irish translation question

victoria

hi all! it is my first time here, and i'm hoping i've come to the right place to find some help answering my question.
to anyone who speaks irish, i'm wondering if i am correct in my translation of the word, beloved. the dictionary i found says there are 2 definitions with the same meaning.
1. nil-dear, beloved
2. ionuin-dear,beloved

is there any difference in meaning to someone who speaks the language? are there different connotations with either? would one be more accurate than the other in expressing something like the name God calls His children? a deep, holy love?
any help would be great!

thanks

victoria

if you could include how to pronounce nil and ionuin, i'd appreciate it!

dudara

Ok, you have a misspell on one of the words. It's "dil", and the other is ionúin.

Dil - pronunced like dill

ionúin - Not a word I'm familiar with, but pronounced "in-noon"

Often you might say "mo ghrá dil" - my beloved. Dunno about ionúin though.

victoria

thank you for responding! i realoized i misspelled it after i posted. anyone else know about ionuin?

Gael

ionúin is an adjective not a noun. It's most often used with the copula:

Is ionúin liom... - I love/care for.....

victoria

what would be the correct usage of "beloved" as a noun, then? as in, "you are my beloved."

simu

You are my beloved -

Is tú mo ghrá geal

or

Is tú mo stór

There are many other ways of sayiing it as well.


It's different if you are adressing the person (e.g. hello darling), it would be:

a ghrá geal

a stór

Gael

Beware attempts to translate directly ffrom English to Irish Victoria! :eek:
i.e. taking something from a dictionary without taking context into account.

victoria

i appreciate the responses i have gotten. however, i still don't feel like i'm explaining mylself well enough to get the response i'm looking for. i'm wanting to tattoo the irish equivilent of the english noun, "beloved" on my back, and i have to get it right! it will be there forever! it doesn't have to be an exact translation. obviously, that doesn't always work. but how about the spirit of the word, the title God gives His children. just one word, not a phrase. arghh! help?

victoria

well guys, i just spoke eto an 80 year old irish man who lives in las vegas, and he gave me some help, but he couldn't spell out one of his words. so, i wanted to see if you agree with his ideas for me and see if you could help me with spelling the phrase?
he suggested using the phrase which translates as "great love of my heart" i.e. beloved. in english, it sounds like "graw macree"
i found graigh (with an accent over the a) which means great love, but i haven't found the phrase "of my heart" which is something close to macraigh? or something? he said there were about 4 different spellings for it, but he was 80 and having a hard time! :-)
any thoughts?

thanks again for all!

vic

Gael

That'd be GRÁ MO CHROÍ (Love of my heart)

simu

Originally posted by Gael
That'd be GRÁ MO CHROÍ (Love of my heart)

Yeah, that would be good for a tattoo - it's 3 words but it's still pretty short.

victoria

yeah! people are finally starting to agree! thank you for al your help! i just wanted to verify that i would not say "graigh mo croi" i would use the gra instead of the graigh? or can you use either?

can't wait to design my tattoo! :-)

Inspector Gadget

(Firstly, sorry for being so slow to respond)

"Grá Mo Chroí Thú" ("you are the love of my heart", or in exact sequence "Love (Of) My Heart You (Are)" - sound like Yoda I do ) is probably about as accurate as you'll manage, although it's a lot of time under the needle.

English is quite terse compared to Irish - there are quite a few words in English that require either a phrase or a whole sentence to translate accurately - the reverse is also true, but (in my experience) to a much more limited extent. (By way of example: there are no literal translations for some surprisingly fundamental words like "yes", "no", "it"...)

Hope this helps,
Gadget

victoria

thanks gadget! i think i'll keep it simple and stick with the gra mo chroi! :-) i just want the feeling, not every word :-)

Gael

i'll keep it simple and stick with the gra mo chroi! :-)

Remember the síntí fada(accents)!

Grá mo chroí

If you're gonna have this scarred into your body forever at least make sure the grammar is right!

victoria

yup! i got 'em! i just didn't know how to type them in! bye bye!

dudara

On my computer I have it configured so that pressing ctrl, alt and the letter give the fada. Add in shift for a capital letter. I did this by going to the character map in Windows XP which is in start/programs/accessories/system tools

once there find the appropriate letter ie á, then create a shortcut of your choice to write that. Repeat for all the vowels and their capital versions. This will know work in most windows programs

Dun

If I remember correctly the Alt+Ctrl (or Alt Gr key) will not work on American keyboards. In this case, the easiest thing would probably be to just select the words, copy them (ctrl +c) and paste them (ctrl+v) into whatever she's doing the design in.

victoria

well, i just got an email back from another online source, and they said this,

Yes, there are a couple of translations for beloved. I think the best
one to use would be muirnín. To say "beloved, ...", you would write "a
muirnín, ...". It is pronounced "moor neen".

so now i don't know whether to use "gra mo chroi" or "a muirnin" so, once again, i beseech the wise ones here! what do you think!?

GuanYin

commonly most people would say "A stór" I think.

victoria

haven't heard that one yet. how does it translate in comparison with my other options?

simu

A stór is used too - there are hundreds of ways of saying beloved in Irish - pick the one you prefer the sound of as they all mean the same thing.

By the way, it's "a mhuirnín" (there's a h after the m), if you decide to go with that one.

Inspector Gadget

"A stór" should translate more accurately to "my beloved one" or perhaps "darling" (or similar) but is definitely referring to one person - "a mhúirnín" is probably similar, since it's singular too.

Gadget

Gleanndún

remember though that you probably, its sounds to me, dont want the vocative case, which is used for directly adressing people. also, i think stór could be a cool one because its translated as "(one's) love" but it actually also means treasure, which is why i think it would be cool.

also, i got the feeling that muirnín was more of a romantic term, that u would use to, say, a lover. is this right guys?

simu

All the ones with "a" before them are in the vocative case. That's why i think "grá mo chroí" is the best one - it stands alone. It's not like you want to be addressing the person's skin! As for just "stór" on its own - it's not entirely obvious that you mean beloved when it's on its own like that.

Dun

Originally posted by Gleanndún
also, i got the feeling that muirnín was more of a romantic term, that u would use to, say, a lover. is this right guys?

I hope not - I only know that word from "Beidh Aonach Amárach"

"A mhuirnín óg, ná healaí é"

In case you're one of the two Irish people who didn't do that at school, it's a mum saying it to her daughter.

Gleanndún

well im from the us, so no, i havent heard it. i heard it in the trad song siúil a rún, so maybe thas where i got the idea from. thanx 4 settin me straight, eh?:p

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by victoria
yup! i got 'em! i just didn't know how to type them in! bye bye!

If you have a US keyboard you could try the Portugese Brazilian layout as well. - Though the windows XP version of it seems to be VERY VERY different to NT ; Win9X

victoria

hi again!
i read all you responses, and now i'm more confused than ever with so many different opinions! i like how gra mo chroi (sorry, haven't set up for fadas yet) translates, but it is a bit long for a tattoo. stor is shorter, but just reminds me of the english "store" which doesn't sound so pretty :-) i'm liking muirnin best these days, but now it sounds like that might not be the best translation? what was the difference between "muirnin" and "a mhuirnin?" and you're saying it may be more of a sexual term? i'm not going for that if that's the case. any final thoughts?

thanks again!
vic

Gearoid

A mhuirnin if you're adressing someone, never heard of that word being used except in the song and my dictionary is giving the exact translation in english to be darling/sweetheart, Muirnin (remember the fadas!!!) is the stand alone word.

Gleanndún

i think grá mo chroí would be best. its not 2 long. where are you getting it? (big spacing and size implications) also, when u finally decide, lemme kno and i can write it out all pretty-like for you. im a calligrapher^_^ slán

MrsMoustache

hey all! i nedd a little help.... how do you say "seán's whiskey" in irish?

dranoel

MrsMoustache wrote: »

hey all! i nedd a little help.... how do you say "seán's whiskey" in irish?

I reckon it's
Fuisce Seáin

Gael

dranoel wrote: »

I reckon it's
Fuisce Seáin

Fuisce Sheáin

tdavfc

Hi,

Could somebody translate "Eachtra" for me... Was told it means Journeys End...

Thanks

dranoel

tdavfc wrote: »

Hi,

Could somebody translate "Eachtra" for me... Was told it means Journeys End...

Thanks

"Eachtra" is an adventurous type of journey but dosen't include end. You'd need to say something like:

Deireadh Eachtra
Journey's End
(wait for any corrections)

uch

victoria wrote: »

stor is shorter, but just reminds me of the english "store" which doesn't sound so pretty :-)

What about "Stórín" which would mean little love as if you were using it with affection to a child

luckat

Heh!

OP, are you using someone's name with this? As in "Elektra ghrá mo chroí" ("Electra, love of my heart"), or "Astarte, chúisle mo chroí" ("Astarte, pulse of my heart"), or "Athene, mo mhúirnín" ("Athene, my darling"), or "Iphegenia, stór mo chroí" ("Iphegenia, treasure of my heart")?

Or are you addressing the viewer, in which case it would be "A ghrá mo chroí" ("O love of my heart"), and so on.

By the way, if you're using the sean-chló - the old-fashioned Irish typeface - you'll generally use a dot over a word instead of an "h" where it's lenited (as in "a ghrá" - the "ghrá" would be spelled "grá" with a dot over the "g").

dranoel

I wouldn't expect a reply too soon from the OP - check out the posting dates!

Tá Mé Gaeilge

dranoel wrote: »

I wouldn't expect a reply too soon from the OP - check out the posting dates!

haha i don't think that tattoo is changing at this stage