smoore72 wrote:
My son and I are not in agreement as to which Gaelic translation is accurate for the phrase "Family above all." I have found "teaghlach os conn daoine elle go léir" and "teaghlach os cionn ah-uile" but he insists it is "teaghlach thar aon rud eile." Help? Also, how would the phrase use capitalization, if it does at all. If I were writing it in English, I would capitalize each word.
THANK YOU!!!
All of those are attempts at putting the expression into Irish, not Scottish Gaelic, and this part of the forum is designed for Gaelic, not Irish, but I can advise you as to both.
If Irish is indeed what you want, then none of those says quite what you want, although the elements are there. First, there are several choices for the word "family" in Irish, and "
teaghlach" generally refers to one's immediate household. If you mean your larger family (or even your community, people, or tribe, depending on the context), then I'd go with "
muintir" instead.
You could use "
os cionn", but to me that sounds a bit literal, referring to something literally overhead. It's a matter of choice, perhaps, but to me "
thar" sounds better than "
os cionn" in this context, and I believe that has already been discussed here on the forum before. In a sense, it conveys the idea of "above and beyond". That's what is used in your last version, but "
thar aon rud eile" there sounds a bit off, too. While "
aon rud eile" can indeed mean "anything else", in this context it sounds better to say "
thar gach [uile] ní" ("above all [other] things"). You can do without the "
uile", but it sounds more natural to use it.
So, I'd go with one of these, depending on your outlook as to "family":
Muintir thar gach uile níTeaghlach thar gach uile níor, if you want to be clear that you're talking about your own family:
Mo mhuintir thar gach uile ní"My family above all"
If you did mean to ask for Scottish Gaelic, then the answer is easier. You would definitely choose "
teaghlach" (
muinntir also exists, but "
teaghlach" is used more broadly than is the case in Irish), and there's an idiomatic expression for "above all", giving you: "
Teaghlach gu h-àraidh".