The introduction of an Irish-Spanish dictionary to the
language tools available to linguists is unquestionably a
positive sign. While a wide variety of
English-Irish/Irish-English dictionaries exist, bilingual
Irish dictionaries in other languages are still much
needed. In fact, a search of available books at one online
bookshop revealed 32 volumes with the word “foclóir”
(dictionary) in the title and all but one were Irish-only
dictionaries or Irish/English-English/Irish bilingual
dictionaries [2]. That one
volume was the text being considered here. Other Irish
bilingual dictionaries published in the past sixty years
mentioned in David Barnwell’s Irish language introduction
(French, Breton, and Russian) are either only available
from small bookshops or are out of print.
The bilingual dictionary in the volume under consideration
numbers 322 pages. The book measures about 22cm by 15cm
with 368 pages including introductions. This paperback
volume is printed on high quality durable paper. Headwords
appear in bold and pages are divided into two columns. The
abbreviations for parts of speech and so on make use of
Spanish and are listed on page 43. Following the headword
and abbreviations, the Spanish language equivalent(s) are
listed. In some cases a sample phrase or sentence is given
in Irish followed by a Spanish translation. For example,
we find
bris
vt vi
romper; cambiar moneda, briseadh as a phost é fué
despedido de su puesto, bhris an gasúr an fhuinneog
el niño rompió la ventana, bhris mo charr síos ar an
bhfána mi coche se averió en la colina
Abbreviations indicate the gender and case of nouns
as in the following example:
Náisiún
m1
nación, na Náisiúin Aontaithe las Naciones Unidas
Plural and genitive forms of nouns are not given. Nor is
there a guide to regular verb conjugations. As a result,
the dictionary will be helpful to many readers trying to
decode texts, but those seeking to write in Irish will
need to rely on additional resources.
A number of target populations will identify
Diccionario Irlandés-Español / Foclóir Gaeilge-Spáinnise
as an excellent resource and one that is most helpful.
Immediately coming to mind are students studying Spanish
at Irish language secondary schools throughout Ireland,
especially taking into consideration that the volume was
published by Coiscéim in Dublin. However, this cohort of
students, though finding such a resource helpful, would be
undoubtedly small. Foreign language studies have not been
mandatory in Ireland because most children study Irish and
English, one being their home language and the other their
second language. The most commonly studied “third” or
“foreign” language in Ireland has traditionally been and
continues to be French. However the number of students
studying German has been notable as well. Less than 4 of
every 100 students who sat Leaving Certificate
examinations in foreign languages in 2005 chose Spanish
[3]. As a result, with both
the fact that “foreign” language study is not mandatory in
Ireland and that only a small percentage of students who
do study foreign languages take Spanish, it clearly must
be the case that this extensive work was intended for a
population other than Irish secondary students, Irish
university students, or linguists in general.
Once one gets past the above-mentioned Irish language
introduction (pp. vii-x), it becomes clear that this
dictionary was in fact created for Spanish speakers
learning Irish. Whereas the Irish language introduction
extends four pages, the Spanish language introduction
numbers fifteen pages with seventeen additional pages of
appendices with Spanish language headings. Among other
items in the appendices are a list of cognates (xix),
Irish prepositional pronouns (xxviii), Irish comparative
and superlative forms (xxix), Irish irregular verbs
(xxx-xxxi), a bilingual list of proverbs (xxxv-xxxix), and
placenames (xl-xlii).
The volume was begun by co-author Pádraig Ó Domhnalláin
with his students as he taught Irish in Madrid.
Institiúid
Teangeolaíochta Éireann (ITÉ - Linguistics Institute of
Ireland)
was involved in the project from the early stages when Ó
Domhnalláin was awarded a European Union LINGUA grant to
develop a bilingual lexicon. At the time, David Barnwell
was affiliated with ITÉ and accepted the challenge of
moving forward with the project. Co-author Carmen
Rodríguez Alonso started out learning Irish with Pádraig Ó
Domhnalláin in
Madrid and moved to Ireland where she studied Irish. She
now teaches Irish and Spanish there. She joined David
Barnwell on the ITÉ project and with the closing of ITÉ
both Barnwell and Rodríguez Alonso continued working on
the project at Barnwell’s new place of employment, the
Department of Spanish at the National University of
Ireland, Maynooth. The English subtitle to this dictionary
is clearly only for marketing purposes. As one would
expect in an Irish-Spanish dictionary, there is little
English in the volume beyond that subtitle.
Both of the introductions are attributed to David
Barnwell. The Irish language introduction briefly looks at
ways that the Irish language and Spanish language have
come in contact historically and in terms of publishing.
Barnwell indicates that the volume contains over 19,000
headwords, making it a notable resource in terms of
dictionaries available. The Spanish language introduction
provides a history of the Irish language and also
realistically documents the recent shrinking of
native-speaking communities in relation to the population
of the island as a whole. However, it must be noted that
this description of the language and its current use does
appear to be extremely Dublin- or urban-focused. While, as
described, the language finds itself very much at the
margins of Irish life, spending six months in Dublin and
spending six months in Irish-speaking Connemara leave the
traveller with two very different experiences of the
language. Should a Spaniard be seeking to visit Ireland
and learn Irish, they would be well advised to spend time
in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking region). And since
some Irish-speaking regions have greater use of the
language than others, it is recommended that such language
experiences be carefully planned to maximise exposure to
the language. As in the popular film, “Yu Ming is ainm dom
(My Name is Yu Ming)” [4] the
Chinese immigrant (Daniel Wu) found very little Irish in
Dublin and had to seek out a Gaeltacht experience
in the west. Just as an American would not travel to
Vancouver to study spoken French, one would not recommend
that a Spaniard travel to Dublin to acquire a dialect of
spoken Irish.
While introductions comprising forty-three pages in a
dictionary may seem excessive, the lack of Irish language
learning materials for Spanish-speakers makes this one of
the few Spanish resources concerning Irish. It appears as
if the authors had two goals in mind, a booklet regarding
the history and workings of the language in Spanish and an
Irish-Spanish dictionary. While Mícheál Ó Siadhail’s
textbook Learning Irish (1980) was translated into
German [5] providing similar
detailed information about the history and use of the
language in the introduction, none of the popular Irish
language learning textbooks have been translated into
Spanish. As a result, this volume serves obviously as a
solid bilingual dictionary, but also as the first widely
accessible resource for any Spanish speaker interested in
the Irish language. Interestingly, however, much of the
material in the introduction appears targeted for readers
with a background in linguistics. The introduction does
not provide information about the history of learning
Irish in Spain or Latin America. It is not clear if that
audience is primarily linguists seeking to become exposed
to a Celtic language or students interested in Irish music
and literature. Whatever the case, Spanish speakers are
most fortunate to have this excellent resource and we look
forward to Volume II, the Spanish-Irish dictionary.
Thomas Ihde
Notes
[1] Associate Professor of
Irish, Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY).
[2] www.litriocht.com
[3] Department of Education
and Science, Language Education Policy
Profile Country Report: Ireland (2005-2006), p. 23.
[4] O'Hara, Daniel(director), Yu Ming is ainm dom, Dough Productions (2003).
[5] Ó Siadhai, Mícheál.
Lehrbuch der irischen Sprache
(Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag GmbH, 2004).
Authors’ Reply
We thank Professor Ihde for his review of our dictionary.
We appreciate the welcome he extends to the volume, and
are grateful for the many positive things he has to say
about it.
Ihde draws attention to the fact that our Introduction in
Irish is much shorter than its counterpart in Spanish. The
reason for this is simple. Information about Spanish - its
structure, history, dialectology etc. - is readily
available to anyone who wishes to seek it. Information
about Irish, on the other hand, is by no means so easily
available to the Spanish speaker, and what there is, often
on the internet, is at times not reliable. To cite the
reviewer’s own phrase, this is “the first widely
accessible resource for any Spanish speaker interested in
the Irish language”. Perhaps related to this, Ihde wonders
about the target audience for the dictionary; Irish
speakers or Spanish speakers, linguists or “students
interested in Irish music and literature”? We would like
to think that all of these groups would find the
dictionary of some value. Obviously a dictionary of Irish
and another European language caters to a very limited
market, but we find Ihde’s depiction of the current status
of Spanish in the Irish educational system a little
inexact, in that the situation of Spanish is definitely
stronger than he depicts. Lots of people in Ireland, be
they children or adults, are learning Spanish.
We are not sure about what Ihde means in his comment that
the dictionary is “Dublin- or urban-focused”. Is he
criticising the dictionary for using standard Irish (An
Caighdeán Oifigiúil)?
If so, we can only say that this has been the practice of
Irish dictionaries such as De Bhaldraithe or Ó Dónaill. Of
course we would urge Spanish-speaking learners of Irish to
spend time in what remains of our Gaeltachtaí, but
we think they might do well to pack a copy of our
dictionary with other learning materials. And we remind
readers that there is a large reservoir of Irish speakers
(and learners) outside the shrinking borders of the
Gaeltachtaí, in Dublin and elsewhere, indeed outside
of Ireland. Some Spanish-speaking learners of Irish will
never visit Ireland - we would hope our dictionary would
be of service to them too. As to the short film
recommended by Ihde, Yu Ming is ainm dom, its humour,
such as it is, revolves around the fact that Irish is not
widely spoken in Ireland, hardly an epiphany for anyone
who knows the country.
Once again, our thanks to Professor Ihde, and our best
wishes for his efforts and the work undertaken at the
CUNY Institute for Irish-American Studies on behalf of
Irish language and culture.
David Barnwell and Carmen Rodríguez Alonso