Éile
Does anyone know anything about the Irish female name Éile, pronounced AY-la?
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My Gaelic dictionaries say that eile means "other" or "another"...perhaps it could come from that? I also found information about the Iron Age tribe Éile Ui Chearbhaill (Ely O'Carroll), which also gave rise to several place names...that's another possibility.
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I don't think it's related to eile, because of the accent on the first e. I'd never heard of the Éile Uí Chearbhaill though. Thanks for your help!
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Off Topic...Where on earth did you find a Gaelic dictonary? I've been trying to learn Gaelic for ages!
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GaelicWell, for something like this I use http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/index.html at Ceantar.org. It's a collection of dictionaries for different dialects of Gaelic; they're not entirely comprehensive and are certainly not what you would want to learn any form of Gaelic, but they're fine for looking up individual words. The format is a bit outdated but perfectly serviceable. They also have a list of Gaelic lessons online; the first thing to do of course is to decide what dialect you'd like to learn. Probably, you'd do Irish Gaelic as it's the most widely spoken (which isn't saying THAT much, but it's something) and there are the most resources available for it. That list is here: http://www.ceantar.org/Lessons/index.htmlHowever, if you're serious I would suggest checking out Teach Yourself Gaelic (there's a book and accompanying tape/CD). Your local library may have it, or you can get it from Amazon.com (although if you're going to buy it I have to tell you to first check a locally owned independent bookstore and see if they can order it for you! Much better to support local businesses!). The Teach Yourself books are a well-respected language learning series, and I've found them very helpful and nicely done.
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I hope this doesn't confuse the issue but Manx(Gaelg), Scots gaelic(Gàidhlig) and Irish(Gaeilge) are each different languages not different dialects. Sots Gaelic has many similarities to Irish, Manx less as far as I know. There are several different dialects within Irish(Gaeilge). Irish people don't ever call it Gaelic. If you can't go classes I recommend tapes or CDs to learn Irish. I can only imagine how hard it would be to learn Irish from the written page alone. The pronunciation is idiosyncratic to say the least. There are plenty of foclóirs(dictionaries)for sale on Amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. You'll need a gramadach or grammar book as well.http://www.englishirishdictionary.com/dictionary is a good online Irish/English dictionary.Ádh mór ort/Good luck.
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Thank you very much!
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