Gender of loan words

MacIain · Unread post by **MacIain** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:08 pm

I was just wondering whether there is any gender rule for words that are borrowed from other languages into Gàidhlig? For example, in French, loan words are almost always masculine other than words that are 'obviously' feminine such as those borrowed from Romance languages so end in 'a'.

On a completely unrelated point, I saw a documentary recently which had a guy from Ness talking who sounded very Irish to me (sa Ghàidhlig) and not like any other speaker from Lewis I've encountered. Is it an Irish link or is there some other influence?

Unread post by **Níall Beag** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:46 pm

MacIain wrote:On a completely unrelated point, I saw a documentary recently which had a guy from Ness talking who sounded very Irish to me (sa Ghàidhlig) and not like any other speaker from Lewis I've encountered. Is it an Irish link or is there some other influence?

What was the program, and who was the guy? I've seen Irish people who live in Scotland appear on BBC Alba speaking Irish in the past.

MacIain · Unread post by **MacIain** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 5:07 am

It was Saoghal Plastaig Ghòrdan (FlimG on youtube) about a guy who designed plastic lobster pots. The guy at the very end (Calum I think) really rounded his 'a's, so 'bliadhna' sounded like 'bliona' and, to my ears at least, sounded more like how they say it 'as Gaeilge'

Unread post by **Níall Beag** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 12:39 pm

Och, tha sin cùmanta gu leòr ann an Leòdhas.

Fòram na Gàidhlig