Analysis: Anyone can submit a request for a word to be translated into Gaeilge and a language committee goes to work to draft the new term
How are the Irish words for catfish, enshittification and rizz created? There's actually an entire committee in place that works on translating or creating in the region of 2,000 to 3,000 new Irish words every year. These words get added to the official terminology database, which currently holds around 168,000 bilingual entries.
An Bunachar Náisiúnta Téarmaíochta don Ghaeilge/The National Terminology Database for Irish has been running since 2004, and is managed by the Gaois research group in Dublin City University's Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, in partnership with Foras na Gaeilge’s An Coiste Téarmaíochta/Terminology Committee.
Anyone can submit a request for a word to be translated, explains Dr Gearóid Ó Cleircín from DCU’s Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, who also sits on the committee. "Basically the requests will come in, the person is generally asked to provide a term in English and then usually a definition as well, explaining the term, or maybe giving an example or two of the term in use in an English text. Then the terminologists will check the definitions, they might decide it's not a great definition, and they might try to find a better one themselves, and then they'll draft what they think would be a a decent Irish version."
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Brainstorm, here are 15 slang words as Gaeilge to use this week
The committee has around 25 members, who are writers, academics, journalists, linguists and representatives of different Gaeltacht regions. It includes two permanent staff members who research and prepare lists of draft terms for the committee to consider at monthly meetings, where they discuss and approve roughly 100 to 150 terms a meeting.
A lot of the terms would be random, relating to different fields of activity from sports, to entertainment, to sciences, he explains. Some requests are individual, one-offs, while other requests might come from someone working on a technical text, like a translator, who could submit 10 or 20 requests in one go. In other cases, the committee might work on a specific field to make sure that field is properly catered for in Irish, explains Ó Cleircín. As an example, the committee recently worked on terms relating to fertility treatment.
Meanwhile, EU institutions are undertaking the translation of "huge volumes of technical legislation every year," he says, across various areas like sciences, trade, technology, agriculture and transport. They have their own database called IATE (Interactive Terminology for Europe), which contains terms across all official EU languages, including Irish, and Ó Cleircín says there are plans in place to link these.
From RTÉ Brainstorm, 5 great Irish words you may not have heard before
What’s the translation process like?
Some words are easier than others to translate or create. There is a handbook that lays out the approach, and it's based on international standards for terminology work, he explains. The process is "fairly mechanical in a lot of cases, you’re literally just combining words or elements, prefixes and suffixes: building blocks of words that exist in the language anyway." Ó Cleircín uses the example of the term 'technical metadata’ in English, where the word for both already exists in Irish, so the resulting term in Irish is compound term: meiteashonraí teicniúla.
Newer concepts, however, especially those related to popular culture, are more challenging. Using the more recent word ‘negging’ (‘feallmhealladh le díspeagadh’) as an example, he explains: "The element ‘neg’ doesn’t exist in Irish, so you have to try and find something that works. But it mightn’t necessarily be as straightforward. In English, it’s quite easy to create a verb by adding ‘ing’, but in Irish it might not be. So you might have to translate it in a more literal way."
This can lead to Irish terms being longer and less snappy than their English equivalents. "It's always hard to predict, but it’ll often lead to quite a lot of discussion and a lot of different opinions, whether we should try this or that, and that's where it tends to be trickier." Where you don’t have the building blocks, that’s where it takes some "time and creativity," Ó Cleircín says.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Brainstorm, what's behind Irish language's religious roots?
An important part of the process is making sure the term doesn't already exist, so that they don’t create a superfluous term. Sometimes a term might not be in the database, but already be in use in other sources, like in the media or on social media. That kind of research is carried out by the full time terminologists on the committee.
One of the relatively uncommon aspects of Irish, is that there is an emphasis on translating or gaelicizing everything that comes in from English. "We don’t generally accept English loan words", explains Ó Cleircín. "Even if it happens all the time in spoken Irish, in written Irish, you’ll always see the words are spelled in a gaelicized way or they’re translated in a different direction entirely, like for example with catfish. It’s probably pretty obvious why that is: a historical desire to separate Irish from English, and to stand on our own two feet, if you like. French would be sort of similar, they’re very reluctant as well to accept English loan words."
Read more: Ireland's language shift: when Irish speakers switched to English
In many other European languages, "they just take the English verb and they might add an ending to it, but it’ll be clear that it’s an English word that’s been taken into the language. Whereas in Irish we try not to do that."
Catfish: cluanaí fíorúil
The approach here is to translate the concept (someone who sets up a fake online persona with the intent of deception) rather than the English word which is derived from the title of a documentary film about the practice. The word 'cluanaí' means a 'deceiver or flatterer' while 'fíorúil' means 'virtual' in the online context which is where catfishing takes place.
Enshittification: suarú
This was Merriam-Webster's world of the year for 2024 and refers to the phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. Here 'suarú' a form of the existing verb 'suaraigh' (meaning 'to demean' or 'to vulgarise') is given a new meaning.
Rizz: meallacacht
This is a relatively recent coining in English that has become widely used and refers to a person's ability to charm and attract attention from a potential love interest. Again, the Committee felt that there was an existing Irish word that carried the same meaning and they proposed 'meallacacht' which translates as 'desirability', 'allure', charm' and now 'rizz'!
Follow RTÉ Brainstorm on WhatsApp and Instagram for more stories and updates
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
