Manx/Lessoon 1

Lessoon 1: Bannaghtyn Lesson 1: Greetings!

Cohaggloo (Dialogue)
Juan arrives to the Isle of Man. He is quite anxious to try out his Manx. He greets someone and by pure coincidence, the gentleman also speaks Manx.

Enmyn (Nouns)
This book is teaching under the assumption that the learner has not had any language learning experience. (If you have studied languages such as German, Latin, Russian, or Icelandic, then this might come easy for you). In Manx, we have gender, cases and mutations. We will not get so much into this at the moment, as you just are in the beginning stages of the language, but we will get you familiarised with these terms and functions so you are prepared for them in the future.

Gender in Manx began with a masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. In Modern Manx, we only have the masculine and feminine gender, with masculine being the majority of the nouns' gender. This means that each and every noun in Manx has gender, which is either masculine or feminine. Unlike Spanish or French, there is not set rule to determine whether a noun is masculine or feminine, but most of the time the noun will be masculine. There is though natural gender. This means that words relating to females would be feminine, and words relating to males would be masculine. For example, ayr means father, so it is obviously masculine, whilst moir is mother which is feminine.

Cases in Manx are not so essential as they were when the language first was spoken. At the early stages of the language, there were 6 cases, (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative, and ablative). You'll be glad to know that there are now only 3 cases used in Manx, the nominative, dative, and genitive. Which in reality we still use in English, for example (I, me, to me, mine). The nominative and accusative case in Manx has combined into the nominative, while the ablative has combined with the dative. The vocative case was a latin influence that was used when talking to someone, which has faded away in Manx. Don't worry too much about what all of these big words mean at the moment, we will examine each case in future lessons.

The final aspect of Manx nouns which is important to be aware of is the dreaded Mutation. This feature is very unique and essential in all Celtic languages. It is where the first few consonants or just the first one of a noun changes due to the preceding words. For example, you might have seen that Ellan Vannin means The Isle of Man in Manx. But did you know that the actual word for Man in Manx is mannin in it's non-mutated form? This can occur from either case or just certain words have certain effects on mutation. There are Lenition (aspirtated) and Eclipsis (nasal) mutations in Manx. In fact, these mutations help us speak the language more easily and naturally instead of forcing a strict pronunciation as we tend to do in English.

All of this will become more clear in time, as for now, just be aware that these key features exist in Manx so they don't scare you when we get into them. Again, if this all seems too complicated, it's perfectally natural, since all of these are rather new to English speakers. In time this will all become very easy and natural.

Far-enmyn (Pronouns)
Pronouns are nouns which substitute other nouns in a certain phrase or sentence. For example, in English pronouns are I, you, he, she, it. In Manx, there are personal pronouns and emphatic pronouns. The personal pronouns are used like the English pronouns of I, you, he, she, it. The emphatic pronouns are somewhat like the English versions of self, though are not reflexive. To make them reflexive, you just add hene after them. (Like in the phrase, as uss hene - and yourself?). In this lesson we will only cover the singular forms of the pronouns.

The polite form of you, (shiu, shiush) is used in polite speech, say talking to a teacher, a stranger, someone with authority, or someone you are unfamilar with. The familiar form of you, (oo, uss) is used when talking to your family, your friends, people whom you know very well and are close to, or a dog or pet. Although it is becoming more common to just use oo (the familiar form) due to influence from the English.

In Manx, there is no direct word for it. Instead, you use eh and ee, depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine.

Ta (To be)
Ta is the first verb of Manx you will learn about. It works rather different than in English, but if you are familiar with Scottish Gaelic or Irish, then this should be easy for you. To make a simple statement in English, you say I am, You are, He is, She is. In Manx, we say the opposite, Am I, Are you, Is he, Is she. The easy thing about Manx is that Ta will always remain Ta, except if followed by a vowel, which it will be contracted and drop the a. For example:

Now go back to the vocabulary list and see if you can point out the pronouns in the phrases we have learnt!

Enmyn (Names)
Most Manx names have a strong influence from the Vikings and Celts. There are some names that have influence from Latin, Hebrew, and Greek too. Though today, due the strong influence of the English language and culture, you will find English names too on the Isle of Man, so this list below might be a bit traditional and hard to come by people bearing these names. But let's take a look at some Manx names.

Çhyndaa (Translate)
Translate the following words from Manx to English.

1. Fastyr mie 2. Gura mie ayd 3. Kys t'ou? 4. Slane 5. Oie vie 6. Ta'n ennym orrym Thorstein

Toshiaght (Introduction)
Answer the following questions about yourself.

1. Kys t'ou? 2. Cre'n ennym t'ort?