Lessoon Shey Feed as Tree-Jeig: Gammanyn ny hEllanyn
Lesson One Hundred and Thirty-Three: The Island Games

shey feed as tree-jeig (SHAY-FEED-azz-TREE-jegg) - 133
gamman (GAMM-an) - game; sport
‘Gammanyn ny hEllanyn’ (GAMM-an-un-na-HELL-yan-un) means ‘The Games of the Islands’. We do not say ‘Ny Gammanyn ny hEllanyn’, just as we don’t say ‘Yn Cronk ny Mona’. In Celtic languages in general, when we want to say ‘The X of the Y’, the first ‘the’ is not needed - the Celtic expression consists of three words (the ‘Celtic 1-2-3’).

Ealish: Ta mee lhaih dy vel hoght feed as jees dy ‘leih goll voish Mannin dys Gammanyn ny hEllanyn ayns Gibraltar. ‘Gammanyn ny Greiney’ t’ad gra roo. Bee eh grianagh dy liooar ayns shen.
Catreeney: Ta ny gammanyn shoh ayn dy chooilley chor vlein, nagh vel?
Ealish: Ta. V’ad ayns Ellan Eeaght daa vlein er dy henney.

Note how Ealish says ‘a hundred and sixty-two people’ - ‘hoght feed as jees dy ‘leih’ (HAWKH-FEED-azz-JEESS-the-LY). Literally, this is ‘eight twenties and two of people’.

goll (gull) - going
voish Mannin (vush-MANN-in) - from Mann
Gammanyn ny Greiney (GAMM-an-un-na-GRAYN-ya) - the Sun Games

Here we have another Celtic 1-2-3: ‘Gammanyn ny Greiney’ translates as ‘The Games of the Sun’. The basic word for ‘sun’ is ‘grian’ (GREE-an). In what we might call ‘Classical Manx’, ‘grian’ has the special form ‘greiney’ which is used to express ‘of the sun’ or ‘of sun’.
Using technical language, ‘greiney’ is the genitive form of ‘grian’.
There was a strong tendency in Manx to drop the genitive forms of nouns, so an alternative expression is ‘Gammanyn y Ghrian’ (GAMM-an-un-a-GHREE-an). Yet another way to say ‘The Sun(shine) Games’ is ‘Ny Gammanyn-Greiney’ (na-GAMM-an-un-GRAYN-ya).

t’ad gra roo (tadd-GRAA-roo) - they call them
Word for word, ‘t’ad gra roo’ means ‘they are saying to them’. This is how ‘call’ is expressed. Taking another example:
C’red t’ad gra ree? (KERR-id-tadd-GRAA-ree) - What do they call her?
(‘What are they saying to her?’)

bee eh (BEE-a) - it will be
grianagh (GREE-an-akh) - sunny
dy chooilley chor vlein (the-KHULL-ya-khor-VLAYN) - every other year
v’ad (vadd) - they were
Ellan Eeaght (ELL-yan-EE-aght) - the Isle of Wight
daa vlein (daa-vlayn) - two years
er dy henney (er-the-HINN-ya) - ago