Translation help – Early Modern Irish

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  • #36801
    Hugo David
    Participant

    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!

    #45609
    Murchadh
    Participant

    This 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 dheireadh

    Remember/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/dh

    #45610
    Cúnla
    Participant

    This 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 dheireadh

    Remember/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.

    #45612
    Hugo David
    Participant

    Thanks, 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?

    #45613
    Cúnla
    Participant

    You 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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