{"id":17417,"date":"2022-10-20T20:08:52","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T00:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17417"},"modified":"2022-10-20T20:08:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T00:08:52","slug":"there-are-no-gaelic-yes-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17417","title":{"rendered":"There are no Gaelic yes-men."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/8\/85\/The_chatterbox_book_of_soldiers_and_sailors_%281910%29_%2814569371847%29.jpg\/640px-The_chatterbox_book_of_soldiers_and_sailors_%281910%29_%2814569371847%29.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I\u2019m currently reading <\/strong>a book of history, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Faded-Map-Lost-Kingdoms-Scotland-ebook\/dp\/B082XQP316\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=399L0MYYC5BNK&amp;keywords=the+faded+map+moffat&amp;qid=1666308763&amp;qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjkwIiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ%3D%3D&amp;sprefix=the+faded+map+moffat%2Caps%2C127&amp;sr=8-1&amp;tag=brandbooks-20\">The Faded Map<\/a><\/em> by Alistair Moffat. It\u2019s about ancient Scotland. In it I found this passage, which is of particular interest when considering the English language, which is spoken by so many of our readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Scots Gaelic is not like English, German or any of the Latin-based languages of southern Europe. There is no word for yes or for no. If a Gaelic speaker asks <em>A bheil an t\u2019acras ort?<\/em> (\u2018Are you hungry?\u2019), the answers use the verb forms <em>Tha <\/em>(\u2018I am\u2019) or <em>Chaneil <\/em>(\u2018I am not\u2019). This makes for greater precision and clearer understanding on either side of a question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, one of my grandfather\u2019s favorites jokes would have been impossible if he&#8217;d been a Gael. If somebody asked Grandpa a question of choice, like, \u201cWould you like apple or blueberry pie?\u201d Grandpa would answer, \u201cYes.\u201d Taking advantage, as you see, of the ambiguity of our English usage. (And possibly getting himself more pie.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Languages evolve to deal with universal and localized communication problems, but they solve them in different ways. No language is superior to any other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Except for English, of course. English is the best. Sure, it\u2019s irrational in many ways, but that\u2019s just to keep the riffraff out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, Norwegian is pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m currently reading a book of history, The Faded Map by Alistair Moffat. It\u2019s about ancient Scotland. In it I found this passage, which is of particular interest when considering the English language, which is spoken by so many of our readers. Scots Gaelic is not like English, German or any of the Latin-based languages &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17417\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">There are no Gaelic yes-men.<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[4399,4398,1605,2512,4400],"class_list":["post-17417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","category-reading","tag-alistair-moffat","tag-gaelic","tag-languages","tag-scotland","tag-the-faded-map"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17418,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17417\/revisions\/17418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}