My husband's brother died suddenly this past year and he is getting a tattoo that his brother had and wants to add "dear brother" in irish gaelic. Could you please help translate this? A tattoo is forever and I hate to get it wrong!! Also how would you write the date July 29, 2006? Please help me out! Thanks

There's a famous poem in Irish called "Donncha Bán" written by a sister for her brother after his death. She addresses him in the poem as "a dheartháir dhílis", so I think that would be quite fitting for the tattoo. It loosely translates as "my dear brother".

In proper Irish penmanship, it would be written as:

A Deartáir Dílis

and there would be a dot above the D's and the T.

Also the Date:

29^th July 2006 = 29^ú Iúil 2006

Is the vocative used as a poetic device to speak to someone accross space and time?

As an aside, it would be now 'a dhráir/dhreáir dhílis' as metathesis has changed most initial Consonant+short vowel+l/n/r to Consonant+l/r+vowel

quote:

Is the vocative used as a poetic device

Gan amhras!

deartháir [ainmfhocal firinscneach]
mac athar agus máthar duine; macasamhail (deartháir don bhréag an béal bán).

http://www.iol.ie/~fagann/1798/songs5.htm

A Dhonncha Bháin, a dheartháirín dílis,
Is maith atá 's agam siúd a bhain díom thú;
Ag ól an chupáin, ag deargadh an phíopa
'S ag siúl an drúchta le com na hoíche.

Thanks guys I greatly appreciate this!! I had seen dear brother as dearthairin is this anyting?

is "Deartháirín mór" the exact translation for "dear older brother"?

is "A Deartáir Dilis" the exact translation for "my dear brother"?

What is the difference between dheartháir, deartháir, and deartáir??


Thanks, sorry if I'm being a bother!!!!!!

You asked: What is the difference between dheartháir, deartháir, and deartáir??

They are all grammatic variations of the same word. What was given to you by Fear na mBrog and Aonghus is correct with one small correction to Fear na mBrog's offering.

I'm fairly certain that it should read A Dheartáir Dílis as opposed to A Deartáir Dílis I think the "h" is required as it a vocative rendering of Deartáir. In Irish we use the vocative (not a usually encountered case in english) when addressing people. It's sort of like saying "O Brother" as in "O Brother wherefore art thou". In english it sounds archaic but in Irish it is required in order to remain correct.

A dheartháirín dílis as offered by Aonghus has the suffix "-ín" which is used to put a name into the diminutive form much as Johnnie is the diminutive of John.

Either would be acceptable options.

Guys....correct me if I'm wrong on this.

dheartháir =where grammatical mutation has occured

dheartháir =no mutation

deartáir =when written without a h to show mutation but with a ponc/poncán/boncán (a little dot or 'round lump') to show the same information as a h after a consonant

dráirín mór =Deartháir +ín (ín is a diminuatitive signal to show little ness or fondness for) and mór =adjective for big. If you wanted to say 'big brother' it would be dráir mór, in the vocative 'a dheartháir mhór' (as the mutation would follow thru to the adjective).

I suppose if deartháirín =little brother was to be fossilised or if there were more than 1 little brother the bigger could be then Deartháirín mór (a liked big brother, or bigger of the two little ones, altho I dont know about the second)

is "A Deartáir Dilis" the exact translation for "my dear brother"? THis is in the vocative, meaning you are addressing the person. My big brother literally is 'mo dhráir mór'/ mo dheartháir mór

"I'm fairly certain that it should read A Dheartáir Dílis as opposed to A Deartáir Dílis I think the "h" is required as it a vocative rendering of Deartáir."

FmB meant that the poncán would be on the d and ts for the tattoo

Thank you so much for your time and effort I'm really new at this. I think I will go with the "my dear brother" A Deartáir Dilis" with dot over d's and t. It looks really cool on the link BRN sent!!! Is that acceptable by all of you?? Thanks again you guys are awsome!!!!

I've been reading this and I'm a little confused. "A Deartáir Dilis" or " A Dheartáir Dilis"....which is NOT the vocative form? On this woman's husband's tattoo...it's just wanting to state "My Dear brother"...not calling it out. Does that make sense? ALSO - if there is a poncán over the D's and the T....does there have to be an "h" as in "Dheartáir" or can it stand without it? Does the poncán over the "D" make it vocative? (Sorry....I had to look up the word vocative - I'm kinda young) We're looking for just 1 NON-Vocative form of "My Dear Brother." He's going to go get the tattoo tonight, so that's why we're trying to be very thorough with the questions. So sorry...we're confusing ourselves. From what you wrote previously, it seemed that Fear na mBrog and BRN were giving us 2 different answers. Thanks so much once again!

I asked the question as FmB gave the answer that was a) nice to look at and b) most culturally situated.

Myself, been aware that the question expected 'my brother' to be coded the same in every culture, took it to mean you wanted to say 'my brother', in which case 'mo dheartháir dílis' is the thing to say.

The reason I mentioned it is that 'mo' for 'my' is a possesive pronoun of reference in Irish. That is, you are simply pointing out a relationship. Ex: 'Jill has a brother'; Q: Jill, who is he, that Jack fellow?; A: (from Jill) He is my brother (mo dheartháir).

If Jill now walks up to Jack and calls (addresses) him (to get his attenion as his back is turned to her) she will say 'a dheartháir' (hey brother). It is specific and attentionally directing. It is now abstract like that Scottish fellow in 'Lost' who calls everyone 'brother'!

If you want to address the brother with the pretext that he is a personality, either incarnate in flesh or in another form spiritually, the vocative is to be used as it simply how the language works.

An example is if you are addressing your friend. You can hear 'my friend!' in English. In Irish, learners will often copy this and say 'mo chara!' for my friend. It is simply wrong. One uses a form of address: 'a chara' meaning 'oh friend'.

So the heal of the hunt is do you want the Gaelic way of addressing the brother? If YES -->a dheartháir dhílis.

Do you want the Anglicised way of address? If YES -->mo dheartháir dílis. You decide. Either way, there is a lengthening mark above the second a (á) and the second i (í).

OK I'll try to clear up a load of gunk here...

The most basic forms, (you might say the "root" forms"), of the words in question are:

deartháir = brother
dílis = faithful, devoted, loyal, genuine

In the Irish language, you will commonly see a H written after the initial consonant of words. For instance you may see the two previous words as:

dheartháir
dhílis

I won't go into the reasons why this is done, but suffice to say it's something to do with "grammar".

In the Irish written language, there is an alternative way to write a H after the initial consonant, and that is to draw a circular dot above the inital consonant.

Moving on. . .

Consider in the English language how you have the two words, "he" and "him", which mean the same thing -- however you use them in different places. Different forms of the same word are referred to as "cases" in the grammatical world. Irish, like English, has cases.

Without going into too much detail, the Irish for "dear brother" is different depending on whether:

a) You're addressing the person, e.g. "My dear brother, how are you?"
b) Talking about them, "Where's my dear brother gone to?"

In Irish, these become:

a) A Dheartháir Dhílis
b) Mo Dheartháir Dhílis / Mo Dheartháir Dílis (depends on dialect)

Whichever you wish to use is up to you.

Lastly, if you want to be really Irish about it, you should use the old text in which the "h" is replaced with a dot above the initial constant.

I can't thank all of you enough for your hard work and effort. My husband also thanks you. I hope if I have any other Irish Gaelic questions, I can come to you again in the future. Have a wonderful day!!!!

"Irish, like English, has cases. "

Where are the english cases?

quote:

He's going to go get the tattoo tonight, so that's why we're trying to be very thorough with the questions.

There's your problem right there, you should not hesistate to postpone permanently dying your skin until you're CERTAIN about what you want.

quote:

"Irish, like English, has cases. "

Where are the english cases?

Well there's the pronouns first of all:

nominative: I, you, he, she, we, they
accusative: me, you, him, her, us, them

And then there's things like:

1) good / better / best

2) spine / spinal

It's always harder to point these things out in a language if you learned it naturally rather than learned it via grammar.

Ahh, I do be thinking in terms of noun cases all the time. Forgot about pronoun cases

I stand corrected with my "correction" of Fear na mBrog. I skimmed over the posting and completely overlooked his reference to the "dots" over the D and T. The use of the "dot" is equivalent to placing the "h" as I indicated. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

Fáilte roimh cheartú, go deo i gcónaí!

If you have unicode or a gaelic font installed,

a ḋearṫáiɼ díliſ

will illustrate what FnaB meant

go deo ((in abairt) go deireadh an tsaoil, go brách; ar fad (an-fhuar go deo)). [Forever]

i gcónaí (de shíor, gan stad; fós (tá sé anseo i gcónaí)). [Always]

(Message edited by aonghus on May 17, 2007)

If I ever heard anyone say "dráirín mór," I could only interpret it as "large little underpants."

Or darling large underpants...

If I ever heard anyone say "dráirín mór," I could only interpret it as "large little underpants."

That might be a nice follow-up for the lass who tattooed "Drug'ail Saor" across her back (mentioned in another recent thread).

You mean its on mo cheann coz I brought to up~? Dreáir was the word accross east ulster and leinster and now connacht. I dont know, but I never wore 'drawers', but I suppose they are fans of the Waltons in Conemara...

Just wanted to let you guys know, my husband had his tattoo done last night and it turned out really nice. He was absolutely certain he wanted brother in irish gaelic and that's what he went with.His brother had a tattoo of leo the lion on his arm that he had gotten in the military. My husband got the same lion with a banner above it that says "deartháir". The reason he went with that language is not many people can understand what it says and he wanted it to be personal for what it stands for. Since we aren't familiar with the language he went with something simple and he is very pleased.
Thanks for your time and for making sure he didn't get "darling large underpants"!!!! I had seen the translation for "my dear younger brother" (with óg instead of mór)on irishgaelic transalator.com!!!!

Whether we're fans of The Waltons is irrelevant. But we do know the language, and I simply meant to help, not offend.

No offense takin. I am very appreciative of the help!

"my husband had his tattoo done last night and it turned out really nice."

That is lovely, and deartháir is nicer to look at!

"Whether we're fans of The Waltons is irrelevant. But we do know the language, and I simply meant to help, not offend."

Sigh..(have to explain again)

ARE you talkin to me about offence? I was responding to Cionadh as my spelling indeed refers to a word for underpants, thinking that he mentioned it to me since I showed a women with very bad grammar, so I thought it might be a little dig given my flagging the woman. I then responded with the Waltons as 'drawers' seems so old fashioned here in Europe that I would have never seen the link, even tho I've seen 'dreáirz' for underpants, and 'dreáir' for brother.

I dont know why anyone would be offended

But nobody mentioned 'drawers' except you. Yes, to any English speaker's ear--in Europe or the States--'drawers' sounds old-fashioned. However, the term 'drár,'common in the Gaeltacht, does not resonate in the same way to a native Irish speaker's ear.

I think you are confused as I was not the one to mention drawers. As for resononance in the ear, that would depend on both word forms been in common currency, which I cannot vouch for (my data only shows 1, but I'd imagine a version of the other is there too). The older one looks better of course.

I'm not referring to the article of clothing, but to the term, and it seems the term is yours. That is if you're the same BRN who told us about never having worn 'drawers.' I don't know about your data, but as a native speaker I have a reasonably good idea about word usage in the Gaeltacht.

I never said there was a problem with either word, only that an alternative existed. Which Gaeltacht are you from? The short form I mentioned is attested in Cois Fharraige and parts of Ulster and arises from a process of dropping a short vowel in a CVC arrangment to make a new CCV one (bolgam -->blogam, mar shampla). Now, it does not need to be so, and other changes are possible, like bolgam -->bolagam).

There is no need to be annoyed; my deference to native speakers in style, usage, and semantics is well known. That does not mean someone can't suggest a word form not to your knowing, when there is plausable grounds, and since one is talking about a tatto, sometimes the shorter/smaller the better.

I am at a loss to understand how this exchange began. I thought maybe someone thought my reply to Cionadh was responsive, (which it was not), so I moved to clear up any grounds for offence. At some point along the line, I seem to have annoyed you.

As for data, you must understand my position. My interest is in formulating a series of protocols and instructions for the purpose of building up a 'training dialect'. Thus, dialect studies are my bread and butter, for mechanical purposes. They could be viewed as exlusive to, but not antagonistic with, the level of semantics you enjoy.

So, , we don't have a lot of native speakers around here, and I for one would enjoy benifitting from your input, so why not join us more often?