Hi, I would like to ask you for a big favor, I'm looking translation of several phrases for a couple of tattoos. ¿Could I have some help with the following phrase? Tapadh leat

One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star

Feumaidh gu bheil eu-cruth annad
There must be chaos within you

gus an urrainn dhut
in order for you to be able

reul dhannsadhach a bheir *
to bear a dancing star

* The verb beir has various meanings, including to give birth, so this clause may not be clear to everyone. It could, for example, be understood as "to carry a dancing star". Gaelic speakers do not seem to use the impersonal forms as much as Irish speakers do these days, but with one of those forms you might be able to say it this way instead (wait to see if anyone else has comments, in any event):

Feumaidh gu bheil eu-cruth annad
There must be chaos within you

gus an rugadh leat
in order that there be born of you

reul dhannsadhach
a dancing star

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Thank you!! thanks for giving me a couple of options, I think I quite like the "to bear" in the first version.

Hello, could you help me check that the spelling and grammar of a translation that user CaoimhínSF was kind enough to help me with?



The phrase reads "You must have caos within you to be able to give birth/ bear a dancing star"

THANKYOU!!!!!

Ceridwenrast, Mexico.

The word "dannsadhach" looks highly unlikely to me, but I'm only a learner and can't recommend anything better.

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

Niall Beag is right that the word is iffy, though I wouldn't go so far as to say highly unlikely. I was the "author" of that translation in another thread, and I'm merging the two threads here (the first time I've done this as one of the new mods).

Ceridenwrast: In future, please just "bump" your old thread up in the queue by re-posting to it, rather than starting a new thread, so that people can see all of the prior comments and not reinvent the wheel.

The word dannsadhach is logical, based on the grammar of Gàidhlig, but it wasn't in any of my dictionaries. I thought I said something like that in the old thread, but I've checked and I failed to do that (mea culpa). I used dannsadhach to try to avoid a more cumbersome structure and fit it into the desired context, and I do think it would be understood correctly, because Gàidhlig has a lot of adjectives built out of verbal nouns in just that same way, and sometimes they can be found in one dictionary, but not in another. However, I should have explained what I was doing.

Niall Beag: Please feel free (as always) to come up with a more standard way of dealing with the problem. I'm a learner as well. Maybe Lughaidh will chime in with a better idea as well.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Well that was my personal opinion -- it feels weird to me, and although I can't really claim to have an "instinctual" grasp of the language, it's enough to concern me when we're talking about something as permanent as a tattoo....

Now, I've had a look for all words ending -adhach in the Stòr-Dàta Briathrachais Gàidhlig and there's not many of them there....

I'll be honest with you, I will only ever respond to tattoo requests to say what looks wrong, never what looks right. Call me a coward, but I don't want the responsibility of someone permanently etching one of my (great many) mistakes on their bodies....

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

Fair enough, and no criticism from me. As I said, I should in any case have been clearer about my own limitations, although I do have my standard warning in my signature. It's hard not having more fluent Gàidhlig speakers to help. How about this as a possible alternative?

reul a tha a' dhannsadh
a dancing star
parallel to the Irish réalta atá ag damhsa

That was my first thought, but I couldn't convince myself that it works in Gàidhlig, form the sources I have. What do you think?

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

My gut reaction would be that there's a real danger of translationese. The English structure "a verbing noun" is a very recent structure, and a lot of languages would use a structure of the form "a noun that verbs". a "reul a tha a' dannsadh" is surely dancing now...?

I'd therefore be inclined to go with the relative future/habitual (the fact that this is also used as a way of implying ability makes it feel particularly appropriate)... but having spoken of the dangers of translationese, it's of course entirely possible that I've gone and made a blatant translationese error myself, but starting from French/Spanish instead of English...!

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

Of course, we're dealing with a translation of a translation here. Seeing the original German quote might help.

"man muss noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können"

I don't speak German, unfortunately. But Google Translate definitely agrees that "tazenden" is "dancing"...

_________________
A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.