Fáilte (Welcome) › Forums › General Discussion (Irish and English) › Translation help – Early Modern Irish
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November 19, 2014 at 3:48 pm #36801Hugo DavidParticipant
Hello all,
I am looking at a manuscript from 1500s of poetry attributed to Columcille, and I cannot make sense of the following commentary from the text (written circa 1600 by an ancestor of mine), aside from ocus = agus; any suggestions?
Mepruicch gach rand marbhain mhin madh cam dan hé mad dhán coir, gach ni tuicfiter tuic fen ocus bud ler duit fa dheoicch
Go raibh maith agat!
November 20, 2014 at 12:09 am #45609MurchadhParticipantThis is about as close as I can get to making sense of it:
(Mepruicch gach rand marbhain mhin madh cam dan hé mad dhán coir, gach ni tuicfiter tuic fen ocus bud ler duit fa dheoicch)
Meabhruigh gach rann marghain mhin/mhín
dá mbadh c[h]am-dhán[?] é [nó?] dá mbadh dhán cóir,
gach ní[dh] tuigfidhear/tuigfear tuig féin agus budh léir duit faoi dheireadhRemember/Memorise every small/fine marginal verse / small/fine margin’s verse
if it’s a crooked/incorrect poem [or] if it’s a correct poem,
everything that will be understood understand [it] yourself and it will be clear to you at last.Mepruicch——–Meabhruigh
gach————–gach
rand————–rann
marbhain——–marbhainmhin————-mhin/mhín
madh————-dá mbadh
cam
dan—————c[h]am-dhán
hé—————–é
mad—————dá mbadh
dhán————–dhán
coir—————-cóir[/coir]
gach—————gach
ni——————ní[dh]
tuicfiter———–tuigfidhear>tuigfear
tuic—————-tuig
fen—————–féin
ocus—————agus
bud—————-budh (old future copula)
ler——————léir
duit—————-duit
fa dheoicch——–faoi dheoigh/dhNovember 20, 2014 at 6:07 am #45610CúnlaParticipantThis is about as close as I can get to making sense of it:
(Mepruicch gach rand marbhain mhin madh cam dan hé mad dhán coir, gach ni tuicfiter tuic fen ocus bud ler duit fa dheoicch)
Meabhruigh gach rann marghain mhin/mhín
dá mbadh c[h]am-dhán[?] é [nó?] dá mbadh dhán cóir,
gach ní[dh] tuigfidhear/tuigfear tuig féin agus budh léir duit faoi dheireadhRemember/Memorise every small/fine marginal verse / small/fine margin’s verse
if it’s a crooked/incorrect poem [or] if it’s a correct poem,
everything that will be understood understand [it] yourself and it will be clear to you at last.Or maybe (in modernized-ish spelling):
Meabhruigh gach rann marbhain mhin, madh camdhán é, madh d(h)án cóir; gach ní tuigfidhear, tuig féin, agus budh léar duit fá dheoidh.
Thus perhaps:
Heed every mean margin’s hint, be it a word awry, be it a word aright; every thing to be gathered, gather it yourself, and it will be clear to you in the end.
November 20, 2014 at 2:54 pm #45612Hugo DavidParticipantThanks, Comhalta.
Very helpful, I appreciate your effort!
Can you tell me, what hard-copy and/or online dictionaries you use to translate Early Modern and Old Irish? I am new to Irish, and the sources I’m using (www.focloir.ie ; eDIL ; The Educational Irish-English Pronouncing Dictionary). are not helpful regarding older Irish.
I have another question, if you don’t mind, this time regarding the Vocative Case. My ancestor who was a scribe, several times used a strange combination apparently for the vocative particle “a”, see e.g.:
Sin comortas litiri [color=red]uo[/color] Dochartaigh co cam 7 tabhradh gach aon lebhes so cet bennacht orm ni bec sin
(“That is a competition in writing, o Doherty, written crookedly, and let everyone who reads this pray a hundred blessings for me, that is enough”)
Any idea what this “uo” is?
November 20, 2014 at 3:57 pm #45613CúnlaParticipantYou say you don’t find the [url=http://dil.ie/]DIL[/url] useful for older Irish? How so?
You mention [url=http://www.focloir.ie/]focloir.ie[/url]: de Bhaldraithe’s and Ó Dónaill’s dictionaries are also available at [url=http://breis.focloir.ie/ga/]breis.focloir.ie[/url].
Dinneen’s Foclóır Gaeḋılge agus Béarla is also online, albeit somewhat less than reliably, at [url=http://glg.csisdmz.ul.ie/]glg.csisdmz.ul.ie[/url].
For things related to reading old manuscripts, especially abbrevations, there’s [url=http://vanhamel.nl/wiki/About:Tionscadal_na_Nod]Tionscadal na Nod[/url].
As for ⟨uo⟩, pretty much [url=http://edil.qub.ac.uk/dictionary/results-new.php?srch=uo&dictionary_choice=edil_2012]all the examples of it in the DIL[/url] are instances of it representing copular ba, -ba, i.e., ⟨uo⟩ = *bo, the letter ⟨u⟩ representing both lenited (originally, as historically in English, now replaced by ⟨v⟩) and unlenited b—by analogy, I reckon, with the letter ⟨b⟩ itself having been used to represent both the lenited and unlenited consonant.
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