceithre bhalla déag d. doras déag is trí fichid e. bád is fiche f. deich nduine is ceithre fichid

The phonemes of Irish