Help with translation

[Heartseed]

Someone recently asked me for help with this but I am not qualified. Any takers?

Eisibh anois a dheithe, a sinnearchd, a
sprideanna, mas e bhur dtoile, Angus sinnag ofrail na h-iibairt so ar
son na beatha."

Thanks in advance to all you bright and lovely language devotees.

[Beith]

HI Heartseed

Translation would be:

[i]Your help* now O Gods, O ancestors, O spirits,
if it is your wish;
as we offer this sacrifice
for the sake of life**[/i]

* Eisidh is "to beseech, pray, beg, implore, invoke help of ". So in essence the prayer is invoking the help of the Gods, ancestors, spirits. You could translate it as "We beseech you" "we ask you" etc. if you wished. It is a call upon the Gods for help in granting the subject request of the prayer.

[Just a note on "sacrifice" as it's a potent word - it does not have to mean an 'animal sacrifice'...it can refer to any offerings made in accompaniment to a prayer petition - food, wine, milk, candles, objects of value, etc.]

** "beatha" is "life", "sustenance" "livelihood", etc. so you can translate it either way accordingly. eg. if it was a prayer for a good harvest, I'd probably translate as "sustenance" rather than "life". One could even translate as for health in the sense of beatha as life, vibrancy etc.

best regards
Beith

[Heartseed]

Thank you, Beith, I had hoped you would see it. The person who asked me now thinks it is Welsh gaelic - so I think they are a bit mixed up on their sources. It did not at cursory inspection look like Welsh to me, even though my knowledge is quite rudimentary.

[ennys]

Welsh is not gaelic, it looks quite different...see the welsh forum.

[Beith]

Hi Heartseed,

You are absolutely right it's not Welsh, it's Gaelic.

As neeltje says, they are different languages...and the difference is that they are two related but distinguishable forms of Celtic language. Irish is called Q-Celtic because of the predominance of Q-type sounds in some words (Scots Gáidhlig and Manx are also in this group because they are forms of Gaelic); whereas Welsh, Cornish and Breton languages come from the P-Celtic group with a predominance of P-sounds in the same words.

The P and Q sounds are two separate "phonemes" or distinct sounds which replaced an ancient "Kw" sound that existed before the languages split from the earlier ancestor language. The Welsh language replaced that Kw with P, the Irish still has the "Kw" Q-sound. Although they are different languages, you can relate them very closely to each other linguistically and map Gaelic words to Welsh words by substituting the corresponding letters and applying the rules of grammar. However in practice an Irish speaker could not understand a Welsh speaker (and vice-versa) without learning each other's language. They sound and are written very differently.

The piece you asked about is indeed modern Gaelic language, not Welsh. Those guys haven't decided to join our Q-cult yet! grin!

Good wishes
Beith