Live, Love, Huh?!

This language isn’t a toy for you to use to make yourself feel “special” or “unique.” Take the time to get it right.

Haigh, a chairde!

I’ve been racking my brains lately, trying to thing of something to write about after six months of COVID hiatus. Adjusting to working from home (yes, I have a day job), and dealing with the stress, worry, and day-to-day concerns really took their toll on the creative process.

Then, two days ago, I opened up Facebook and there, right in front of me, was this gem of a bad Irish tattoo, shared to my page by a friend (Thanks, Máire Uí Brádaigh! Facebook friends rock!)

Woo hoo! Problem solved! Writer’s block broken!

A common (i.e., overdone) request

Ever since I began learning Irish, in 2004, “Live Laugh Love” or some variant thereof (some want “Live Love Laugh” or “Laugh Live Love”) has been the single most common tattoo translation request among women.

(Seriously, if you’re looking for something original, this ain’t it)

Why they want it in Irish I have no idea, but want it they do. If my experience is any indicator, there must be hundreds of women with some version of this permanently marked on their skin in Irish — the lucky/smart ones in good Irish. The others, not so much. Three guesses as to which this person is.

Suffice it to say that what she has on her back is NOT “Live Laugh Love” — in “Gaelic” or in any other language.

(By the way, if you’re curious, the single most common tattoo translation among men is some variation on “None but God may judge me/Only God can judge me.” Dudes can be unoriginal too.)

So what does it REALLY say? “Live…?”

So if it doesn’t say “Live Laugh Love,” what does it say? Let’s start with the first word: Beo.

English is full of words that are spelled the same way but that sound different and have different meanings (the technical name for these is “heteronyms”). “Live” is a prime example. If you pronounce it to rhyme with “give” it is a verb meaning, depending on context, “exist,” “survive,” “enjoy/experience life,” etc.

If you pronounce it to rhyme with “hive,” however, it is an adjective meaning “alive” or “living” (for example “live bait,” i.e., bait that is alive).

When people with a limited understanding of how languages work attempt to do their own translations (note: this is a very bad idea), they tend to forget this tiny detail. You can read more about this in another blog post I wrote a while back: “It’s a Long Life with a Bad Tattoo.

To put it simply, our tattooed friend grabbed the wrong one. “Beo” means “Alive.”

The laughing stud horse?

The second word (really a non-word) is causing a great deal of hilarity on the Irish-speaking internet because, at first glance, it looks like the “translator” intended to write “stud horse.”

Fortunately (I guess), she kind of missed the mark there, as the word for a stud horse is Graíre and what she has there is “Gráire.” The presence (or lack) and placement of an accent mark makes a huge difference in Irish. Put it in the wrong place, leave it out, or put it in when it isn’t called for, and you have a different word.

For more on this: Are You a Fada-less Child?

So the sort-of good news is that she doesn’t have “stud horse.” The bad news is she has nothing at all. “Gráire” isn’t a word in Irish.

It’s likely the person was aiming for “Gáire” — “Laughter/a Laugh.” What she has, though, is nonsense.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped people from making jokes about “Alive Shergar Love” (Americans feel free to substitute “Secretariat” for “Shergar”).

And then there’s grá

As the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day (well, an analog one anyway!). “Grá” does indeed mean “love,” but it’s a noun, not a verb.

There is a verb “love” in Irish — gráigh — but it’s rarely used. A more usual way of telling someone to love would be tabhair grá : “give love.”

How does this happen?

There are lots of different ways that this kind of mis-translation can happen. One of the most common is a misguided attempt to do a word-for-word translation using a dictionary.

It would be handy if languages worked that way (All you’d have to do is memorize a bunch of vocabulary and bingo! You’d have another language!). Unfortunately for would-be translators, they don’t.

Aside from such pitfalls as the aforementioned heteronyms, the fact is that different languages just work differently. Some examples:

English: Thank you

Irish: Go raibh maith agat (literally “may there be good to-you”)

English: I love you

Irish: Tá grá agam duit (literally “Is love at-me to-you”)

Here’s a pretty classic (and horrifying on many levels) example of what can happen when someone attempts a translation using a dictionary: Even Racists Got the Blues.

Sometimes this happens because someone asks a friend or family member who misrepresents his or her level of Irish. Sadly, this happens way more often than it should. The reality is that true fluency in Irish is rare, even in Ireland, and people who are truly fluent are often reluctant to do this kind of translation for various reasons.

So how DO you say it?

As I mentioned above, this is an extremely common tattoo translation request, and various Irish forums have struggled with the best way to express it.

To express it using verbs is kind of awkward, and can be ambiguous. Irish isn’t English. “Simple” translations often aren’t all that simple.

What I usually suggest is to use nouns:

Beatha Gáire Grá — Life Laughter Love

Show some respect

It’s OK to want a tattoo in Irish. Just , whatever you do, please have enough respect for the language and the culture to get it right. Spend the time and, if necessary, spend the money to get a solid translation. This language isn’t a toy for you to use to make yourself feel “special” or “unique.”

If you need help, drop me a line in the comments below and I can give you some guidance.

Le meas,

In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada. For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

Even Racists Got the Blues

Most of the time, I feel a little bit sorry for people who make horrendous translation mistakes. This is not one of those times.

REQUEST FROM THE GEEK IN CHIEF: June 1, 2020

Dear friends,

Since this post was published, three years ago, so many more lives have been lost to racism in this country, most recently that of George Floyd. I’m asking you, if you’ve found anything of value in this post, to please consider making a donation to Black Lives Matter. If you’re not able to donate, please do what you can. March. Speak up. Speak out. Be a witness. Be the change.

Le meas,
GG
Black Lives Matter

OK…I have to say that, most of the time, I feel a little bit sorry for people who make horrendous translation mistakes. This is not one of those times.

This pic came across my desk about nine months ago, and it may just be the worst example of a self-translation disaster I’ve ever seen.

In fact, it’s so bad, and so out of context, that most of my Irish-speaking friends had no idea what this person was trying to say with those three Irish words: “Gorm Chónaí Ábhar.” It’s beyond gibberish. It even took me a few minutes.

The sad thing is, in order to “get it,” you need to be familiar not only with the ways in which people make translation mistakes (which are legion), but also with a particularly unpleasant segment of U.S. politics.

What this person was trying to say, with this mess of a translation on his t-shirt, is “Blue Lives Matter.”

A Little Background

For the sake of those who don’t live in the U.S. (and without delving too deeply into the dark underbelly of American politics), suffice it to say that the slogan “Blue Lives Matter” arose in opposition to the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

The “Black Lives Matter” movement arose in response to the disproportionate degree of police brutality directed at people of color in the U.S., particularly toward African Americans. I’ll leave it to you to decide what would motivate someone to oppose such a movement. The term I prefer can be found in your Irish dictionary under “C.”

So no…I’m not very sorry for this person (I am, however, very sorry at the assault upon the Irish language!).

Beyond philosophy, then, what exactly is wrong with this translation? Well, let’s start with how the “translator” went about it:

Sometimes the Dictionary is NOT Your Friend

I’m often baffled by the number of people who seem to think that you can translate from one language to another simply by pulling the words of one language from a dictionary and plugging them into the syntax of the other. It just doesn’t work that way, friends. Repeat after me: “Languages are not codes for one another.”

That’s exactly what happened here, though. Someone either found a dictionary or searched the internet for the three words “blue,” “lives,” and “matter,” and stuck them together as if they were English. Oy. Dia sábháil (that’s Ulster Irish for “oy”).

Irish syntax is very, very (very!) different from English. For one thing, the verb comes first in the sentence. For another, adjectives follow the nouns they modify. So even if you COULD render this phrase with these three simple words, you’d need “Matter Lives Blue.”

Unfortunately, however, you can’t fix this phrase simply by reordering the words, because, among other things…

Idiom Also Matters

An idiom is an expression particular to a particular language or region. For example, in English, when we say that something “matters,” we mean that it has worth and/or that it makes a difference.

It doesn’t necessarily work that way in other languages. In Irish, we’d have to get more specific. We might say something like Tá fiúntas i _____ (“There is worth/value in _____”) or Tá ________ tábhachtach (“______ is/are important”).

To make matters worse, though (there’s another idiom for you!), whoever made this “translation” apparently forgot that the word “matter” in English can have several meanings. In this case, the word he or she chose — ábhar — means “matter” as in “subject matter.” It’s a noun. Oops!

So Does Pronunciation

Another thing this poor “translator” apparently forgot is that the word “lives” in English can be pronounced to rhyme with “gives” or with “hives,” and that the meaning changes accordingly.

What was wanted here, of course, is “lives” as rhymes with “hives.” Three guesses as to which one the “translator” chose. Yep. Wrong one.

The word cónaí in Irish (which in certain grammatical circumstances inflects to chónaí) means “dwelling.” When we want to say that we live somewhere, we literally say “Am I in my dwelling in _________.”

Tá mé i mo chónaí i nDún na nGall: “I live in Donegal.”

Tá Seán ina chónaí i nGaillimh: “Seán lives in Galway.”

To toss another problem onto the pile, in Irish, we probably wouldn’t use the equivalent of the English “life/lives (rhymes with ‘hives’)” to mean “people”. We’d most likely just use daoine: “people.” There’s that “idiom” problem again.

And Then There’s Gorm

The funny thing here is, the Irish word gorm actually does mean “blue” in most contexts. Just not in this manner, and definitely not in this context.

When color is used to describe a person in Irish, it typically refers to hair color. For example An bhean rua: The red-haired woman.

There are exceptions, of course: For example, Na fir bhuí (“The orange/yellow men”) is used to refer to members of the Orange Order because of the color of their sashes. But “blue/gorm” would not be used to refer to police officers as a group. That’s an American thing.

All that having been said, though, here’s the lovely, delicious irony: When the word gorm is used in reference to people, guess what it means?

It means “Black.”

People of African descent, or with similarly dark skin, are described as “blue” in Irish (most likely because dubh (“black”) and dorcha (“dark”) have negative connotations in the language and donn (“brown”) would be understood to refer to hair color).

That’s right. At the end of the day, allowing for grammatical travesties (of which there are many) and horrendous word choices, what this person’s shirt says is “Black Lives Matter.”

Somehow that makes me strangely happy.

Update 9/24/2020: I just came across this excellent article by Clare Healy on Black Lives Matter and the Irish language. Highly recommended!

The Irish for Black Lives Matter

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.

Irish, Gaelic, or Irish Gaelic: What’s in a Name?

If you’re at a social gathering here in the U.S. and you tell someone you speak, teach, or are learning Spanish (or German, or Icelandic, or whatever), nobody gives you a confused look, or asks you what you mean by “Spanish.”

This post originally appeared on my Tumblr blog in February, 2017

Sometimes I envy people who speak Spanish, or German, or Icelandic, or just about any other language I can think of. They have it so easy!.

If you’re at a social gathering here in the U.S. and you tell someone you speak, teach, or are learning Spanish (or German, or Icelandic, or whatever), nobody gives you a confused look, or asks you what you mean by “Spanish.”

Irish is different. If you say you speak/learn/teach Irish, after a moment of befuddled silence, you usually get one of the following:

“You mean they have their own language?”
“Do you mean you’re learning to speak with an Irish accent?”
“Oy can speak Oirish too! (this person is usually quite obnoxiously drunk)
“Do you mean Gaelic?” (The ones who want to appear especially in-the-know may pronounce this “GAA-lik,” as it is in Scotland. I blame Outlander).

Say Something Irish

Things get more interesting if you’re asked to “say something in Irish.”

I usually resist my impulse to respond with “‘Rud éigin’ as Gaeilge” (”’Something’ in Irish”) and rattle off something I can say by heart, such as the Lord’s Prayer:

Ár n-Athair atá ar neamh, go naofar d’ainm, go dtaga do ríocht, go ndéantar do thoil ar an talamh mar atá ar neamh…

To which the response often is:

“But that doesn’t sound much like English!”

Er….duh?*

Of course, there’s always the Carlsberg approach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI5_b-327Dw

* Yes, I know that’s a bit snarky. But it just goes to show what some of us have to deal with when speaking of the language outside of its home island.

A Language With an Identity Problem

At issue is the fact that, outside of its home region, and particularly in the U.S., Irish suffers from a real identity problem..

You would think that, with the huge number of people from Ireland who immigrated to the U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Irish was still the majority language in Ireland, some knowledge of the language would at least linger here. And perhaps it does in some Irish-American communities.

Most Americans, though, don’t seem to know that the Irish have ever spoken anything but English. And those who do don’t know what to call it, or even that it’s still a living (albeit endangered) language.

This puts those of us who work with a predominately American market in a somewhat difficult position. How do we let our target audience know that we’re speaking of a language that is native to Ireland (and that isn’t a form of English)?

The answer that many of us have arrived at is to use the term “Irish Gaelic.” Unfortunately that opens up a completely different can of worms.

Much Ado About Nothing

There are, I’m afraid, people out there who are hugely bothered by the term “Irish Gaelic.” I mean HUGELY bothered. Get-your-knickers-in-a-twist bothered. Major-freak-outage bothered.

In fact, from some of the more over-the-top responses to the term, you might be justified in thinking that calling the language “Irish Gaelic” is roughly equivalent to saying “You’re ugly, and your mother dresses you funny.”

But is it really? Are those of us who use “Irish Gaelic” in the titles of our books and learning programs really being disrespectful to the language? Let’s take a look at some of the objections raised.

“They Don’t Call it That in Ireland”

This is absolutely, indisputably true. You won’t hear people in Ireland referring to “Irish Gaelic.”

I feel the need to point out, though, that they don’t need to. If you were to announce in Ireland that you were learning Irish, they would know exactly what you were talking about (they might think you were crazy, but they wouldn’t be confused by the reference).

It’s their language, after all. Whether or not they speak it, they’re surrounded by it from birth to death…in school, on television and radio, on road signs. Irish may not be widely spoken in Ireland anymore, but it’s still very much present.

Much as I wish it were otherwise, that isn’t the case here in the U.S. If we want people to know what we’re talking about, we need to be more specific.

And yes…it sucks that we have to jump through these hoops to ensure that people know what we’re talking about. After all, if you tell someone you’re learning French, they don’t ask “Do you mean you’re learning French cooking?” But it is what it is.

“It’s Incorrect”

Well, really, it isn’t. It’s not official, and it’s certainly not the standard in Ireland, but it’s not incorrect.

Irish is a Gaelic (Goidelic) language…a language of the Celtic people known as the Gaels. It shares this distinction with its sister languages, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. And, in fact, many older Irish speakers in Ireland do refer to the language as “Gaelic.”

“Gaelic” is also a word that just about anyone will recognize as referring to a language. And if you want proof that it is, in fact, used in Ireland, I can only point to the fact that the English name of Conradh na Gaeilge is “The Gaelic League.”

The problem is that, by convention, the word “Gaelic” by itself is taken to mean the language of Scotland. This is an important distinction if you’re looking for learning or teaching resources, as anything that is simply called “Gaelic” will be for Scottish Gaelic. Hence the need to specify “Irish Gaelic,” if we’re going to use the term “Gaelic” at all.

Yes, “Irish” is the official name of the language, and all of us who speak or teach the language use it (Well, when we’re speaking English. When we’re speaking Irish, we use “Gaeilge,” or one of the regional iterations). But it’s really a stretch to say that “Irish Gaelic” is “incorrect.”

“You Should ‘Educate’ People by Using the ‘Correct’ Term”

I must say, I’m all for education. And, in fact, whenever I teach or write about the language, I make it clear that the accepted name for it in English is “Irish.”

And, well…see the section above.

But I can’t “educate” people I can’t reach. And I can’t reach people if I’m using a term they don’t understand.

In all my years learning and teaching Irish, I’ve seen many a person who was drawn to the language by what some might consider a “trivial” interest fall in love with it for its own sake. And often what has drawn them in has been the term “Irish Gaelic.” It that’s not education, I don’t know what the word means.

“It’s Disrespectful to the Language/Culture”

Oh, come on! Seriously? Do you honestly think that anyone would dedicate more than a decade to learning a language for which he or she had no respect? Or that such a person could do so without a deep regard for the country and culture to which that language belongs?

A more “polite” version of this one is “It displays an ignorance of Irish culture.” Of course, in addition to being wrong in almost every case,this presumes that no actual Irish person would ever use such a term.

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but the reality is that most of the people who use the term “Irish Gaelic” in the titles of their learning or teaching materials are Irish. And I don’t mean “Irish-American.”

Of the people I know personally who have developed such materials for a predominately American market, one is a native speaker and the other grew up spending summers in the Donegal Gaeltacht. Both were born, raised in, and currently reside in Ireland.

It’s quite simply a pragmatic decision to reach (and thus to educate) the widest possible audience by using the clearest possible terms. Nothing sinister, disrespectful, or ignorant about it.

A World Language or an Exclusive Club?

I’m certainly not suggesting that everyone start using the term “Irish Gaelic” (If you think that’s what I’m saying, you need to re-read this post. Go ahead. I’ll wait).

I do, however, think that the sometimes extreme reactions to the use of that term are, at best, misguided, and at worst, potentially harmful.

While I can’t speak for everyone who learns, teaches, or promotes the Irish language, here’s how I see the situation:

Irish is not, and should not be, an exclusive club. People shouldn’t have to know the passwords and secret handshake to access it. If a little thing like being more explicit about what we call it when addressing certain audiences helps more people to come to know and love the Irish language, I’m all for it.

Irish is a threatened minority language. It needs all our help, and the more exposure we can give it, the better.

In the face of a shrinking Gaeltacht (or, if you prefer, an encroaching Galltacht), the gradual erosion of native Irish idioms and pronunciation in favor of “Béarlachas” and Anglicized pronunciation, reduction in funding, and an often indifferent (sometimes downright hostile) governmental attitude toward the language, the matter of putting the word “Gaelic” after the word “Irish” in the title of a book or a computer program is (or should be) a relatively minor concern.

There are plenty of things to be bothered, outraged, or concerned about. This isn’t one of them.

Discussion Welcome

I recognize that, for some, this is a still contentious issue, and I welcome CIVIL discussion, both here on my blog and in other places where this post may appear. Emphasis on “civil.” Don’t adopt a hostile stance, or assume that a person who holds a different view is ignorant or disrespectful toward the language and the culture.

We’re all in this together.

Le meas, GG

The featured image is a sign outside a playground in Glencolmcille. It says “Notice: Welcome to our playground (‘play park’). The equipment in this playground is suitable for children aged three to twelve. Neither bicycling nor playing football is allowed in the park. No dogs. Help us keep our park safe and clean, please. Thank you. Glencolmcille Parish Council.”

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.