Haigh,

I pass on a question I got today. And I couldn't find a satisfying answer:

One other thing I was meaning to ask about, do you know why there are two words for "new" in Irish, and what if any is the difference between them? For example, a new car is "Carr NUA" but a new jumper is "Gansai UHR".

GRMA
Michi

Nua is usually translated as new, and úr is usually translated as fresh. I think that will get you at least halfway there, but it won't give you 100% accuracy. For example, An Bhlian Úr is The New Year (we wouldn't call it The Fresh Year in English). You really have to learn the different expressions that use nua and úr. Sometimes the two words are interchangeable, but sometimes one is more appropriate than the other.

http://www.potafocal.com/Search.aspx?Text=nua
http://www.potafocal.com/Search.aspx?Text=úr

By the way, I've always heard geansaí nua, not geansaí úr. And geansaí nua is in the potafocal dictionary I linked to above. Maybe they both mean the same thing, or maybe the geansaí úr is fresh (as in washed) as opposed to newly-bought.

_________________
Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

"Úr" is much more common than "nua" in Donegal

no problem with geansaí úr there

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

I think bliain nua is fine in Munster Irish. What do others think?

Úr has another meaning: "generous, liberal". See the poem that begins:



in the Munster work, Séadna.

And in Scottish Gaelic the usual term for "new" is ùr, as in Bliadhna Mhath Ùr ("Happy New Year"). Its usage seems like a northern dialectical thing, since it's also common in Ulster.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

The guideline I was given for Scottish Gaelic should be similarly useful in Irish.

The New Testament is the "Nua-Thiomna". It is not new in the sense of fresh and recent, but "new" in a qualitative sense, in that it is newer than the Old Testament. It is also "better" in a liturgical sense and overturns a lot of OT teaching.

Meanwhile, the "New Year" is just another pass round the same old cycle. It's a blank page, but it's fundamentally no different to the blank page we had last year, or the year before that (OK, that may be harder to see now that technology progresses so fast, but 100 years or more ago, each year was more of the same).

Of course, with the increasing influence of English, this distinction is being lost, so there are more and more exceptions based either on "nua" being closer to the English or just "whatever sounds nice", so you can't trust it 100%, but if you consider that your new car is almost certainly going to be better than the last one thanks to new technology (1980s: ooh! electric windows in the front, 1990s: ooh, a CD player, 2000s ooh, GPS, etc), "nua" makes sense.

_________________
A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

Good point on the socio-cognitive input to language change




Mmmmm, fresh out of the 3D printer!

_________________
__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

I was thinking the same thing. Like if you'd been playing or working hard, and got sweaty or dirty, then you might cuir geansaí úr ort.

_________________
賢いふくろぐま
Seans Eile - free software to help you practice your Irish
Scéala na Wombait - Muddle-headed Memes and Musings