TWEETS FROM DINNEEN.

November 5, 2012 by 6 Comments

I mentioned Dinneen‘s Irish dictionary here, and I still mourn my copy gone these thirty years and more, so it’s some consolation that the late lexicographer has a Twitter feed, @AnDuinnineach: “Irish lexicographer, historian, caped-crusader. I’ve got words for things you didn’t even know you needed to say. First published in 1904. WORD.” A recent entry: “sclogtha, a., unable to gasp. Táim sclogtha leis an dtart, I am unable to gasp from thirst.” Enjoy!

Comments

  1. Amy de Buitléir says
    November 5, 2012 at 8:34 pm

    Didi you know that an electronic copy of Dinneen is available here:
    http://archive.org/details/irishenglishdict011837mbp
    I also have an OCR’d version; I’ll see if I can find the link.

  2. Stan says
    November 6, 2012 at 6:14 am

    I’ve been following this Twitter account for a while and it’s a consistent pleasure. “Words for things you didn’t even know you needed to say” is an apt description: it showcases the language’s wonderful range of obscurely precise Irish terms.
    It would be great if the featured words and phrases were supplemented by a pronunciation note for people unfamiliar with Irish, or by etymological information, but space is at a premium on Twitter so these are understandable omissions.

  3. languagehat says
    November 6, 2012 at 8:05 am

    Thanks, Amy! Here‘s a direct link, for anyone else who might be interested.

  4. D-AW says
    November 6, 2012 at 4:34 pm

    If you like Dinneen you may like Ian Duhig’s poem, “From the Irish”:
    http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=346

  5. languagehat says
    November 6, 2012 at 8:40 pm

    I do, and I was just wondering what to post (after deleting many hundreds of spam comments)—thanks!

  6. John Cowan says
    March 11, 2019 at 8:12 am

    I note that star has exactly the same sense in English as in Dineen: ‘the mark on the forehead of a beast’, and the usage goes back to OE, where it appears as a gloss for frontalia, the ultimate source of English frontlet ‘decoration worn on the forehead’. I smell a calque (whose odor is not as strong as the smell of a Wumpus, but equally characteristic).

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