Hello all, and thank you for providing this community!! I had used the IrishGaelicTranslator.com site, and had a Shakespearean phrase translated. I have unfortunately had to wait to get the tattoo done. But now, I have a question about which of these two translations would be best, or if there is a third option. I will first put down the phrase, and then I will include both Gaelic translations which I have had done so far. Some of you here, such as Breandán, mhwombat and RedWolf might remember this from way back.

Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war

Gáirtear 'sléacht', agus scaoiltear cúnna an chogaidh

Caoineadh suaite, agus a ligean duillín na madraí an chogaidh

I am trying to determine which might be the most appropriate version/translation.

Thank you all!!

Scott C. Brown

Hi, Scott. Welcome to ILF.

MY, you have been rather patient in delaying your tattoo:

http://www.irishgaelictranslator.com/tr ... 4-200.html

Let's see, started 31 March 2005 ... that's 6 years, 8 months, seven days and counting ...

I give my vote to Gáirtear 'sléacht', agus scaoiltear cúnna an chogaidh

I think Seán a' Chóta and Aibigéal are pretty strong confirmation in themselves, but wait and see what kk and others here think of it ...

_________________
Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Hey Breandán! Yes, it has been a while. Life, sometimes it just get's in the way! However, I am on the road to recovery, and will have it done by the end of Jan!!

Anyway, yes, I still like the one you do, but am just seeking clarification again, and assurance that the general consensus is the same as you and I feel.

A new question, what is the green font that you are using in your signature, and where might I find that? THAT is the font I have been searching for, I believe, to have this translation put into. Or if you have ideas of other Gaelic Fonts that would be well representative, as opposed to the very generic and overdone Celtic type fonts.

Thanks again Breandán for looking things over. I hope that the years have treated you well!!

Cheers!

Scott

The font is Bunchló Ársa GC by Vincent Morley and is available for free download here:

http://www.gaelchlo.com/bunarsgc.html

Vincent also has other fonts on his site (http://www.gaelchlo.com)

Use the following script to get the dots above the consonants instead of h's to represent séimhiú:

Gáirtear "sléaċt", agus scaoiltear cúnna an ċogaiḋ

Gáirtear "sléaċt", agus scaoiltear cúnna an ċogaiḋ


(Just realised single quotes (') is an American punctuation convention. Non-US English and Irish normally use double quotes (") first and single quotes only if the quote is nested, i.e., He said, "Gáirtear 'sléacht', agus scaoiltear ...")

_________________
Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Thanks Breandán!

Once again you have come through with immediate answers!

Still not sure how you make that happen, but am glad that you do!

Also, no worries on the quotes vs double-quotes. Not even sure it needs them, would love to put that up for discussion as well.

And just as a side note, I thought that this smiley was for "Tips" The image of a face, holding out an old tin can, the top peeled back, shaking it in encouragement to drop something inside it, and winking at you in that "C'mon, you know you want to" sort of way. But no. That's just his thumb. What was I thinking?

For the translation, definitely the one Breandán confirmed. The other one in your first post is complete gibberish (looks like it was taken from Google Translate?).


In modern(ish) texts set in the Gaelic Type, double quotes are used (though they often look very large and, to my eyes, not very appealing; kind of ‘‘like so’’. Single quotes are rarely, if ever, used.

So with the quotes, it would most authentically (as in how it would have appeared in a book from the 19th century) look like so:

Gáirtear ‘‘sléaċt’’, agus scaoiltear cúnna an ċogaiḋ

If you also wanted the words and spelling to reflect an older period, sléaċt ought to be sleaċt (no accent), and cúnna ‘hounds’ should be changed to cona/coin/cuin/cuite. The word for a hound used to have lots of variant plural forms; the only one currently included in the standardised language, however, didn’t exist till some time in the 20th century.

_________________
Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Yes, it is always a difficult to decide how far to take the authenticity when giving a transaltion that "antique" look. I always look to Dinneen as a reasonable reference for the "last of the old school".

I think Dinneen provides the plural variants in order of prevalence, though I am not 100 percent sure on that. So, of the many plurals of cú, I would go with cona myself.

Dinneen has both words sléacht and sleacht, so we don't really need to change that one.

I also just noticed that my quotes weren't properly inverted, but I don't think we need to use two sets of single quotes. They would have had the ligands as well in those days surely?

Alternative old spelling version with sléacht:

Gáirtear “sléaċt”, agus scaoiltear cona an ċogaiḋ

Alternative old spelling version with sleacht:

Gáirtear “sleaċt”, agus scaoiltear cona an ċogaiḋ

_________________
Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

You’d think so, yeah. But every text with quotes I’ve seen from those days have such large/wide quotes that they look like two singles rather than just one double.

The regular double ones look much nicer, though, no doubt about that.

_________________
Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

I guess a lot comes down to what we are (now) used to.

A space before a question mark or an exclamation mark is kind of "standard" in Irish, too, but looks out of place to us.

(I actually prefer two spaces after a full stop or colon for clarity but the forum software won't "allow" it. And the line breaks after a quote are weird in this software too. Have to look into fixing that once work settles down again ... )

_________________
Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).