What does the An before most country names in Irish mean? And why does it not appear before Eire and Maltá (not on the map)?

32 comments

1. “The”.

2. The? It’s ‘The’ in ‘An Post’. Maybe the country bit isn’t the name of the country, but the nationality?

   ‘An Fhrain’ the French?

3. In this context it means “heathens” or “barbarians”. The Irish are civilized, but everyone else is a raging horde of mindless brutes. LOL

4. An tAontas Eorpach – the European union.

5. It means “the”

6. Cunts. French cunts, Spanish cunts, Angolan cunts, Madagascan cunts – all cunts, except the Maltese, sound bunch of lads

7. If it’s The, then why isn’t it An Eire?

8. An ucrain. Uh-oh

9. How do I get one of these maps, remember the EU posted them out for free right?

10. Nice to see the Queen got her way and robbed 90% of the population from the Irish Language.

11. “An” means the. It’s given to countries because it means a specific thing like “an duine” means the singular person. Éire is different because the name changes in different contexts such as “An Éireann” and I assume it’s the same for Malta but I’m not sure.

12. [deleted]

13. Definite article same as La France

14. Means ‘The’, similar to saying The Netherlands as an example in English.

    French uses the article a lot, l’Irelande, l’Espagne, l’Italie, etc.

    No article is used for Malta either in French, Malte.

15. You translated the name of my country but not the name of my federal state, i am disappointed

16. It means “the” in the singular

17. An means ‘the’

18. The definite article.

    Doesn’t appear before Albain (Scotland).

    In Scottish it is Alba.

19. It’s the definite article (the).

20. Other countries that don’t take ‘an’ / ‘the’ are Ceanada, Meiriceá, Meicsiceo, Cúba and Neipeal. There are probably others (Éire, Alba and Sasana being previously mentioned).

21. Discrepancy with the island of Ireland there

22. I also have one in Irish. God bless the EU

23. Is duine shimplí mé.

    Feiceann mé Gaeilge, suasvót mé é

24. All of the countries that have the definite article ‘An’ in front of them are feminine nouns. Male countries don’t have ‘An’ in front of them – Meiriceá, Sasana, Ceanada – and most of them have English as a spoken language. The notable exception is ‘Éire’, which is feminine but doesn’t take the definite article.

    Edit: Dammit. So busy giving an Irish grammar lesson I’ve now missed out on the Irish language map it seems 🙁

25. Irish is big on the definite article for singular items. The opposite of Slavic languages. In Hiberno English we tend to use it too “I went to visit the mother” rather than mother, or my mother.

26. It’s the definite article. It’s a thing in English too. See ‘The congo’, ‘The United States’, formerly ‘The Ukraine’

27. It just means “the” I think.

28. I love how many here know their grammar. Beautiful language so it is.

29. American here but a linguistics nerd, is it something like The? Like some languages have “the” before the name of a country

30. In Irish “the” is put before more names than in English.. but the English do too.. Like “The Maldives” or “The Seychelles” , The Netherlands.
    The Germans do it a lot too, I think
    Anyway “An” means “The” in Gaelic

31. Thinks it celtic n viking together but could be wrong just pulling this outta me arse lol

32. The country of somet maybe way by when like the country of spain etc in celtic Irish