I am wait for a bus, and one comes, but with 'as seirbhís' and i'm like, that should be 'gan seirbhís' as I thought about the literal translation thread.

Literal translations are good, but they cannot be too helpful if they get in the way of knowing the source langue. The Irish Gov is a good source of calques: 'Tabhair suas do shuíochán seo etc' on trains.

What other one have been seen, the knoweldge of which may allow for their filtering

I'm not sure that these are calques. Maybe they're just used the same way in Irish.

Bhí an bus as seirbhís.
Tabhair suas do shuíochán.

You'd need to go very far back in history and talk to the person who first ever uttered "as seirbhís" to find out whether she said that under the influence of English, or whether she just invented that phrase independently.

Failing that, you'll never really know if it is a calque or not - although the similarity is obvious, and it is quite unlikely to be a coincidence.

Often calques become so established in the adopting language that people a few generations later no longer recognize them as something foreign. I think "as seirbhís" is well on its way along this line now. "Tabhair suas" probably not yet.

This type borrowing and linguistic crossbreeding has been going on in Europe and elsewhere since Babel and there is nothing wrong with it. Only now Irish seems to be borrowing in large amounts exclusively from English, and that probably isn't very healthy for the language.

Tá "as serbhís" ceart - "out of service"

(Ausser Betrieb in German)

What would "gan seirbhís" mean?

The reason I question it is that it was on a goverment item, so by definition is wrong (or at least one hates to credit them)

To me, the ue of the proposition 'as' must eb a calque as why would one say 'out of service' in that manner in irish. I do not know the history of 'out of action' 'out of service' etc in English, but to me, 'as' has more of an active 'ejective' sense in Irish, or at least it is one of its senses is. In English, one of its senses is that of the null; that is, service that is withdrawn. I dont beleive in such handy 'accidents'. So, make of that which you will, altho it could be a chance of it been so. An old, lingusiticaly and historically inclined, fully native bilingual in both might be able to answer!

"What would "gan seirbhís" mean?"

Without service.

Will no hearty fellow support me one this cause?, or I am a one man army? Armaí le haon fhear as we are dicing registrars, spelling, and mutations so liberally ('le' suggstive of its French usage)

But "bus gan seirbhís" doesn't make sense.

"Bus as seirbhís" does - withdrawn from service.

Seans gurbh arm aon fhir tú ceart go leor. Chuir duine éigin síos ar gealt sna tearmaí sin uair amháin (ar eagla na míthuisceana, táim ag magadh).

You can get caught up in seeing calques everywhere if english is your yardstick. Do you speak any other languages? The same bus in Berlin would say "Ausser Betrieb", "Hors de Service" in French, as far as I know, but I'm on thin ice there.

I'm not sure what a calque is, but borrowing is very rife in French from English and those boys are apparently completely opposed to any kind of dilution of French.

But I agree that it gets a bit stupid at times, I have an Irish teacher(who can't speak Irish) who very, very often says things like 'rite síos', 'ag tabhairt amach', 'casta ar', 'gléasta suas', 'tabhair suas', 'gearr siar' and so on. Although I did see 'caite siar' in Foinse by someone I can only guess might've been a Gaeltacht Gaeilgeora, but then again, might not have been. It shows a very limited knowledge of the language, lack of confidence and slow-wits to translate 'run down' as 'rite síos'.

Just look for any expression like that in Ó Dónaill's dictionary. Actually, most of the time if you get a real English expression by translating an Irish phrase into English, then you can be sure it isn't native Irish. Both languages don't use prepositions and verbs the same way at all.

Give up = éirí as (not tabhairt suas). "Éirí as" would be "raise from" or "raise off" if we do the contrary, ie. translate the Irish literally into English. I'm not sure it makes sense in English; so it is the same problem if you translate English literally into Irish... ;-)

"But "bus gan seirbhís" doesn't make sense.

"Bus as seirbhís" does - withdrawn from service. "

I suppose you are right on the second count, but I never implied "bus gan seirbhís" could be legal.

I'm not using English as any sort of yardstick -I was concerned with attenution of meaning when two langauges merge to some degree, or there is one way traffic. If the language has chnaged, so be. If it is easier to use as it allows for sharper constructions than say "taobh amuigh den tseirbhís" (which I realise is not the best), then so be it, but to say there is no problem with calques is to show that, as I suspect, you only care about communication 100% and not the technical aspects at all

No i dont speak any other language, nor do I think it is detracting from my point. I am not arguing for calques to be banned, only why let them in whole sale. 'Run down' as 'rite síos' is the sort of thing I'm talking about

I was just pointing out that if you have a perspective from more than one language, you are less likely to identify things which are not calques as such.

quote:

most of the time if you get a real English expression by translating an Irish phrase into English, then you can be sure it isn't native Irish

I agree, but only most of the time! There are exceptions.

quote:

I have an Irish teacher(who can't speak Irish)

Sin agaibh an fhadhb. Samhlaigh muinteoir matamatice gan céimseata!

I was just pointing out that if you have a perspective from more than one language, you are less likely to identify things which are not calques as such.

I fully agree with you. If you just speak English and Irish, you won't be surprised when you see two idioms that are exactly the same in both languages. But if you speak more languages, you'll see very easily what is a calque because all idioms are not similar in all languages. When I know an expression that is similar in Irish and English, I immediately wonder if the Irish one is a real native idiom, when the French or the Breton synonym expression is completely different.

I agree, but only most of the time! There are exceptions.

Maybe, but not many. Actually I've noticed that there are many Irish idioms that are very similar to the French ones, much more than to the English ones. In don't know why!!!

>>Actually I've noticed that there are many Irish idioms that are very similar to the French ones, much more than to the English ones.

"as seirbhís" = "hors service" ~ "out of service"

Merci Max, I knew there was something wrong with my french version.

I agree with Aonghus. You also have terms like 'as alt'

Bí sásta go bhfuil Gaeilge ann in aon chor!
Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná béarla cliste!

Is fearr teangaidh chruinn ná teangaidh bhriste...

Is fearr cinnte.. Ach is fearr busanna dátheangacha ná busanna le Béarla amháin.. Agus nílimid chun busanna le Gaeilge amháin a fháil :(