teanga
/ˈtʲʰɛ̃ɣə/feminine
The Gaelic word for tongue is teanga.
teanga refers to the physical organ in the mouth, but it is also used to mean a spoken language.
Meaning: organ (noun)
How does it change in a sentence?
The noun teanga is feminine. When you want to say 'the tongue', you use the definite article 'an' to form an teanga.
How do you pronounce it?
/ˈtʲʰɛ̃ɣə/
Did you know?
- In Gaelic, the phrase 'to have a long tongue' teanga fada doesn't refer to anatomy but describes someone who is a gossip.
- The word teanga shares a distant ancestor with the English word 'tongue' and the Latin 'lingua', both tracing back to the same Proto-Indo-European root.
- In some Gaelic dialects, the word for 'tongue' appears as teangaidh in a sentence, even when it is the subject. This form is actually an ancient dative case that has transformed into the standard way to name the word.
Examples in context
- Tha an teanga gu math fada.The tongue is very long.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “tongue” translations and entries teanga, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries teanga, CC BY-SA 4.0.
