How would you say "Blessings of the Raven Queen on you"?

My guess would be "Beannachtaí Bhanríon na Bhfiach Dubha ort/oraibh"

My difficulty with this is that I believe it would literally be "Blessings of the Queen of Ravens" which would make it a "double genitive", so I'm not at all sure of the above.
Thanks in advance.

I think, speaking in a strictly grammatical sense,

. . . na Bhfiaigh Dhuibh

would be "raven" in the singular. There may be a question of not aspirating "dubh" as well. (Some dictionaries also opt to leave "dubh" off.) I'm not sure of the nuance in meaning between using singular or plural here.

You'll have to get more input from others to make sure about this.

Cheers,
Tim

na bhFiach Dubh

Genitive plural (... of the black ravens).
(In many dialects you would see na bhFiacha Dubha instead, so both words in nominative plural form)
Eclipsed upper case consonants: bhF... not Bhf...

It’s okay. That’s why you use Bhanríon instead of Bhanríona.


Plural article and eclipsis is wrong here.
This would be: an Fhiaigh Dhuibh

I’d thnk , lenition is necessary.

Either a queen of one raven or a queen of all ravens.

… an Fhiaigh Dhuibh

masculine singular lenites in genitive ;-)

(and I would guess that singular would suggest that it’s the Queen of the (single, particular) Raven, but my intuition here also might be wrong)

As for capitalization, in plural it should be: na bhFiach Dubh (adjectives after weak plurals in gen.pl. have no suffix) or in more archaic language na bhFiach nDubh – anyway the letters from the original word roots get capitalized, not those marking eclipsis or are prothetic (cf. eg. Sliabh na mBan bhFionn, Uachtarán na hÉireann and an tUachtarán, i dTuaisceart Éireann…).

So,

"Beannachtaí Bhanríon na bhFiach Dubh ort/oraibh" would be the correct translation?

If so, I was a lot closer than I thought I'd be. Just got the weak/strong plural thing backwards.
I honestly guessed on that part. And I REALLY should have known better about the proper capitalization of "bhFiach Dubh".

BTW, why is "bhFiach" considered a weak plural? I'm really weak on that part of Irish grammar. (Pun intended )

Thanks guys,

Because its plural ends with an 'a'.

Thank you silmeth and Labhrás for corrections.



I am with silmeth on preferring the singular but wait for more input from others.

I think it comes down to what is meant by "Raven Queen":

1. If it means "the Queen of the Ravens", i.e., a queen who has dominion over all or lots of ravens, then na bhFiach Dubh is the way to go.

2. I know some of you prefer the singular but dominion over a single raven seems unlikely.

3. Another possible interpretation of "the Raven Queen" is that of "the queen who is a raven" (and may or may not have dominion over more than just ravens.) How does one go about translating that and then putting it into the genitive?

an bhanríon fhiaigh dhuibh => beannachtaí na banríona fiaigh duibh ?

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