An Fháinleog Caibidil 2

ailt02/03/2011

Chapter 2: Is fearr eolas an oilc ná an t-olc gan eolas Knowledge of evil is better than evil without knowledge.

1. Eolas
Eolas means knowledge or information.

Examples:
Tá mé ar lorg eolais – I am seeking information / knowledge
Tá mé ag bailiú eolais – I am gathering information (note the genitive)
Is fearr eolas ná aineolas – knowledge is better than ignorance [> an-/ain- = lack + eolas].
Ba mhaith liom eolas uait – I would like information from you

2. Related words
Eolaí is a word with a range of meanings. It basically means a knowledgeable person, or an expert, sometimes it means a guide (eolaí gutháin = telephone directory) but can also mean a scientist.
There are some compound words involving eolaí. We have seen aineolas (= ignorance) in the reading material. An aineolaí is an ignoramus, and a saineolaí [> sain- = special + eolaí] is someone with specialised expertise. Try not to confuse aineolaí and saineolaí.
As you would expect, saineolas means specialised expertise.

Eolaíocht means science. It is often found as part of a compound word; with tír [= land] it becomes tíreolaíocht = geography; with bith [= life] it becomes bitheolaíocht = biology; with canúint [= dialect] it becomes canúineolaíocht = dialectology. This last is a concept you will come across when you’re so deep into Irish that you can’t escape.

Mar is eol duit means ‘As you know’, but belongs to a different register to Mar atá a fhios agat. It is more formal, slightly prim – the sort of phrase you could imagine wearing a tie – and if you want to be ponderous, and a bit condescending, this is the phrase to use.

3. Other ways of knowing
There are three common ways in Irish of expressing the concept of knowing, fios, eolas and aithne. Aithne is used only when acquaintanceship with a person is involved (Tá aithne agam ar Nóra = I know Nora), and eolas, generally, refers to specific, detailed knowledge about someone, or something or somewhere (Tá eolas agam ar Bhaile Átha Cliath = I know my way around Dublin). Fios overlaps somewhat with eolas, but the phrase Tá a fhios agam tends to be more general than Tá eolas agam. You could say Níl a fhios agam cá bhfuil siad – I don’t know where they are, but you would never use eolas with that sentence. You learn the correct use of these terms from exposure and use rather than theory, but here are some examples to illustrate the differences:
Tá aithne agam ar Nóra = I know (am acquainted with) Nóra
Tá a fhios agam Nóra = I know Nóra (in the sense that I know who she is)
Tá eolas agam ar Nóra = I know Nóra (in the sense that I know her character, or have detailed information about her)

4. Phrasal verbs
There are remarkably few verbs in Irish, their place being taken by idioms which go under the fancy title of Phrasal Verbs. You will be acquainted with these in English, get up (rise), get over (recover from), get off (alight), get ahead (progress), get in (enter), get away (escape). Irish depends even more on these constructions than English. It is worth looking out for examples such as the following:
Bí i dteagmháil liom (Déan teagmháil liom) = Contact me
Déanaim staidéar ar an domhan = I study the world
Is maith liom = I like
Ní thig liom = I cannot

5. Cuibhreann
This is one of those words that is a history lesson in itself. In the Donegal Gaeltacht cuibhreann is the most frequently used word for field. It is a compound word (comh-roinn), made up of chomh, which implies sharing or cooperation – it is actually the same as the ‘co’ in ‘cooperation’ – and roinn which means division. It is a survival of the old rundale system (rundale > roinn-dál = division of tribal territory), in which the land was shared by the entire community, but small individual plots were shared out on a rotating basis.

The most common words for field in Irish are páirc (from French) or gort. You get them in placenames such as Parkmore (páirc mhór) and Gortahork (Gort a’ Choirce = the oat-field). A small enclosed plot of cultivated land attached to a house is garraí (sometimes called a garden in Hiberno-English: ‘For I met her in the garden where the praties grow’, as the stage-Irish song has it). In Donegal garraí is used for a modern garden also, rather than the dictionary word gairdín. There are dozens of placenames in east Ulster such as Finaghy and Aghalee with the word achadh in them, but this word survives in living Gaelic only in Scotland.

6. Compound words
Irish lends itself to compound words. We’ve already seen words like tíreolaíocht and saineolas earlier in the passage. Other examples are drochrud (> droch = bad and rud = thing), dianstaidéir (> dian = intense and staidéar = study). Ríomhphost (= e-mail) comes from a prefix ríomh- which you will find in the word ríomhaire (= computer) and post which means the same in Irish and English. You could translate it literally as ‘computer-mail’.

7. Other phrases
Ar feadh m’eolais – As far as I know
Go bhfios dom – As far as I know

8. Some proverbs
Is leor nod don eolaí – A hint is enough for a clever (knowledgeable) person
Tuigeann eolaí leathfhocal – a clever person understands half a word (= a hint, obviously a compound word made up of leath = half and focal = a word).
Is trom an t-ualach an t-aineolas – Ignorance is a heavy burden
Thug siad eolas an bhealaigh dúinn – they showed us the way / gave us directions
Lá níos sine, lá níos eolaí – A day older and a day wiser