'Roan'?
What does the word "Roan " mean? I read somwhere that "Roan Inish" translates as "Island of the Seal"? Is this true?
Well Inish isnt a word in irish, the word for island in irish is inis, but then again that is pronounced inish. Seal is not roan in irish, its ron with a fada(dash) over the o, and again it is pronounced the same as the movie title spelling, roan! so i guess it is translated as seal island or island of the seals or whatever, its just all spelt wrong in the traditional sense of the language!!!
shareStef is right as to "inis" as he said it has an s after a slender vowel so the s is pronounces as if it was sh.
The word for seal "rón' is a masculine first declension noun so the genitive (i.e. "of" seal) is spelled "róin" which would be pronounced like "rowan" or "rowin" Again, the movie spelling approximates the pronunciation.
Hope this helps.
I wanted to add that if it was "Island of Seals" in Irish it could be "Inis rónta" using the genitive plural.
One Irish word that I really get a kick out of is the Irish word for "jellyfish" which is "smugairle róin" but literally translates as "seal snot". It actually sort of describes what jellyfish look like.
In the book the story takes place in Scotland not Ireland. I don't know much about Gaelic but maybe the title translates different from Scots Gaelic than from Irish Gaelic. The book is called Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry
shareI know Irish but Scottish Gaelic is similar (sort of like Spanish/Portguese/Italian). "Skerry" is a scottish word for a small rocky island, "sgeir" in Scottish Gaelic but derived from a Norse word. "Mor" is "big" in both Irish and Scots gaelic. ""Ron clearly equals "rón" the Irish word for seal. Therefore the book title would translate as "......big seal island"
Not sure if the big modifies seal or island but as a skerry is a very small island I would guess that it means the island is larger than the average skerry.
Hope this helps