Tis the season and it’s the prefect time to so practice saying Merry Christmas in Irish. The Irish word for Christmas is Nollaig so to say happy Christmas you would use Shona like when we wish someone happy birthday.
With many Irish words getting started can be tricky if you aren’t sure how to pronounce the letters and the different combinations of letters. The word Nollaig would be pronounced as Null-og and the word Shona as Huh-nuh. This is of course my phonetic pronunciation and other regions will sound slightly different. However, I’ve learnt that with most places people respond really well when you try.
Things get a bit more complicated if you want to say Merry Christmas in Irish to a person or a group of people. If you are saying it to one person, man or woman, you would say Nollaig Shona Duit. This is Merry Christmas to you and the Duit is pronounced Ditch. So Nolliag Shona Duit.
If you want to say Merry Christmas in Irish to a group then you would change the Duit to Daoibh. So the phrase would be Nollaig Shona Daoibh which is pronounced Dee-iv.
If someone wishes you Merry Christmas in Irish the easiest way to respond is by saying thank you - Go raibh math agat. (Gur eu mah agat) Another handy phrase to learn that can by used in lots of situations is Go mba hé duit. This means the same to you and you would say it Goim ah hey ditch.
However, the ‘proper’ way to respond when someone wishes you Merry Christmas in Irish is by saying Nollaig mhaith chugat meaning Good Christmas to you. You would pronounce it as Null-og Mah Huguenot.
You will probably see the word Nollaig when the Irish talk about the 6th of January. Oddly when it’s spoken about in English it’s often referred to as Little Christmas. However in Irish it’s called Nollaig na mBam which actually translates as women’s Christmas. There are lots of traditions about this which you can read about in my next blog.
This time of year is the perfect time to roll out my favourite Irish saying. Go mbeirimid beo ag an am seo arís. This translates as May we all be alive at this time next year. Its pronunciation is guh meh-rim-eed be-o egg un am shuh ar-eesh.
The word Beo means alive or life and the word arís means again. As with many things in Irish the direct translation doesn’t work so well and the more literal translation would be may we live at this time again.
Like with any language the key is to give it a shot and to practice wishing people Merry Christmas in Irish. So all that is left is to wish you all Nollaig Shona Daoibh.
sláinte
