The one problem I had here was my broad Geordie accent which the teachers tried their hardest to make me lose. I couldn't understand their problem with it because I could understand myself. Whenever I told them, "Amgannin yem", they would say, "No, Christopher. It's not "amgannin yem", it's "I am going home".
Frank Graham, editor (1987), “GAN”, inThe New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing,→ISBN.
Scott Dobson, Dick Irwin “gan”, inNewcastle 1970s: Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group[1], archived fromthe original on2024-09-05.
Todd's Geordie Words and Phrases, George Todd, Newcastle, 1977[2]
“Gan”, inPalgrave’s Word List: Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group[3], archived fromthe original on2024-09-05, from F[rancis] M[ilnes] T[emple] Palgrave,A List of Words and Phrases in Everyday Use by the Natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham[…] (Publications of the English Dialect Society; 74), London: Published for theEnglish Dialect Society by Henry Frowde,Oxford University Press, 1896,→OCLC.
In standard written Irish, triggerslenition (except ofd,s,t) of unmodified nouns, e.g.ganphingin(“without a penny”). Does not trigger lenition of modified nouns, e.g.gan pingin inaphóca(“without a penny in his pocket”). In the meaning ‘not’, does not trigger lenition of either a verbal noun or on the direct object of the verbal noun, e.g.ganceannach(“not to buy”),ganpingin a shaothrú(“not to earn a penny”).
Unlike most prepositions,gan takes the nominative case of nouns, as shown by the lack of mutation of consonant-initial masculine singular nouns after the definite article, for examplegan an plúr(“without the flour”), and the presence oft-prothesis of vowel-initial masculine singular nouns after the article, for examplegan an t-airgead(“without the money”).
Unlike most prepositions,gan does not form prepositional pronouns, but is instead followed by the disjunctive form of a personal pronoun, for examplegan mé(“without me”),gan sinn(“without us”),gan é(“without him”).
1899, Franz Nikolaus Finck,Die araner mundart [The Aran Dialect], volume II (overall work in German), Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page127:
ȷ imə šē lešgon ēn ńī ēkāl.
[D’imigh sé leisgan aon ní a fheiceáil.]
He leftwithout seeing anything.
1899, Franz Nikolaus Finck,Die araner mundart [The Aran Dialect], volume II (overall work in German), Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page127:
l̄aurofŭī n̥ ʒēlǵə fōs əŕ fȧ nə ciŕə, ʒā mĭøxgn̥ n̄āŕə ə ve orī fuhə.
[Labhrófaí an Ghaeilge fós ar feadh na tíre dhá mbeadhgan náire a bheith oraibh fúithi.]
Irish would still be spoken in the whole country if youpl werenot ashamed of it.
1899, Franz Nikolaus Finck,Die araner mundart [The Aran Dialect], volume II (overall work in German), Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page128:
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the criticaltonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
In some dialects it's the animal equivalent oftê niyan(“to fuck; lit. "to put in, insert"”) or a meaner way of saying "fuck" by insinuating the person cursed at is an animal. That considered, the actual sense may have been "to breed" and derived fromga(“ox; bull; stud; any male cattle”).
In some dialects and derived terms it's used only for homosexual acts or prostitution.
Ðā cwæð Simon Petrus tō him, Ic wylle gān on fixað. Þā cwǣdon hī tō him, And wē wyllaðgān mid þē. And hīēodon ūt, andēodon on scip, and ne fēngon nān þing on þǣre nihte.
Then said Simon Peter to them. I wantto go fishing. Then they said to him, and we wantto go with you. And theywent out andwent in a ship, and caught nothing in the night.
On þǣm dagum ǣr þǣm flōde wǣron menn etende and drincende, and wīfiġende and ġifte sellende, ōþ þone dæġ þe Nōe on þā earċeēode, and hīe nysson ǣr sē flōd cōm and nam hīe ealle.
In the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noahentered the ark, and they didn't know until the flood came and took them all.
The expected present participle,gānde, is very rare. Insteadgangende is almost always used, from the synonymgangan:Līf nis būtangangendu sċadu ("Life is but awalking shadow").
Theā-form was found especially inAlemannic and in westernFranconian. In the former, the vocalism was regularized early on (du gās, er gāt); in the latter, the West Germanic vowel alternation (du geis, he geit) has been preserved even to this day.
Yakup, Abdurishid (2002) “gan”, inAn Ili Salar Vocabulary: Introduction and a Provisional Salar-English Lexicon[5], Tokyo: University of Tokyo,→ISBN, page104
^R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “gan”, inGeiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
