# Question for Irish Speakers **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062 "2017-02-17T15:40:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/1 "2017-02-17T15:40:40Z")
Here’s hoping that **An Gadaí** and some of the others from Éire show up and chime in. I apologize if this post looks like a series of one-line “paragraphs”. I am looking for information about the word “uimh”, which Google Translate indicates is a synonym for “no”. However, I can’t find it in Foclóir Scoile or on teanglann.ie. When I search online, I see the word comes up many times as an abbreviation for “uimhir”. Example: Rialachan (CE) Uimh. 2271/96 = Regulation (EC) No 2271/96. Since “no.” is the English abbreviation for “number” (and they say Gaelic makes no sense! :dubious:), I am wondering if somewhere along the way, some eejit conflated “uimh.” with “no.” (both with the periods indicating an abbreviation). For example, on one site, I have come across the phrase “uimh bhealach”, and according to various places, it is translated at “no way”. Is this really the case? Can “uimh” be used as a synonym for the word, “No” (the negation, not the number abbreviation)? ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/2 "2017-02-17T20:17:41Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/3 "2017-02-17T21:05:07Z")
Does Gaelic even \*have \*a word for no? ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/4 "2017-02-17T22:23:59Z")
Don’t speak Irish, but I can play around with Google Translate with the best of them 😃 FWIW, Google Translate will translate both of these Irish sentences into English as “I have no house”. The sentence in red may be ungrammatical in Irish based on **hibernicus’s** response above: _ **Tá mé aon teach** **Tá mé uimh teach** _ You can substitute other Irish nouns for _teach_ (“house”) and get similar results. But Google Translate does have some weirdness sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/5 "2017-02-17T23:06:44Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Don’t speak Irish, but I can play around with Google Translate with the best of them 😃 > > FWIW, Google Translate will translate both of these Irish sentences into English as “I have no house”. The sentence in red may be ungrammatical in Irish based on **hibernicus’s** response above: > > _ **Tá mé aon teach** > **Tá mé uimh teach** _ > > You can substitute other Irish nouns for _teach_ (“house”) and get similar results. But Google Translate does have some weirdness sometimes. Both the blue and red sentences are ungrammatical (and nonsensical). The correct translation for “I have no house” is “Níl aon teach agam”. Don’t trust Google Translate. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/6 "2017-02-17T23:14:26Z")
> [@BobArrgh](#): > > Since “no.” is the English abbreviation for “number” (and they say Gaelic makes no sense! :dubious:), I am wondering if somewhere along the way, some eejit conflated “uimh.” with “no.” (both with the periods indicating an abbreviation). I think it’s possible that some eejit made that mistake, and also possible that it’s a computer generated error. In any event, you are correct that uimh. is an abbreviation for uimhir meaning number, and does not mean “no”. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/7 "2017-02-17T23:21:31Z")
I was actually thinking about the word “no” as in “opposite of yes” not as in “not having some of…” For instance, if you translate. “No! I see no house.” into French you get “Non! Je ne vois pas de maison.” rather than “Non! Je vois non maison” or even “Non! Je non vois maison” Admittedly this may be a tangent since I’m not sure which sort of “no” the OP was interested it - the ‘no’ in ‘no way’ would be the second type. I expect there’s a grammatical term for this distinction, which a proper linguist would know… ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/8 "2017-02-17T23:26:36Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > But Google Translate does have some weirdness sometimes. Some weirdness is a bit of an understatement. I find it only useful to get a gyst of what the original language text was about, and sometimes not even that in languages far away from English. It’s a very very rough tool for translation. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/9 "2017-02-18T01:44:12Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I was actually thinking about the word “no” as in “opposite of yes” not as in “not having some of…” > > For instance, if you translate. “No! I see no house.” into French you get “Non! Je ne vois pas de maison.” rather than “Non! Je vois non maison” or even “Non! Je non vois maison” > > Admittedly this may be a tangent since I’m not sure which sort of “no” the OP was interested it - the ‘no’ in ‘no way’ would be the second type. > > I expect there’s a grammatical term for this distinction, which a proper linguist would know… You’re correct, that Irish doesn’t really have a “no” or a “yes.” There are workarounds; I’m not as competent as **Hibernicus** or **An Gadaí** , but I think your “No!” would be “Ní héa,” which is a two-syllable complete sentence (adverb + verb (+unexpressed subject)), as opposed to English “no!”, which is an adverb alone, or an exclamation if you’d rather. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/10 "2017-02-18T23:34:00Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I was actually thinking about the word “no” as in “opposite of yes” not as in “not having some of…” > > For instance, if you translate. “No! I see no house.” into French you get “Non! Je ne vois pas de maison.” rather than “Non! Je vois non maison” or even “Non! Je non vois maison” I think it’s a bit of an accident that we use the same word “no” in English to mean “not any”, as I can’t think of any other language that does this. In German it would be “kein Haus”, in Dutch “geen huis” and in Swedish “inget hus”. According to the OED, this “no” is a shortened form of “none”. As for the meaning you are wondering about (the opposite of yes), Irish doesn’t have a generally applicable word for “yes” or “no”; you reply to yes/no questions by repeating the verb. “Did you see the house?” “I saw” or “I didn’t see”. “Ní heá” can mean no but only in certain circumstances where the verb is a form of “is” meaning “to be”. “Is this your propeller hat?” “Ní heá” but “Did you steal my propeller hat?” “Níor ghoid” ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/11 "2017-02-20T01:33:04Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > As for the meaning you are wondering about (the opposite of yes), Irish doesn’t have a generally applicable word for “yes” or “no”; you reply to yes/no questions by repeating the verb. > “Did you see the house?” “I saw” or “I didn’t see”. > > “Ní heá” can mean no but only in certain circumstances where the verb is a form of “is” meaning “to be”. > “Is this your propeller hat?” “Ní heá” > but > “Did you steal my propeller hat?” “Níor ghoid” Which leads to one of the distinctive characteristics of Hiberno-English; use of the auxiliary verb in answering a question. “Did you see the house?” “I did” or “I did not”. A British English speaker would recognise either response as emphatic, but in Hiberno-English they’re not emphatic responses. If you wanted an emphatic reponse you’d add an adverb (“I certainly did” or “I did indeed”). ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/12 "2017-02-20T02:16:27Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > I think it’s possible that some eejit made that mistake, and also possible that it’s a computer generated error. In any event, you are correct that uimh. is an abbreviation for uimhir meaning number, and does not mean “no”. Wait, Irish people really use a five-letter (counting the period) abbreviation for a six-letter word? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/13 "2017-02-20T02:49:41Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Wait, Irish people really use a five-letter (counting the period) abbreviation for a six-letter word? Why would you count the period? A period is not a letter. (And arguably the ‘h’ isn’t really a letter either; it’s a diacritic. But let’s not go there.) But the answer is, no, it’s not used very much. Numbers are generally used in Irish without either the word _uimhir_ or any contraction of it preceding them. The word is mostly used in contexts where it would’t be contracted. In circumstances where it might be contracted in English, it’s usually spelled out in Irish. About the only place you’d see the contract used is maybe in a table, where the saving in space might help with the formatting, or something like that. The contraction can’t really be any shorter. You need the consonant, if the contract is to suggest the word, and the consonant is _mh_, not _m_. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/14 "2017-02-20T04:26:56Z")
I read the thread title as “Question for Irish Setters”. I’ve never gotten any useful answers from them, they just wag their tails and look silly. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/15 "2017-02-20T05:14:49Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I read the thread title as “Question for Irish Setters”. > > I’ve never gotten any useful answers from them, they just wag their tails and look silly. You’re putting questions to dogs and you think it’s the the _dogs_ that look silly? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/16 "2017-02-21T01:03:18Z")
**hibernicus** , go raibh maith agat! Thank you for confirming my suspicions that “uimh” was not a valid synonym for “no”. ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-speakers/780062/17 "2017-02-21T01:12:57Z")
Thanks to everyone else, as well. Didn’t mean to leave ye out.