Adjective Ordering

Languages have a certain order in which you can attach them to the noun they are describing. In English for example it sounds odd to a native speaker to talk about a *black beautiful big dog, whereas a beautiful big black dog is perfectly acceptable. In the same way adjectives in Gaelic are attached in a certain order, which is as follows:

[NOUN] [SIZE] [QUALITY] [COLOUR]

So our canine friend would be described as:

CÙ MÓR BRÈAGHA DUBH

You can either remember the order that way or think of it that way: size goes closes to the noun, colour furthest away. Doesn't matter which way you remember it as long as you remember it.

Here's some more examples:

caileag mhór laghach ruadh

girl big nice red-haired

a nice tall red haired girl

càr beag saor uaine

car small cheap green

a cheap small green car

Now this isn't an ironclad rule, in case someone was going to email in with nighean donn bhòidheach. It's more like strong guidelines although I suspect that our nighean donn bhòidheach may be muddled due to the fact that the composer of this song wanted it to rhyme with the next few lines!