Eedjit: are you one?

 

My father-in-law was a child in Ireland during the Depression.  He was surrounded by first cousins, uncles, aunts...As an adult, the only Gaelic words he remembered were swear words.  He used this word below a lot.

County Longford...where my father-in-law lived.

The Irish words for “idiot” are eedjit, amadάn, and amaid. Amάdan means “fool” and amaid means “foolish woman”. Obviously, these are more formal Irish.  

But, eedjit?

Eedjit is the everydayIrish word for idiot.  Chances are it was changed to “eedjit” by the Irish to refer to the English word “idiot.  

Here are some thoughts from another site:

Eedjit:

Eedjit is one English man, so……

Sure and, Eedjits is more than one Englishman….

Dinna ye know: Eedjit is bein’ one sandwich short of a picnic….

Eedjits was stolen from the Scottish language, Eejits.  And I bloody well know…

Hard tae swallie, bein’ an eedjit is official, dey up and put it in de Scottish dictionary…

                         póg mo thóin

Dad knew many words and phrases.  This is one he really liked.

Potato vs. Potatoes

Languages are peculiar, different, exciting, embarrassing...and everything else.  Some words move easily from one language to another, since those are was are called "Romance Languages".  Latin was the primary source, and words morphed from Italy to Europe, and onward. German comes from middle Europe initially and then also morphed with other languages that shared their own Indo-European source.  

This is all well and good. We love to hear from where our existence developed and the words that sprang out of that.

So here are a few languages, introducing a vocabulary as well as the formation of the word.  

I confess that I put these out there because these are so creative. My husband lived with a German family when he was attending a German language school in the late 1960s. Here it is nearly 50 years later, and he still remembers a lot.

Our oldest grandson (8 yrs)  in Switzerland has announced that he speaks four languages: British English, American English, German, and Swiss German. Dang, he does!  

  In 30+ years ago, when we lived in Ireland, our children learned English and Irish Gaelic.  Our oldest was 10 yrs. old, and wasn't required to learn the Irish. Our son was in 2nd grade and daughter was in Jr. Infants (young Kgt) He became quite fluent, so much so that his teacher wanted him to skip a year.

Anyway, the song above is one of the most used and appreciated country songs. After hearing the uniqueness of the Irish language in song, it is easy to fall in love with Ireland, the Irish, the Gaelic language, the food, the ale, stout, ....

Languages are crazy amazing.