Watching the excellent ‘Fathaigh na Farraige’ documentary on TG4 got me thinking that it would interesting to take a bitesized look at the language relating to whales and dolphins in Irish!
The Irish for dolphin is simply deilph /deh-ilf/
The term for porpoise is more colourful:
muc mara /muk mor-a/
This translates as “sea pig”!
The broad term for whale is
míol mór /mee-ul moor/
Míol is a general term meaning variously animal, insect or creature, but combined with the adjective mór (“big”) it means whale.
My children tell me that I snore like a whale.
Here ‘s how to say “He snores like a whale” in Irish:
Bíonn sé ag srannadh ar nós míl mhóir /Bee-un shay egg ssran-ah air noes meel voo-irr/
Here the word míol is in its genitive singular form (míl) because it is preceded by the compound preposition ar nós (meaning “like”). The adjective mór has changed to mhóir because it is describing a noun that is in the genitive case. In Irish the adjective follows the gender, number and case of the noun.
The Irish for the largest mammal on the planet, the blue whale is míol mór gorm /mee-ul moor gur-um/
The fin whale is known as droimeiteach/drrim eh-tukh/
Here droim means “back” and eiteach means “finned”.
Eiteach /eh-tukh/ can also mean “winged” or “feathered”. The root of the word is present in the Irish word for aeroplane, eitleán /eh-til-awn/. You will also find it in the Irish verb “to fly”, eitil /eh-til/.
One whale that seems to be making a come-back in Irish waters is the humpback whale. The Irish for this majestic beast is
míol mór dronnach /mee-ul moor drun-ukh/
The adjective dronnach can variously be used to mean “humped”, “hunch-backed”, “arched” or “convex”.
Let’s finish today with a whale-related expression in Irish:
Ná déan míol mór de mhíoltóg /Naw den mee-ul voor deh vee-ul-thowg/
Literally translated this means “Don’t make a whale out of a midge”.
There aren’t any moles in Ireland, but you will no doubt recognise its similarity to the English expression “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill”. As the Americans would say. don’t sweat the small stuff!