mainoff.gif
lastdyoff.gif
lastwkoff.gif
treeoff.gif
searchoff.gif
helpoff.gif
contactoff.gif
creditsoff.gif
homeoff.gif


The Daltaí Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2009 (May-June) » Archive through May 30, 2009 » Birthday Greeting-Translation Help please! « Previous Next »

Author Message
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Faberm
Member
Username: Faberm

Post Number: 42
Registered: 02-2009
Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 09:16 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Dear Friends:

As you know, I've only studied Gaeilge now for about 2.1/2 months. I am taking father, mother and my three college aged kids (and my bride) to Ireland in July and I am arranging a surprise party for him in on July 24th in Omagh (near where we came from in 1764). He will be 80 years old three days before the party. I would like to address him in Irish with all friends about and give them a translation. I know this may be butchered but this was my best go as I sit here this morning. The message is long, so if it is better just to email me direct feel free to (). I need help as the priest is hoped to come and he is an Irish speaker and I don't want to make a total fool of myself.

Here it is:

Welcome ! This party is a very special celebration.
Cead mile failte! Tá cóisir seo an t-ócáid agus ceiliúradh speisialta.

We are here to give honor to my parents, and especially my father.
Tá muid anseo tabhair onóir don mo thuismitheoir agus mo ahthair go hairithe.

His birthday was three days ago, and he turned 80 years old.
Bhí breitlá do trí lá ó shín agus tá sé ahocht (80) mblianna d’ais.

My father is a man of great accomplishments:
Tá mo ahthair an fear na chriochnú agus éhachta mhór:

He was a good son to his own parents.
Bhí an mac maith é féin don tuismitheoir aige.

He is a good husband.
Is an fear céile maith é.

He is a good father.
Is an athair maith é.

He is a man of books.
Is an fear iontach na lheabhair.

He is a great medical doctor.
Is dochtuir iontach é.

Even now, he is studying to learn a few words in the Irish language.
Tá sé ag foghlaim anois fein labhair cúpla focail sa gaeilge.

Why. Because it is the language of his ancestors. It is the language of his people.

Cad chuige? Mar do is teanga na shinsear aige. Is teanga na daoine aige.

He is such an inspiration to me. My father is a servant even though
Is inspiroáid é dom. Is gille é mo athair, cé go

himself is a descended from many of the Great High Kings of Scotland and Ireland, he
is dirshilioachtach é féin na ard rí na hEirrean agus Albain.

He has been a servant leader his entire life. And today we want to honor
Bhí laidir gille do saol aige. Ba mhaite linn tabhair onóir

him. And so I say to him, “A very very Happy Happy Birthday”
seo lá aige. Abair, “Breithlá shona duit! Go Maire tú an lá”


No one on this forum can say I don't have the "cojones" to give it a go!
Slán go foill,
Faber MacMhaolain

Ps: Wasn't sure exactly when to us "Is" or "Ta" so I just went with my feel. Let's see if my instinct is working.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

An_chilleasrach
Member
Username: An_chilleasrach

Post Number: 63
Registered: 01-2009
Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 09:43 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Faber,

Like yourself, I am just learning, although for a little longer than you. I just wanted to say that I think that is a superb effort for someone who has only been learning for a couple of months. You have a flair for it. I can see some things that will need correction but I will leave it to the experts. Most of the issues I can see are far more obvious in writing than they would be in speech so don't worry too much. In any case, I don't think anyone should suggest any wholesale re-write because it would be incongruous to have an early learner delivering a speech in sophisticated Irish. You wrote it yourself and it will have much greater power and charm for that. Your father will be very proud.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 8340
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 10:54 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Tá magairlí agat cinnte, maith an fear.

General advice: Lose the definite article, it is not needed when you are qualifying the noun.


This party is a very special celebration Is comóradh ar leith atá sa chóisir seo
We are here to give honor to my parents; and especially my father Táimid anseo chun onóir a thabhairt do mo thuistí ; go hairithe do m'athair
His birthday was three days ago ; and he turned 80 years old. Bhí a lá breithe trí lá ó shin ; agus tá an ceithre scór bainte amach aige
My father is a man of great accomplishments Is fear thar a bheith tréitheach é m'athair
He was a good son to his own parents Ba mhac maith é dá thuistí féin
He is a good husband. Is an fear céile maith é. [and so on for the following]


More later. I'm not sure about your use of "giolla", which is a very servile word.

Errors & Ommisions excepted.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Breandán
Member
Username: Breandán

Post Number: 251
Registered: 12-2008


Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 11:10 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Wow, that's amazing, Faber! I tend to agree with an_chilleasrach here - minimal corrections. Valuable ones have been provided by Aonghus, I see, but keep it as close as possible to the way it is for the occasion. Great work.

And congratulations to your dad, too!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Faberm
Member
Username: Faberm

Post Number: 43
Registered: 02-2009
Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 12:11 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Brendan:

I appreciate the encouragement. It is a little discouraging to see my Irish so removed from how Aonghas'Irish is knowing he is a "native speaker" (let's don't rehash "native" again please). My mind is slowly capturing the feel of things, but the language is so idiomatic compared to Spanish that it makes formulation of thoughts (previously unseen)ripe for a mine field of errors. That is quite discouraging.

It makes me think that modern Irish is a shadow of a former language that had much more structural and linguistic integrity. It perhaps is a nth generation degradation of something else. French is much that way. It is an extreme degeneration of Latin with Gaulic words and elements thrown into it.(many letters unpronounced that in fact were pronounced in generations prior, etc.)

Dad and I started around March 1st and I first got on this site about then. I remember you told me the orthology was out there about where French is, and you were right. I still find speaking quite a struggle as my mind races to grab the word and we have only ourselves to speak with on our basic level. My dad and I are beginning to put the english thought we wish to say in Irish in a "irish form". This is helping our minds make the transition.

Again, thanks for the encouragment,
Faber

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg
Member
Username: Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg

Post Number: 566
Registered: 04-2008
Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 01:02 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

quote:

It makes me think that modern Irish is a shadow of a former language that had much more structural and linguistic integrity. It perhaps is a nth generation degradation of something else. French is much that way. It is an extreme degeneration of Latin with Gaulic words and elements thrown into it.(many letters unpronounced that in fact were pronounced in generations prior, etc.)


French is arguably more different from Latin than other Romance languages, but it doesn't make it a "degradation" or "degeneration". All languages change over time. Latin doesn't have any more "linguistic integrity" than any other language. If an even earlier ancestor of it had been preserved as a literary language, then doubtless there would be people calling Classical Latin a "degeneration" of that.

Moreover, Irish isn't any more "idiomatic" than Spanish; it's just that the "idioms" are different. Typologically, Spanish and English are more similar than Irish and English, so it's not surprising that your English-based instincts lead you astray less often in Spanish than in Irish.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Faberm
Member
Username: Faberm

Post Number: 44
Registered: 02-2009
Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 02:03 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Domhnaillin:

I appreciate your comments, but I can only speak from my experience. I took 8 years of Latin in school. I am fluent in Spanish at the level of legal argument (I am a lawyer). I took 5 years of French in school at a grade school level, and still speak conversational French. I read and write Hebrew. Just stating this to let you know I'm not making some unreferenced statement. The degradation I'm speaking of doesn't mean the French language is not noble, but it was probably born out of unsophisticated Roman soldiers or citizens left in Gaul. Hence, there are such weirdisms as "C'est ce que c'est". Lit...What is this that this is? To mean "What is this?" That the sort of degradation I'm speaking of and I may be entirely wrong (I'm okay with that).

You may be right that my Spanish, English, and perhaps French and Latin may lead me astray. I just have no other European language paradigm to refer to, so Irish has been particularly challenging. Hopefully in time it will get easier for me. I don't know if it is the language differential from the others, my older age (now 53), or both that make it quite difficult for me. It's just a much harder grasp for me than other languages I've dealt with, and it seems more idiomatic than my experience with the other 5 languages. I'm just hoping some day Irish words will flow easire from my mouth and mind. Thanks for your comments.

Slan
Faber

Ps: Would love to hear your constructive critique on my birthday greeting.
Gotta go back to work!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg
Member
Username: Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg

Post Number: 567
Registered: 04-2008
Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 02:31 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

A Fhaber, I'm not the best person to ask for feedback, but I'll do what I can.

Is gille é mo athair, cé go is dirshilioachtach é féin na ard rí na hEirrean agus Albain.

1. Lose the é after gille. You only need it when a definite noun comes right after is, e.g. is é m'athair an saothraí. Oh, and as this example shows, mo athair contracts to m'athair.

2. *go is doesn't exist, at least not in Standard Irish. The correct form is gur.

3. A more idiomatic way of saying "he's a descendant of X" is is de shliocht X é. (Note that the pronoun goes to the end--this is the usual word order for Irish.) "The High Kings of Ireland and Scotland" would be "Ard-Ríthe na hÉireann agus na hAlban". Putting it all together, you get "cé gur de shliocht Ard-Ríthe na hÉireann agus na hAlban é". (I think I've handled that sequence of genitives correctly.)

I appreciate your comments, but I can only speak from my experience.

Which is not exactly germane to this case unless of course you happened to be living in Gaul circa 50 BCE.

Hence, there are such weirdisms as "C'est ce que c'est". Lit...What is this that this is? To mean "What is this?" That the sort of degradation I'm speaking of and I may be entirely wrong (I'm okay with that).

Actually, what that is is a cleft sentence. (And as that sentence itself shows, English is lousy with them.) It's an ingenious way of avoiding inversion. Inversions and clefts are simply two different means of shifting emphasis in clauses; one is not inherently better in any way than the other, so it's not meaningful to call one a "degradation" of the other.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Ormondo
Member
Username: Ormondo

Post Number: 419
Registered: 04-2008
Posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 02:57 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

French is arguably more different from Latin than other Romance languages, but it doesn't make it a "degradation" or "degeneration". All languages change over time.

All languages transform willy-nilly (now where did that one transform from?) over time. Since written standards have been in existence they have acted as benchmarks and continual reference to them has considerably slowed down the natural process of transformation.

There is a good explanation of this process in "The Tower of Babel" by John McWhorter. Reading the same book cleared up a few misconceptions I had had about linguistic matters.

(Message edited by ormondo on May 28, 2009)

Is geal leis an bhfiach dubh a ghearrcach féin.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Breandán
Member
Username: Breandán

Post Number: 254
Registered: 12-2008


Posted on Friday, May 29, 2009 - 12:52 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

quote:

Is gille é mo athair, cé go is dirshilioachtach é féin na ard rí na hEirrean agus Albain.

1. Lose the é after gille. You only need it when a definite noun comes right after is, e.g. is é m'athair an saothraí. Oh, and as this example shows, mo athair contracts to m'athair.



Sorry, I have to disagree there, a Dhomhnaillín. "mo" is a definer with the same function as "an". Is gille é m'athair is correct.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 8345
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Friday, May 29, 2009 - 04:21 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Both are correct
Is giolla [é] m'athair

But I still don't like the use of giolla. My difficulty is that I would recast the sentence completely to express the sentiment. But that would be too far from Faberm's original, and hence not meet the purpose.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg
Member
Username: Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg

Post Number: 569
Registered: 04-2008
Posted on Friday, May 29, 2009 - 09:04 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

My difficulty is that I don't normally use sentences like this. I would say "Giolla [or whatever] is ea m'athair", and so on down the line. But I'm sure that's too Munster for Faber.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Faberm
Member
Username: Faberm

Post Number: 45
Registered: 02-2009
Posted on Friday, May 29, 2009 - 09:34 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

I dont know any irish other than what I've learned off of my CD's which are definitely Ulster (Tús Maith course), what I get from you guys (can't hear only read), and what I hear on Raidio Ulster classes BBC (Giota beag eile). I certainly don't mind learning a Munster way to say things. I find the Munster to be clear and spoken in a clean way when I've heard it. I find "Conas atá tú" (don't know if it's Munster or Standard) to be so close to Spanish I don't even have to think about it. It took me a while saying, "Cad é mar atá tu" to get used to it. When I say that to a horse trainer from Kerry who lives nearby he looks at me like I'm speaking martian. It's frustrating because he claimed to have grown up speaking Irish and he won't speak more than 5-10 words to me.

Aonghus, you mentioned that Giolla might be too servile. What I'm trying to convey is a popular term today in business and religious circles of being a "Servant Leader", much like Jesus was. So perhaps,"Giolla" if it means "servant" is spot on. However, please cast the sentence as you would given that further explanation.

Thanks to you all,
FaberM

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg
Member
Username: Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg

Post Number: 572
Registered: 04-2008
Posted on Friday, May 29, 2009 - 11:04 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

A Fhaber, for a lengthy discussion of "Conas atá tú" and its variants, see this thread. The long and short of it is that this is indeed a(n artificial) standard form, and Munster colloquial would be "Conas taoi?" or "Conas tánn tú?" Try one of those with your Kerryman friend and see if that changes anything!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 8346
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Friday, May 29, 2009 - 11:20 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

I would say "Tugann m'athair ceannasaíocht tré freastal" (My father leads by serving)

Giolla means servant in the sense of a rough labourer, so while it was used by saint (who alos use Mogh = slave) I'm not sure it fits, or would be understood.



©Daltaí na Gaeilge