Good question!

The one thing we are all agreed on is that all really useful things in society are done by women. This thread can be closed now that that very important finding has been established......

We don't need to hear about chairmen, postmen, milkmen etc. etc.

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Incorrect. Dinneen was published in 1904. Altra on its own already had the meaning of "nurse" in the sense of "someone who cares for people who are ill" by that time.

So French and Danish have both chosen to be illogical. (Why is it that people think English influence is so "evil" but French or Danish examples are somehow relevant. ) For what it's worth, Japanese has also adopted gender-neutral 看護師 in place of 看護婦, which contains a female character.

Unlike any of those languages, Irish already had a gender-neutral term to fall back on - or to co-opt, if you prefer to call it that, but it doesn't really matter which way you look at it - it is there to be used.

Altra might seem strange for now, since people have gotten used to banaltra (and ingrained views that only women become nurses), and the change is quite recent (on both counts), but it is quite a logical change and people will soon get used to it. Surely using altra makes more sense than to say fir banaltra for "male nurse".


Native speakers of English usually prefer terms like "eye specialist" but it doesn't make technical terms like "ophthalmologist" incorrect. Native speakers use both.

Meabhairshláinte isn't unnatural by the conventions of compound forming in Irish, and there are other precedents such as meabhairghalar.

I'd be interested to know what other educated native speakers feel about these terms. If better-educated native speakers still feel terms like meabhairshláinte are unnatural, then instead of complaining about the mythical "people in offices", perhaps the natives should present their case to An Coiste Téarmaíochta (http://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/Foras_na_G ... mittee.asp) and try to get such terms changed officially.

The machinery for making these kinds of changes is there. It is up to the native speakers to take advantage of it and make themselves heard.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Altra as a back-formation from banaltra is older than Dinneen, but it was never very common, and it had almost completely fallen out of use again by the early 20th century when Dinneen wrote his dictionary, and altra on its own had gone back to being a somewhat obscure word. (Or at least, that’s what I was told earlier this year by a teacher of mine)


English influence isn’t necessarily ‘evil’. The only thing is that the English influence on Irish in particular is so massive and ubiquitous that it is threatening the existence of the language itself, and has done so for a few centuries.

French and Danish examples are only relevant inasmuch as they give similar examples of how a once gender-specific word can easily become gender-neutral without having to actually change the form of the word at all.


Absolutely, though I see no reason that mentioning someone’s gender is even vaguely necessary. I wouldn’t normally talk about a ‘male nurse’ in English, either (or a ‘female nurse’, for that matter), since the gender will often be evident or already known; and if it isn’t, it’s rarely relevant. Just ‘nurse’ will do fine. And I have no problem with banaltra being gender-neutral, just as I have no problem with sygeplejerske or ‘midwife’ being gender-neutral.

I also have no problems with gender-neutral forms of words being made up—new forms of words (including gender-neutralising ones) do crop up naturally in languages. ‘Sibling’ is a good (well, semi-good) example of that.

What I do think is silly is when commissions and boards decide that some words are not politically correct enough as they are (even though everyone’s been using them for eons with no notion of sexism, racism, or any other ism intended), and need to be chopped up and made into something else. Very often, there’s no real need for this chopping up, since the original word has already been effectively gender-neutral in normal speech for a long time.


(Incidentally, the form given by FGB is banaltra fir, not fir banaltra, which sounds quite odd. But banaltra fir to me sounds more like ‘a man’s nurse’ than a male nurse.)


I know that the teacher I mentioned above has done this on many occasions. In some (rare) cases, it’s actually effected a change, though in most cases, his suggestions have been somewhat ignored. He is not fond of the Germanic-style compounding, either.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

I know banaltra is not a new word but it has a coined feel to it.
Reminds me of school books - Tá mamaí ina banalta agus daidí ina dhochtúir.
Actually around here most people would say "nurse" when speaking in Irish. It is a compound word afterall. Up until recently male nurses were a rarity (except maybe in mental instutions) so why was "ban" added at all. I prefer Altra in this case.
Remember in the old days only the rich English speakers had access to medical care. So they had no need for words like banaltra. On the other hand midwifery was done by local women who learnt from generation to generation. (my own grandmother did it but she wasn't "officially" qualified).


Meabhairshláinte / meabhairghalar - I know they are correct terms but I prefer -
Sláinte Meabhair / Galar meabhair - rather than compound words.

Bangarda is diffinitely a coined word. Before Independence we didn't have gardaí. We had the British police (póilis?). Bangarda was the Irish equalivant of WPC in English (woman police constable) a term that is still officially used in the UK.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Not surprising. Do you know how people say "nurse" in Welsh? Nyrs :)



That's the contrary of what should be done : the Coiste Téarmaíochta should first ask Gaeltacht speakers how they say. And if they have no word, create a word (according to the Modern Irish language, not according to English).



Maybe they have other things to do. I wonder how many Gaeltacht speakers do contact the CT to offer their words, to replace "new words".
Btw, the Coiste Téarmaíochta inventions don't seem to have much influence on Gaeltacht speech... I don't think Gaeltacht speakers go and search for words on Acmhainn.ie or on Focal.ie in the middle of a conversation...

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

That is interesting.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Exactly. I was going to ask kk, isn't banaltra really a German-style compound as well but I think you've just answered that, a Bhríd.


Okay, that is good to know, a Bhríd.

A dialect question: I think slainte (GCF) is still feminine in Connemara. Could those also be slainte mheabhair and galar meabhair, respectively? Would you ever use (or hear) slainte mheabhrach and galar meabhrach instead?


@others - Working on the idea of using a genitive construction instead of a compound, would CO or Munster be sláinte mheabhrach and galar meabhrach, respectively?

Not being very strong at double genitives, how would we put altra and sláinte mheabhrach together CO-style? Can we just treat sláinte mheabhrach as a unit and lenite (as you would a name) to give altra shláinte mheabhrach? or do we need to look at it differently?

Similarly, would it be ospidéal ghalar meabhrach? or something different?

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

That is probably what I meant to write.


We usually say "easpacil".

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
___________________________________________________________

Nope. Ban- is a prefix, rather than just the lexeme bean used as the first part of a compound.

An easy way to tell the two types of words from each other is stress. In Germanic-style compounds, the first part is given primary stress, and the second part is given secondary stress. In prefix + noun words, the prefix receives primary stress, and the noun is reduced to an unstressed position, if possible.

That’s why the first second a in banaltra is reduced to a schwa in speech, rather than kept as a distinct a: it’s unstressed. If you made a compound of bean and altra, beanaltra, it would be pronounced with a distinct a in the middle, not a schwa.


In a double genitive (i.e., a genitive involving three noun phrases—N1, N2, and N3), two of the involved noun phrases must always make up a unit that qualifies the third—so that you have an ‘outer’ genitive that consists of “A’s B”, and either A or B is itself a genitive that consists of an A and a B. If you express units as being in brackets, the options are:

(N1 N2) N3
N1 (N2 N3)

A unit always acts as though it were a single, indeclinable noun (phrase). It can be either definite or indefinite, and the definiteness (if there is any) can be applied to either one or the other constituent noun phrases, though of course never to both (since two definite articles in a genitive construction is not allowed).

A definite unit that starts with a definite article is of course put into the genitive with the appropriate effects of the article; a definite unit that doesn’t start with a definite article (such as personal names) is always lenited in the genitive (with a few exceptions like Dé, etc.); and an indefinite unit undergoes no inherent mutation when put in the genitive—any mutation applied depends on what the unit is qualifying.

If you have (N1 N2) N3, the unit made up by N1 and N2 is not in the genitive, since it’s the start of the ‘outer’ genitive. N2 will be in the genitive, since it qualifies N1, but the unit (N1 N2) as a whole is not in the genitive.

If you have N1 (N2 N3), the possessor in the ‘outer’ genitive is just N1, and the unit made up by N2 and N3 qualifies N1, meaning it’s in the genitive.

In the case of ‘mental health nurse’ and ‘mental disease hospital’, the words that belong together to form a unit are clearly ‘mental’ and ‘health/disease’. You have (mental [N1] health [N2]) nurse [N3], not mental [N1] (health [N2] nurse [N3].

‘Mental health’/sláinte mheabhrach is an indefinite unit: there are no definite articles or proper names anywhere.

As such, the mutation rules are simply the same as if it were a simple noun. So, using altra, we get simply altra sláinte mheabhrach, and using ospidéal, we get ospidéal galar meabhrach. Though I think the latter would be more likely to be phrased as ospidéal galair mheabhrach ‘hospital for mental diseases’.


Of course, if the units here had been definite, we would have had the following options:

1. First part of the unit is definite, second is indefinite (an sláinte mheabhrach and na galair mheabhrach). Since the unit now starts with a definite article, that article is allowed to mutate the head noun as it would normally: altra na sláinte meabhrach / ospidéal na ngalar meabhrach
2. First part of the unit is indefinite, second part is definite (sláinte/galair na meabhrach). Since the unit contains a definite noun, the unit as a whole is also definite. But it doesn’t start with a definite article, so the secondary rule kicks in, and the unit is lenited in the genitive, but treated as an indeclinable noun phrase (which is logical—you can’t put a whole phrase in the genitive): altra shláinte na meabhrach / ospidéal ghalair na meabhrach

I’m not sure if any of that helped with double genitives (it was meant to), or if it just confused things more for you. But I find it usually helps to think of which part of the ‘outer’ genitive is the unit, and then just treat it as a regular, non-double, genitive.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

I think you have that back to front - or simply incorrect.

Prefixes cause dual stress, i.e., an-mhór, seancharr, etc., where both the prefix and the root word get equal primary stress.

Compounds havee primary and secondary stress which may make the second word sound less stressed.

Whatever the case, compounds with ban- have the same stress pattern as otharcharr, not that of an-mhór, seancharr, etc.


That is excellent. Best explanation I have seen so far. (Saved it to file for later reference.)

So that gives us altra sláinte mheabhrach for "mental health nurse" (CO) if derived from a genitive construction, correct?

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).