Irish Translation Forum

i am having trouble with i love you...
i have seen it as Tá grá agam duit,
and have seen is as mé grá agam duit

from what i know, and it is VERY little, doesnt tá mean is?
or when used with grá, is it just understood?

i'm so confused :|

The grammar of all the Celtic languages is initially a difficult concept to grasp, but after reading an introduction to the rule's it's not that difficult. I will give you my explanantion, as how I have learned and perceive it.

"Tá" is a form of "is", yes. "Agam" is, a contraction I guess you'd call it, of "at" and "me" and is also a way of making things posessive in Irish. So "Tá grá agam" is the love that you hold... and duit is "on you", so, "The love that I hold is on you."

I think it is considered more poetic than Graím thu.

yep -- mainly

Tá grá agam dhuit

is considered standard

Is the aspiration of "duit" necessary? I have even seen "Dia dhuit" as "Dia duit", so is that something that's regional?

err.....there's come big long complicated rule which i can't remember

Something to do with the genitive following a vowel at the end of the preceding word or something??

The rule is, if you're from Connaght, you lenite everywhere, everywhen!

oisin718 wrote:The rule is, if you're from Connaght, you lenite everywhere, everywhen!

but up here we say Dia dhuit! and Tá grá agam dhuit

OK, now for the long complicated phonological explanation:

One trend in Irish (and in the Celtic languages as a whole) is the "softening" or "lenition" of a consonant sound when it stands between two vowels, or between a vowel and a liquid followed by a vowel.

A consonant, particularly the stops (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/) presents a break, an obstruction, in the flow of air through the mouth. Lenition occurs when the vowel sounds, the flow of air, overpower the consonant-obstructions, mutating the consonant to allow more air to pass through.

In spoken Irish, the phrase "Dia duit" (God to you) has become one single unit, *Diaduit /d'i:@dit'/. The /d/ of "duit", as part of this unit, now stands between the /i:@/ of "Dia" and /i/ of "duit," and so it is lenited -> "Dia dhuit" /d'i:@Git'/.

This is just a continuation of the process that began in the ancient evolution of the language, within individual words and between words that came together to form a single unit (noun-adjective; preposition-noun, and so forth).