Talk:Tuatha Dé Danann

Recent quote attributed to Rawlinson

Before anyone goes to see if Rawlinson actually wrote that, he didn't. It is copied from "Genesis of the Grail Kings" by fringe authot Laurence Gardner.[1] Dougweller (talk) 15:21, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Mountains of the Conmaiche in Connacht

This place is identified as Slieve Anierin. Nmclough (talk) 08:19, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Points with respect to the name.

Why is this article relying on an American for a translation of simple to understand Irish? Why is any citation, here, needed at all? One doesn't need a citation to establish the meaning of the English words "John's hat", or the Spanish equivalent of the aforementioned.

Dé is, as can be clearly seen, a capitalised, proper noun. It should be translated as such. Why is it not capitalised (Wikipedia follows normal rules of grammar etc.).

Dé is the possessive, genitive form of "Dia", in English, "God". That is to say it means "God's", and nothing else, most certainly not "gods" (with is neither singulsr nor genitive).

To imply Dé is the plural form of god is deceptive nonsense.

To imply Dé means "goddess" is also deceptive nonsense. Goddess would also be "dia" with the prefix "ban" for woman. It doesn't say bandia.

To then imply Dé means both plural "gods" and singular "goddess" simultaneously is beyond ridiculous.

Dé means "God's" and nothing other than this, in the past and present time.

"Tuath" means country or kingdom as well as the people of the country, a designation one in the same. This should be clearly explained in the initial translation. "Tuatha" may refer specifically to the "people" of the Tuath, in this context ("people" by the very nature of the word implies a plurality of human beings without need for the "s" affix. To imply it means "peoples" would imply "more than one race" and this, once again, is not what is communicated. It is another error.

Also, there are no prepositions such as [tribe] "of the" [goddess Danaan]. We can't just invent and insert non-existant prepositions (even if deceptive mistranslators have done, to fit an even greater mistranslation). They must be removed as false.

"Tuatha Dé" is "God's people", Tuatha Dé is "God's kingdom" or "God's country", where God's people dwell. Simples.

If arguing, with respect to the late scribal addition "Danaan", altered once Christianity was universally accepted across Europe, is part of the genitive (possessive) noun "God's..." then the English should be Danaan God's People.

To argue Tuatha Dé is "people of gods" or "tribe of gods" is pure nonsense, due to a deceptive withdrawal of the apostrophe. Should one wish the words to go in that order that is fine, as "people of God's." or "tribe of God's", but this not natural in English, where the genitive proper noun comes first giving 'God's people" or "God's tribe".

The deity refered to is the great God, the Lord Almighty, as was in beginning, now and ever shall be. People just buy into this garbled, pantheonic nonsense as they lack understanding of the structure...

Hello IP 149.254.235.27,

To begin with, I've moved this to the bottom, because this is the convention on Wikipedia: The newest conversation is always placed at the bottom of the page, as when the page is sufficiently filled the upper conversations are moved to an archive. Do not move it back up, please, if you do it will just be ignored.

Your points are not entirely wrong, and it is a bit bizarre that an American source was cited for an Irish translation. Standard policy is that a translation most ideally be provided by an external source, if not, then by a native speaker, if not, then by Google Translate. In this case, the reason an American source specifically was chosen is apparently because that is the first one that comes up in a Google search, and it hasn't been contested. If you can find an equally reliable source that contradicts this one, you're welcome to drop the URL here so people can discuss it. I agree that the rules sometimes result in odd decision being made, but usually they help more than they hinder.

Regarding your own etymology, you are completely correct. Tuatha means countryside, and Dé means God's, in the possessive case. This is entirely true in Modern Spoken Irish.

However, things are a little bit different with Old Irish. The preferred sources over the past century or so have translated the Old Irish Tuatha Dé Danann as The Tribe of Danu. It doesn't need to infer that Danu is a godess, and it certainly doesn't have a plural "gods", but this is what it has been interpreted as by some. The current word Tuatha (country) actually derives from the original Tuatha, which you may recognise as the term used to describe the clans of ancient Ireland. This reasoning goes hand-in-hand with why the Old Irish term for the clan chieftain, Taoiseach, is now used to designate the head of the country.

In a similar way, the Old English "hund" is the precursor to the Modern English "hound", however in Old English it actually refers to any breed of dog. As languages change over time, words come to mean different things. This is why third-party translations, especially of atypical languages, are favoured on Wikipedia articles. Wasechun tashunka^HOWL_TRACK 17:15, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Ok. Very fair points. Thanks for explanation. I thought my paragraphs were deleted at first. It's only a quick opinion here, but to quote a phrase from the 'good book', some take "their refuge, the lie". The custodians who descend from the former authors in the "primordial tongue" allow it. I surmise there are good (and likely ethical) reasons to allow this, and to let the general public misapprehend the subject, even to the point of completely inaccurate translations of the very most simple, essential terms such as "God's". I don't really see why a non-native "Celticist" has to be prioritised over a simple dictionary with respect to such keywords and phrases. I do not believe the word "De" has evolved much at all over this long period referred to here. Most certainly it will not have "mutated" from meaning "God's" to "gods" or vice versa. I could find examples in the Irish throughout all periods in which these stories of TDD were recorded and De (with a fada) will remain the same. Would be interesting to establish where the error was first introduced into English translations (it may've been a simple error, the apostrophe being dropped from "God's" with the simple error then persisting. Ireland had to rewrite key elements of herself, we must be seen to have received "knowledge of the true one God" from the representative of the apostle Paul the Holy Father of the Roman Church. So Patrick is seen to bring it all. "Here Patrick, take these books and pass them back to us pretending they're yours."

If you can find a reliable source stating that, then we can look at it together. It would have to be with reference to Old Irish, however, as Modern Irish is very different in many respects. As with any translation, there is the possibility of mistranslation, and there have been alternative translations proposed over the years (it has been suggested that the Tuatha Dé Danann may be anything from fallen angels to a lost tribe of Israel!), but this is the current academic consensus both in Ireland and abroad. Certainly look into it if you want!

I think the main point here is that the notion of God referred to in this article has it's roots in pre-Christian Ireland. They suggest Danu, but note that the name "Danu" itself is a reconstruction by linguists based on the Old Irish genitive case Danann. That's the only form that exists in primary sources, so we have no real myths for a god/goddess named Danu (most of what people think is original mythology surrounding Danu has been derived from other countries' mythologies), simply that there were a people who were the "Clan/Tribe" of someone/something named Danu. For that exact reason, Danu could just as easily referred to a King, place, etc. The "Dé" is the only thing referring to a god, and it just so happens that it has been decided that said god is more likely to refer to the "Danu" noun. We simply can't know it's complete meaning, everything is guesswork. Therefore, seeing as nothing can be definitively proven, preference has been given to the translation provided by scholars. Wasechun tashunka^HOWL_TRACK 18:57, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Genealogy Chart

Can we have the genealogy chart fixed so it is readable? I am a genealogist and even I can't make sense of this chart. A row of vertical lines that go no where is of no use to anyone who wants to understand the mythology.

I've removed it, it's an editor's original research combining seveal sources. Doug Weller talk 12:15, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Concept of Danann referring to a goddess doesn't make sense

I've never understood how Danann could be about a goddess called Danu since the suffix of -ann is pluralisation, not possession. So if you say Danu owns something, you wouldn't say "danann", you'd say "(Gaelic word for object) Danu" Danann probably is pluralisation of Dia, meaning god. It's never made sense to mean Danu. Tuatha danann would mean "tribe belonging to gods" whereas the dé, i believe, makes it so that it means "tribe of gods" (Collectively, meaning the members of the tribe are gods) Oo432 (talk) 20:55, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

please see the above section #Points with respect to the name. - someone has already asked this question ... sawyer * he/they * talk 21:02, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

What they said doesn't really make sense. They claimed "Dé" means plural "Gods" and also say it means possessive "God" and also mention clearly monotheistic nonsense. This is despite the fact god is Dia, seperate to Dé, and gods would be like "Dian" or something, not Dé.

It would also make it really confusing why the name is "Tuatha de danann" which would mean "Tribe belonging to god gods" or "Tribe belonging to god, multiple danu's" Oo432 (talk) 21:28, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Old Irish is not my specialty, so i cannot specifically pick through exactly what you're confused about. "Tuatha Dé Danann" is Old Irish, not modern Irish. if you have a high-quality source that gives a different translation or explains the name further, then by all means go ahead and edit the article. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 21:39, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Modern irish and scottish gaelic descend from irish and has the same rules in it. For example; icelandic descends from Old Norse but can still be used to understand old norse names and such. Oo432 (talk) 22:21, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

old irish* have* Oo432 (talk) 22:22, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

that is not true; languages change grammatical rules over time. what would've been grammatical English or French even 500 years ago is not necessarily grammatically "correct" today. anyways, please keep discussion to the article this talk page is meant to discuss. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 22:26, 26 September 2024 (UTC)