Dear Jerry Thank you so much for your reply which I have printed out for further study. It will take a while to absorb. Your knowledge is exceeded only by your good looks. Jerry Kelly <jerrykelly@att.net> wrote: Hi Philip, Thank you and good question. Just as you point out, in the nominative case (using any of these words as the subject of a sentence), � is grandson, N� is grand-daughter and used as the female form of � surnames, Mac is son, and Nic is a word for daughter used in the female form of Mac surnames. Ua is an older form of � which is still used in some dialects. � is an older form of the word U� meaning 'descendants' which is used in tribe names (U� Fhiachrach) and as the plural of � surnames. For example, U� Dhomhnaill means O'Donnells. Mic ('Sons') or the older Meic is used as the plural of Mac surnames. For example, "T� na Mic �dhaimh anseo do l�n" means 'The Mac Adams are here for lunch." For a number of grammatical reasons, including adding the word Na (plural 'the' in the nominative case) to the tribe name or plural surname, 'h' is added before a vowel. So we wind up with Na hU� Fhiachrach ('the U� Fhiachrach') or Na hU� Cheallaigh ('the O'Kellys'). So that's an example of when you'll see hU� or h� in the Irish texts, which wind up as Hui or Hi or Hy in the English texts. But there's more. Partly because Irish is a couple of thousand years older than English, Irish is a more elegant and complicated language than English. So we had an accusative case (the nominative is used in its place today), we have a dative case (using the word as the object of a preposition), we have a vocative case (addressing the person, place, or thing when speaking to it) and we have a genitive case (using the word as the object of an understood but unstated 'of'). Taking the genitive case as an example, U� means 'of grandson' and is the genitive of �. When used in the genitive, � or Ua means 'of descendants' and is the genitive of U�. In contrast, English has none of this, having developed as a barter pidgen between German-speaking Anglo-Saxons and French-speaking Normans at country markets during the Middle Ages ("Me wantum porque, you Anglo-Saxon chien" / "No, no getum porque, only pig today, you Norman dog."). Not really the basis for an elegant language. English got its first dictionary in 1755 (Samuel Johnson). The Irish language's earliest surviving dictionaries date to the 7th century in the form of lengthy and detailed multi-lingual glossaries and are based on the 6th century exemplars of Isidore of Seville (pre-Islamic Christian Spain). Hope that's helpful, Jerry Kelly NA GAEIL MAGAZINE (coming soon to an internet near you) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip OBrien" To: Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 3:28 PM Subject: Re: [Irish-American] Murray/Mulvey - Roscommon I do appreciate your knowledge and your contribution to this page. Perhaps you could answer these questions that I have ben wondering about for a while. I know that the prefix O' means grandson and Ni' means granddaughterbut what do the prefixes Ua, Ha and Hi mean when used with a surname? Thanks Philip O'Brien ==== IRISH-AMERICAN Mailing List ==== The IRISH-AMERICAN Mailing List Website and Lookup Service http://www.connorsgenealogy.com/IrishAmerican/ Use this to unsub, change your subscription, links, etc.