Irish Translation Forum

March 17 2010, 9:49 AM

Hi all,
could you please help translate the word 'Braveheart' for me please.
It means a lot to my family and I and none of us can find the Gaelic word for 'Braveheart' anywhere.
Much appreciated thank you.
Go Scotland rugby league!!

Ian

March 17 2010, 23:08 PM

Since you are apparently of Scottish heritage, I assume you want Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig). It doesn't translate as one word, but can be expressed as: cridhe calma or cridhe gaisgeil. They are about the same, but the second has more of a connotation of "heroic" or "valorous".

In case you did want it in Irish (Gaeilge): croí calma or croí gaiscíoch, with about the same meanings as in Gàidhlig, except that the second one in Irish is perhaps more clearly "heroic" or "valorous".

March 18 2010, 4:45 AM

Hi Kevin,

thank you so very much. Yes I am of Scottish heritage and play rugby league for Scotland as well as my two brothers.
I wasn't even aware there there was a Scottish Gaelic as well as an Irish. I will definitely use the Scottish one but it's good to know them both.
I would love to learn the language but I don't know anyone who speaks it and it would seem a waste.
Thanks again. Greatly appreciated.

Ian

March 18 2010, 6:17 AM

If you care about your heritage, learning your ancestral language is never a waste. A country without a language is a country without a soul. Scotland isn't England...why be content with speaking the language of an invader?

Redwolf

March 18 2010, 18:35 PM

Redwolf wrote:If you care about your heritage, learning your ancestral language is never a waste. A country without a language is a country without a soul. Scotland isn't England...why be content with speaking the language of an invader?

Redwolf

Well said Redwolf :ja:

March 18 2010, 23:55 PM

And even if it weren't your heritage, learning a language is never a waste. A language is more than a collection of words, it's a way of looking at the world, a work of art that generations upon generations of people have had a hand in shaping. Every two weeks, a language dies with the death of its last speaker.

Someday when I have a little more time, perhaps when I'm retired, I'd like to learn some language that's on the brink of extinction. Not that my learning it would help save the language (you need a community of speakers for that), but just... I don't know... just as a tribute to those who spoke it, and saw their way of life disappear.

March 19 2010, 5:44 AM

Gàidhlig is now being taught even in some English-language schools in the Lowlands. I have a friend near Dunkeld (the ancient Caledonian capital) whose son studies it in school there. If you want to get more deeply into it, there is a college on Skye, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which you can read about at this link: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/beurla

March 24 2010, 8:52 AM

It's not that it would be a waste but I would never speak it. I don't know and have never heard of anyone that speaks the language. Was Gaidhlig the original and only language spoken in Scotland before English? Did the clans speak it?

March 24 2010, 9:56 AM

ihendo13 wrote:It's not that it would be a waste but I would never speak it. I don't know and have never heard of anyone that speaks the language. Was Gaidhlig the original and only language spoken in Scotland before English? Did the clans speak it?

Actually English has as much right as Gaelic in Scotland. They were both introduced by foreign settlers/invaders - Gaelic from Ireland and a few centuries later germanic speakers from what is now northern England. This was all the way back in the first millenium.

March 24 2010, 10:47 AM

The "original" people before the Irish started colonizing Scotland were a mixture of Celtic peoples that the Romans called Picti (tattooed people), the Picts. The Irish colonists brought the Gaelic language and the clan system to ""Pictland" or "Pictavia", although the Picts may have had a similar system already.

The influence of the Gaels gradually increased until by the tenth Century the place became known as "Scotland" amongst the Anglo-Saxons (Scottas was the Anglo-Saxon word for "Irish people" or "Gaels" from a Latin word Scoti of the same meaning).

Then the Normans conquered England and Ireland and the Scottish culture and language diverged and became increasingly unique from that of Ireland.

So as Antóin says, the Gaels were just as much invaders as the English.

Irish Translation Forum

Translation only one word, 'Braveheart'.

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