Dia Dhuit, I'm new to the forums and through a lot of searching I found this place. I've been trying to find a translation for my saying

"May a steady arm guide the hand of power."
(Left forearm) (Right forearm)

I'm Scottish/German and have been learning a little bit of Irish Gaelic. Which actually is the only form of Gaelic that I can find being taught. I might not be looking hard enough but I'd prefer to be true to my roots for this tattoo then have it in Irish. (No offence to Irish, just a proud Scotsmen)

I hope its not difficult to translate, but I can work with variations. I came up with the saying for archery, but I realized that it kind of explains my views on the world as well.

Also having this forum is an amazing idea, thank you to all who participate in keeping our language alive. It's much appreciated.

Thank you

It is not too difficult to translate, but the words won't break the way you want in Scottish Gaelic (or Irish), because the whole verbal expression comes first (as I've indicated with colors below):

Gun treòraich gàirdean cunbhalach
May a steady arm guide
làmh an neirt
the hand of power

If you are open to revising it to a passive structure, it can be broken into two (somewhat) more equal parts:

Gum bi làmh an neirt
May the hand of power be [in English, ending with "be" looks odd, but the Gaelic clause is quite normal sounding]
treòraichte le gàirdean cunbhalach
guided by a steady arm

The original version would break up nicely into three parts, if you can think of a place for that:

Gun treòraich
gàirdean cunbhalach
làmh an neirt

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

Would it be possible to change the nouns gàirdean and làmh?


Gum bi gàirdean an neirt
treòraichte le làmh cunbhalach

Or would that change the sentence? I'm not very good with grammar hah
other then that I like the passive version. The changing of the nouns, if possible, would be perfect.

Trying to get the sentence split in half as closely as possible.

also thank you for the quick response.

Yes, that could work:

Gum bi gàirdean an neirt
May the arm of power be
treòraichte le làmh cunbhalach
guided by a steady hand

By the way, in the response up above I mistakenly put "arm" where "hand" should have been in the second line of the second (passive) English version , but I think you realized that already. I've corrected it up there.

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