I believe the translation for the above is "Gaeilge is ea i sin!!"

But how would you say "That WAS Irish!!"??

Would it be "Gaeilge ba ea i sin!!"

That just doesn't feel right to me. Thanks in advance.

*Gaeilge is ea í sin. (í with accent)
*Gaeilge ba ea í sin.
more dialectized: *Gaolainn ab ea í sin.

But I doubt they are correct.
Because: There are some idioms with indefinite Gaeilge , mostly with the meaning "(in) the medium of Irish"
They are used a lot ("leabhar Gaeilge", "labhair as Gaeilge", "tá Gaeilge agam", etc.)
But outside of these and esp. when used as a real noun, Gaeilge is usually made definite with an article: an Ghaeilge.

So:
Is í sin an Ghaeilge = That is Irish. or: Sin í an Ghaeilge = That is Irish.
Ba í sin an Ghaeilge = That was Irish. or: B'in í an Ghaeilge = That was Irish.

Oh yeah, because "an Ghaeilge" is definite, the copula rules about identification vs classification apply, so it would come at the end. Makes sense.

I'd definitely say "Ba Ghaeilg é" or "Gaeilg a bhí ann", because when you say "that was Irish", you don't mean "that was THE Irish language" but "that was (some) Irish". It's hard to understand, maybe, to English speakers who normally don't use the article before languages names. In French it's clearer and closer to Irish: "c'était de l'irlandais" (with the partitive article, which has no Irish equivalent, that's why I wouldn't use any article before "Gaeilg" in this sentence).

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

With spoken Irish, we just say: Sin Gaeilge!

Hmm, alright.
In German it is actually the same: "Das ist Irisch", gan alt ar bith. Though there's more often an article in Irish with language names than in German (I'd think) but probably not here. And btw: My attempt of an explanation ("(in) the medium of Irish") perfectly fits in here: "That is in the medium of Irish"

So, okay,
Sin Gaeilge (present)
B'in Gaeilge (past)

Bit of a necro post at this point, but I have a few questions and clarifications


I get what you're saying about "THE Irish language" vs "IN Irish". But in my original question, I was imagining I just said something in Irish, and somebody asked me "What language was that?" In that scenario, I didn't speak the whole Irish language, so wouldn't it be more like Lughaidh implied later that I just spoke PART of the Irish language thus making it an indefinite "Gaeilge" versus a definite "an Ghaeilge" and all the grammatical rules that implies?


Shouldn't that first example be "Ba Ghaeilg í" since we're talking about a femine noun? Also, why is Gaeilge lenited here? Thirdly, is "Ghaeilg" a particular grammatical form of "Gaeilge"? If so, what form is that?


I take it that's the informal everyday spoken Irish vs the stricter written standard version. I also assume your answer means "That IS Irish", but how would you say "That WAS Irish" in the same format?

Thank you all for your answers, but overall I'm still a bit confused. (Not surprising since the copula is more than a bit devilish for Irish language beginners).
So, is this correct? (If I was using the strict standard)

"That IS Irish == Is Gaeilge í sin" or "Gaeilge is ea í sin" (if I wanted to emphasize Gaeilge.)
"That WAS Irish == Ba Gaeilge í sin" or "Gaeilge ba ea í sin" (with emphasis on Gaeilge.)

For that last one, would it be "Ba" or "Bá"?

If I was using a more casual spoken style, the correct forms would be

Sin Gaeilge (present)
B'in Gaeilge (past)

How correct or incorrect am I at this point??

First: Ba, the past form of Is, causes lenition/séimhiú so Ba Gaeilge should never occur, only ever Ba Ghaeilge

Second: Gaeilg is a Munster dialect form, not a grammatical form

Third: It should not be Ba Ghaeilge í because the "it" here is of unknown gender. If we were answering a question "What language is it?" then we would use í because teanga is feminine. But in the statement Ba Ghaeilge é the é is not equal to Gaeilge, but is equal "what was said". If we wrote out the sentence in full without pronouns it would be "What was said was Irish" not "Irish was Irish". Did I explain that well at all? hahaha

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Gaeilg, Gaeilic etc. are actually Ulster. (And those are nominative singular, their genitive is Gaeilge, Gaeilice). Gaeilg (in older orthography Gaedhilg) is actually the old dative which replaced old nominative form (the old, now gone, nominative was Gaoidhealg or Gaedhealg, in modern orthography I’d guess it would be *Gaelg).

In Munster it is nom. Gaelainn, gen. Gaelainne or nom. Gaoluinn, gen. Gaoluinne, or various other orthographic forms.

See: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gaeilge# ... tive_forms

Sorry yes of course this is absolutely correct
Embarrassing...

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