Yesterday‘s post on Plato's Cave was not, as it turns out, the only one to have come out of Saturday morning's discussion that Jacqueline and I had at the Weleny Wetlands and Wildlife Trust Reserve.
The second of the three ideas that we developed during our discussion relates to a phenomenon long known to us, not least because Jacqueline‘s parents were both brought up speaking the Irish language. Although in later life they hardly ever used it, the syntax of that language heavily influenced the way in which my late father-in-law, in particular, used English. The ideas in this post flow from our latest discussion on this issue, and the consequences for the way in which language has itself influenced political-economic thinking.
AI was used to ensure that Irish references in this post are, we hope, accurate.
“Sadness is on me”: Language, Responsibility, and Care
In Irish, you do not say I am sad. You say tá brón orm: literally, “sadness is on me.”
At first sight, this may look like a quaint idiom. However, in reality, it embodies a radically different perspective on responsibility, care, and human experience than that to which neoliberal English-speaking societies have become normalised.
This matters because how we frame misfortune determines whether we treat it as a personal failing or as a shared condition for which society must assume responsibility. Language matters, then, not least in the political-economic inferences it creates.
1. English individualism and neoliberal grammar
English is a language built on the centrality of the word and idea of “I.” “I am sad.” “I broke my arm.” “I lost my job.” Even when accidents or systemic failures are involved, English frames them as though the individual suffering the consequence is responsible for what has happened to them. To be sad in English is not just to experience sadness, but to be sadness. To lose your job is not simply to be made redundant by an economic downturn, but to have failed in some way.
This habit of grammar aligns perfectly with neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism insists that individuals are responsible for their own fates. Poverty, unemployment, debt, or illness are redefined as personal flaws or bad choices. The grammar of English feeds that narrative: it makes each person linguistically responsible for their own misfortune.
2. Irish relationality: states “on” us, not “in” us
Irish undermines this frame. Hunger is “on” you (Tá ocras orm). Joy is “on” you (Tá áthas orm). Sadness is “on” you (Tá brón orm). These states do not describe your essence; they are conditions that come upon you. They may describe your current condition, but they can also pass.
This phrasing acknowledges transience. Sadness “on me” does not mean I will always be sad. Hunger “on me” does not mean I am by nature hungry. Emotions and conditions are visitors, not permanent labels. They can come and they can go. Crucially, they do not define who you are.
That is inclusive and non-judgemental. It recognises that different people may experience different states at different times, without making those states into permanent marks of identity or failure.
3. Beyond binaries: no “yes” and “no”
This logic extends to the way Irish handles affirmation and denial. Irish has no single word for “yes” or “no.” If asked An dtuigeann tú? (“Do you understand?”), you cannot answer with an abstract “yes” or “no.” You must respond with Tuigim (“I understand”) or Ní thuigim (“I do not understand”). The verb itself carries the affirmation or negation.
That makes answers always contextual, specific, and provisional. They are about the situation, not an abstract binary. Ní thuigim does not mean “No forever.” It means “I do not understand now.” Understanding may arrive later. Again, transience is emphasised.
Contrast this with English, which thrives on binaries: yes/no, success/failure, worthy/unworthy, striver/skiver. Neoliberal ideology depends on these divides. They allow it to categorise populations into the deserving and undeserving, the winners and losers, the employed and the work-shy. The grammar of English fits seamlessly with this worldview. Irish grammar resists it.
4. Nature, nurture, and the politics of blame
This difference goes even deeper. English is the language of genetic determinism: “I am who I am because of my inheritance.” It frames personal identity as fixed, unchanging, carried in the genes. This dovetails with neoliberal individualism: if your genes make you what you are, then your fate is your own, and society owes you little. Poverty or ill-health are reduced to biology, reinforcing fatalism and cutting away social responsibility.
Irish suggests something different. If sadness or hunger is “on me,” then I am not reducible to my inheritance. I live in a moving environment. I am shaped by the conditions that come upon me, and those conditions can change. Nurture matters. Context matters. Society matters.
In other words, Irish grammar encodes a politics of nurture, not nature. It recognises that we live in a shifting landscape of influences, some supportive, others harmful. Who we are cannot be reduced to a fixed genetic script; it depends on the conditions that surround and act upon us.
5. Gaza: hunger imposed, not chosen
Nowhere is this distinction more urgent than in situations of extreme suffering. Consider Gaza today. In English reporting, people are said to be “hungry.” That phrase carries a hidden implication: hunger is a property of the person. It is their state, as if somehow generated from within.
But that is profoundly misleading. People in Gaza are not “hungry” in the abstract. Hunger is on them. It has been imposed upon them by blockade, by war, by the deliberate withholding of food. They have not failed. Hunger has been forced onto them.
The Irish phrasing captures this truth more directly. Tá ocras orthu — “hunger is on them.” The responsibility is displaced from the individual to the external conditions that created the hunger. That makes visible the politics of famine and suffering in a way English can obscure.
6. From grammar to political economy
Why does this matter for economics? Because the way we talk about misfortune frames the policies we imagine.
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If poverty is something you are, then welfare is charity for the undeserving.
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If poverty is something that is on you, then welfare is society lifting a burden that should never have been there.
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If unemployment is a personal failing, then the answer is “work harder.”
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If unemployment is a condition that comes upon you when the economy falters, then the answer is to reform the system.
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If sadness is your identity, then therapy becomes a private responsibility.
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If sadness is “on you,” then care can be shared, and society can play its part in alleviating it.
7. Towards a politics of care
The politics of care requires us to resist the binaries of neoliberal thought — winners and losers, taxpayers and scroungers, yes and no. It requires us to see that human conditions are transient, situational, and imposed as much as chosen. It requires us to admit that nurture, not nature, defines the lives most people live.
Irish grammar offers us a ready-made language for this. It does not deny personal responsibility, but it situates it within a wider frame of shared experience. It does not reduce people to their lowest moments, but recognises that conditions pass. It does not isolate individuals, but points always to the larger forces “on” them.
8. Relearning grammar as political practice
If neoliberalism has colonised our minds through the grammar of English, then part of building an alternative lies in relearning other grammars. That does not mean everyone must start speaking Irish. It does mean that we can become more aware of how language encodes responsibility, blame, and care.
We can learn to say, not “I am poor,” but “poverty is upon me.”
Not “I am a failure,” but “failure has visited me.”
Not “they are hungry,” but “hunger has been placed upon them.”
These are not evasions of truth. They are more accurate descriptions of how human lives are lived. They make visible the role of society, economy, and politics in shaping outcomes. And they create the linguistic space for solidarity rather than judgement.
Conclusion
The phrase tá brón orm - “sadness is on me” - reminds us that emotions and conditions are not fixed properties of the individual, but transient states that move through us. It resists binary judgements. It points to nurture and environment rather than fixed nature. It is inclusive and non-judgemental.
In a world scarred by neoliberal blame and binary division, and in places like Gaza where suffering is imposed upon millions, such grammar is not a curiosity. It is a reminder that we need new ways of speaking and thinking — ways that acknowledge shared responsibility and build a politics of care.
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Language solves (and causes) a lot of intractable theological problems too.
If you don’t have a word for something, it’s very difficult to have a massive historical split over it. But if you speak different languages (Latin & Greek for example) then such splits become tragically easy.
It’s good to pause and reflect on such things. I didn’t know that about Irish – it explains a lot. But then neither did I know that about English, until an Irish speaker pointed it out. What poverty we risk when we isolate ourselves from the other.
Agreed
Wow.
Powerful! Insightful.
If something is ‘on you’ then it can be taken off! That option exists in the Irish language.
The basis of the politics of care is to ask the question in the first place – invite a response and then help a fellow human being. It invites inter-dependence.
I wonder what the Scot Celt and Welsh language make of the human condition? The persecution of these nationalities has stopped the enrichment of English culture. We are poorer for it in many ways.
I like it. Coffees forthcoming……………..
Coffee fueled this one…
I am told that there are a lot of works that are very hard to understand unless you are a native speaker of the language they are written in, Proust – hence the Monty Python sketch ‘Summarising Proust’ and of course Marx (Karl not Groucho) written in a rather archaic German.
Particularly true in philosophy I think, especially recent French thought like the late Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, etc – which often reaches for extraordinary terminology, wordplay, etc, in trying to capture aspects of reality and thought that normally elude language – but when rendered into English lose their connotations or semantic disruption.
What a thought provoking article. Might this neoliberal linguistic device also work in a different context? By saying “I am wealthy” carries a connotation that the individual is entirely responsible for their wealth and thereby they “earned” it through their own perceived talents which entitles them to retain it whereas “wealth is upon me” suggests that their wealth has been conveyed on them by external forces such as inheritance, exploitation of others and a failed political economic system. The latter connotation provides a basis for levying taxes on that unearned wealth.
Agreed, entirely.
As someone of Irish descent, I found this piece profoundly moving. Thank you both for your thoughts, much to ponder on.
This matters to my family!
Excellent and thank you for the reminder. I’ve never thought of it in quite that way but am always conscious when meeting new people of how they define themselves, usually by their job – I’m a doctor, lawyer, teacher, builder, unemployed or whatever. In my mind I’m actually thinking ‘yeah yeah, whatever, that’s what you you do, not who you are’
Agreed. My thoughts too. I want to know who you are, not what you do. It is why I never call myself Prof.
A friend suggests asking new acquaintances “Tell me what inspires you.”
I like that, a lot.
And if they talk about their job, ask what led you to do that? You might end up with a sob story, of course. They might hate it. But you will have found out about them, not the job.
Beautiful simplicity. Many thanks for these thoughts.
This is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – that language influences worldview or cognition. I do wonder if the modern English coincidence between grammatical and conventional gender plays a role in those silly anglo-saxon pronoun wars. In other languages it’s often obvious that grammatical gender is pretty arbitrary – indeed, in old English women were (grammatically) masculine.
And in German aren’t young women male? It’s 50 years since I studied German, but I think I am right.
The girl – Das Mädchen, which is grammatically neuter, not masculine
‘Das Madchen’: so actually neither male nor female!
After 50 years my memory can be faulty.
Young women are neuter in German as a result of die Magd (maid) becoming the diminutive das Mädchen, and dir Frau (woman / Mrs) becoming das Fräulein, (girl / Miss). Diminutives using “chen” and “lein” are always neuter.
I don’t know how the matter of pronoun choice has been addressed in German – one to Google later!
🙂
Like you, I also studied German many years ago. It is one of the peculiarities of the language that the word “frauline” (literally “little woman”) can be either grammatically neuter or masculine depending on whether it is in the nominative or accustive case (das or ein).
I got some of my comment right then. It is years since I used my German.
Thank you. Obviously very right in many cases, where “X is on me” works well. Grief is on me is good example. But in some cases I think “I” is right. I try hard, I have an idea, I try to nurture my children, I do my best to eat healthily in spite of the system.
But the choice needs to be available.
Yesterday, by coincidence I was looking at subject ,verb and object order in a different language.
In Irish, and Welsh and Breton is it Verb, Subject, Object. Germans and Hindu speakers put the verb at the end of the sentence.
We take so much for granted and it is good to see the world through other people’s eyes.
Thanks. Interesting.
And thank you.
Hearteningly insightful. Many thanks, Richard.
Spanish has as interesting way of describing someone. There are 2 verbs ‘to be’ – ‘ser’ – a permanent condition and ‘estar’ – a temporary condition.
So
‘soy enferma’ means I am ill in the sense of a permanent condition or disability
‘estoy enferma’ means I am not very well just now.
For other states the ‘to be’ word is not used at all, they use ‘tener’ which means ‘to have’.
‘tengo miedo’ – I have fear
‘tengo dolor’ – I have pain
‘tengo hambre’ – I have hunger
With the ‘to be’ structure, what you are is an adjective, so matches the gender of the person described. A man with a cold would say ‘estoy enfermo’. With the ‘to have’ structure the things you have are nouns, so separate from you.
Many thanks. Fascinating.
Similar to Arabic in many respects where agency is with Allah and not the individual
Peace be upon you or with you
The verb to have is translated as the preposition ‘with’. I have = with me.
Another point to highlight the quirks of the English language: you can also take something being “on you” as being your fault, which I appreciate probably doesn’t help with the distinction you are making, but things can be read in different ways.
Interesting and moving. I’m learning basic Welsh, I imagine it is constructed more like Irish, belonging to the Gaelic languages.
I think it is
Irish (Gaelic) of course being very close to Scottish Gaelic. Having a grandmother who grew up in a small croft in the far North of Scotland with Gaelic as their mother tongue. As is often said, you need the language to understand another culture properly. Even my modest French combined with a French extended family gives me a different view of France and the French.
Fascinating. One of your commenters referenced Sapir-Whorf and I was thinking the same, having in the last few weeks reviewed this topic. I think of ‘the lilac tree’ in my garden. I became increasingly frustrated with it because it kept sprouting new shoots from the ground. I could never make it into ‘a tree’ – with a trunk and branches. I realised that ‘tree’ is a mode of growth and my ‘lilac tree’ was merely expressing its nature – not ‘a tree’ but ‘a shrub’. My behaviour towards my tree was influenced by the linguistic label I attached to it. Everyone here will know what this means for the larger questions of labels and behaviour. Let’s be careful.
Ever read the Sister Fidelma mysteries? She is a Brehon or judge in 7th century Ireland.
The author Peter Ellis gives an explanation of Irish spelling which is very different.
English people are sadly ignorant of the part played by Irish Culture in the post Roman period. As my mum was born in Hong Kong, lived there until she almost 30 and then spent four years in Australia, then five in Jersey before coming to England. My Dad was of a Jersey family and my brother has been in Scotland since 1963. I describe myself as British then English then European. And I’m rambling on -sorry. Have a good evening.
As a maths teacher I used to find it frustrating that international comparisons of attainment never took into account the structure of the language with regard to number and mathematical ideas. For example in Korean all numbers are structured as how many tens, how many units. So mentally calculating 45+17 becomes adding four tens and five to one ten and seven giving five tens and one ten and two (i.e. six tens and two.). The English equivalent of adding forty five to seventeen (in one number an indication of the number of tens comes first whereas in the other it is the number of units) requires more complex processing steps and can easily lead to less confidence in handling number. (Pity the French with quatre-vingt douze!)
🙂