Irish Translation Forum

Hi,

I would like a Gaelic translation for a phrase that I might use as a tattoo. The phrase is "To love and To be Loved". Another member graciously told me that Gaelic does not have infinitives, so this translation maybe be difficult.
Also, if anyone has any suggestions for a nice script to use for a tattoo, that would be great. Thank you.

Patrick.

rune wrote:Hi,

I would like a Gaelic translation for a phrase that I might use as a tattoo. The phrase is "To love and To be Loved". Another member graciously told me that Gaelic does not have infinitives, so this translation maybe be difficult.
Also, if anyone has any suggestions for a nice script to use for a tattoo, that would be great. Thank you.

Patrick.

Of course Gaelic has infinitives... :-\

Grá agus tá grá ort
(to) love and to have love on you

I am not completely sure about this...All I know is that ort would change depending on the subject...

~pure~

Hmmm...i'm not sure how you would about going this, sure you could do it with anything else but "love" is tricky - "OH REDWOLF!"

le grá agus bheith (seol ar aris) to love and to be loved (in return) *just to finish the saying.

I don't know if it's right, though. I'm just going out of the dictionary...

Rae

I'm not sure Irish uses the infinitive form in the same way English does. Verbs in general are treated somewhat differently, with the prepositional pronoun doing a lot of the work the verb would do in English (for example, the common way to say "I love you" in Irish is tá grá agam duit...literally "is love at me to you"). You might have to say something like "I have love and I am loved," but I'm not sure how that could be worded...maybe "tá grá agam agus tá grá orm"? (that's probably way off the mark, so don't quote me on it!).

Redwolf

yep - i mean "to do" you could say would be "(a/le) déanamh"

but because you generally use "Tá" (Bí) with grá it's harder

I take it mine was way wrong.



LOL! I tried.

Rae

Rae wrote:I take it mine was way wrong.



LOL! I tried.

Rae

hehe don't worry about it

the verb to love in irish (gráigh) is used very irregularly. generally the idiom "X has love for Y" is used - unfortunately this is difficult to express in the way the poster wants

Rae wrote:I take it mine was way wrong.



LOL! I tried.

Rae

No worries...you made it clear you weren't sure, and that's the important thing. In many ways, you learn by doing (I'm a beginner too, by the way)...so long as people understand you're not giving a definitive answer, there's no harm.

I'm honestly not sure about this one at all...we may need to wait for Oisin (it's almost 6:00 in NY, so the Sabbath should be over in a couple of hours), or for one of the others who have a better grasp of this kind of idiom, to weigh in.

Redwolf

With all this in mind about 'love', would mo chroí caillte be right? Or would I use grá, or a different word all together?

Rae