Irish Translation Forum

I read in a Diana Gabledon book that my nickname, spelled B-R-E-E means "a great disturbance" in Gaelic. Is this true? Thank you.
Bree

sky_is_falling wrote:I read in a Diana Gabledon book that my nickname, spelled B-R-E-E means "a great disturbance" in Gaelic. Is this true? Thank you.
Bree

I'm afraid not. For one thing, that spelling wouldn't be used in Irish (I don't think I've ever seen a double e in Irish). The closest in sound would be brí, which means "strength" or "vigor."

Redwolf

Wait...that might be Scottish Gaelic. I didn't realize that there was a difference.

sky_is_falling wrote:Wait...that might be Scottish Gaelic. I didn't realize that there was a difference.

I don't think Scottish Gaelic has double "e's" either. It's possible (and you should definitely wait for further input), but I wouldn't count on it if I were you. While there are some excellent writers who do good research, there are also plenty of them out there who play fast and loose with the language (I guess they figure that no one will bother to check).

Is this Diana Gabledon a novelist?

Redwolf

Bree; Breeda; Breege; are English "translations" of the name Bríd - and Bríd did originally come from the word Brí for strenght I believe.

I'm often called Breege by English speakers, they just are not able to pronounce the Irish sounds correctly.

sky_is_falling wrote:Wait...that might be Scottish Gaelic. I didn't realize that there was a difference.

Diana Gabaldon often uses Scottish Gaelic terms in her stories. And I've seen a few spelling mistakes along the way, however, I suspect in this particular instance it was spelled with a double e for the sake of clarity. As far as the meaning, the only thing close that would be pronounced like "bree" would be brìgh - juice/liquid. Disturbance is buaireas, pronounced like boour-as.

Redwolf wrote:
Is this Diana Gabledon a novelist?

Yes, she's done a series of books about an English woman who gets tranported through a time portal to 17th century Scotland. They're in the vein of "bodice-ripper" romance novels, but officially they are in the scifi/fantasy catagory.

Brí is also an old word for hill Brí Chualainn(Bray) and Brí Léith in Co longford where Étaín stayed.