# Gaelic translation, please (need answer fast-ish) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781 "2016-03-21T17:16:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/21 "2016-03-23T20:20:31Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Google translate says: > “On the possibility of a faithful soul rape” Just morbidly curious how “May his faithful soul be at God’s right side” could morph into the above. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/22 "2016-03-24T00:00:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Usually fir (men) and mná (women), but you may have seen some other combination. That might have been it, as I didn’t see the doors myself, only heard about them second-hand. I’m certain the women word started with m, but the rest could have been distorted in the telling. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/23 "2016-03-24T01:02:32Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Just morbidly curious how “May his faithful soul be at God’s right side” could morph into the above. You can’t type a little dot into google translate. So _raibh_, which can be spelled _raiḃ_, is misread by the translator-machine as _ráib_, which is “rape,” the plant that gives you canola oil. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/24 "2016-03-24T01:54:46Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > Usually _fir_ (men) and _mná_ (women), but you may have seen some other combination. Among the many stories that Peter Ustinov used to tell on chat shows was one about his confusion when faced with toilet doors labelled _fir_ and _mná_. He could read many languages, but Irish was not one of them. Eventually he calculated that thw word beginning with ‘f’ was likely to be in some way related to _femina_, and the word beginning with ‘m’ to _masculinus_, and he made his choice accordingly. He got it wrong, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/25 "2016-03-24T03:10:32Z")
And in the story as I was told it, my mom was faced with the same conundrum, and her first thought was the same, but then she figured that “fir” looked an awful lot like “vir”, and so got it right. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/26 "2016-03-24T19:41:11Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > You can’t type a little dot into google translate. So _raibh_, which can be spelled _raiḃ_, is misread by the translator-machine as _ráib_, which is “rape,” the plant that gives you canola oil. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/27 "2016-03-27T22:39:54Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > You can’t type a little dot into google translate. So _raibh_, which can be spelled _raiḃ_, is misread by the translator-machine as _ráib_, which is “rape,” the plant that gives you canola oil. Getting a bit off topic, but canola oil comes from the canola plant, which is a specially bred variant from natural rapeseed. The canola plant has a significantly lower erucic acid concentration which makes it safe to use for human consumption. Because of this difference, it has a distinct name from natural rapeseed. ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/28 "2016-03-28T14:43:33Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Getting a bit off topic, but canola oil comes from the canola plant, which is a specially bred variant from natural rapeseed. > > The canola plant has a significantly lower erucic acid concentration which makes it safe to use for human consumption. Because of this difference, it has a distinct name from natural rapeseed. Along the same topic, the erucic acid is needed as a supplement/ medicine in adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). See “Lorenzo’s Oil.” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/29 "2016-03-28T15:15:29Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > You can’t type a little dot into google translate. So _raibh_, which can be spelled _raiḃ_, is misread by the translator-machine as _ráib_, which is “rape,” the plant that gives you canola oil. Which is interesting furthermore because the translator-machine, like the reader human, may confuse the “rape” of botany with the “rape” of sexual attack. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/30 "2016-03-28T15:26:14Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > You can’t type a little dot into google translate. So _raibh_, which can be spelled _raiḃ_, is misread by the translator-machine as _ráib_, which is “rape,” the plant that gives you canola oil. It’s a database problem, not a typing problem. Copy-pasting the version with the dot, it is read as if it didn’t have the dot - compare with copy-pasting ano and año and telling it the original language is Spanish. In this second example, someone has actually bothered indicate the two separate translations… but the definitions under the window are given for both words :smack: and spelled with an n :smack::smack::smack::smack::smack: The translation I get into Spanish is _violación_… rape as in violation and not -seed, ayup. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/31 "2016-03-28T16:05:12Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It’s a database problem, not a typing problem. Copy-pasting the version with the dot, it is read as if it didn’t have the dot - compare with copy-pasting ano and año and telling it the original language is Spanish. In this second example, someone has actually bothered indicate the two separate translations… but the definitions under the window are given for both words :smack: and spelled with an n :smack::smack::smack::smack::smack: > > The translation I get into Spanish is _violación_… rape as in violation and not -seed, ayup. Well, not exactly, because the dot-version is (essentially) an older orthography. For a database to code both versions, it would have to enter the entire dictionary twice, just in case someone uses the old-fashioned h-free system. And there are a lot of words that are one thing with the dots, but map onto another without, as in the raibh / ráib example (especially if you ignore the fada / acute accent). By the way, if you can’t make oil from rape, what was the original rape plant used for? ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/32 "2016-03-28T23:30:15Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > By the way, if you can’t make oil from rape, what was the original rape plant used for? You can make oil from the non-canola varieties of rape, it’s just not very palatable due to the glucosinolate, and not very safe to eat due to the erucic acid. According to [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed), it’s mainly used for machinery lubrication. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/33 "2016-03-29T01:14:21Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Getting a bit off topic, but canola oil comes from the canola plant, which is a specially bred variant from natural rapeseed. > > The canola plant has a significantly lower erucic acid concentration which makes it safe to use for human consumption. Because of this difference, it has a distinct name from natural rapeseed. I don’t think this is a consistent usage outside the US and Canada. The culinary product is often referred to as, and sometimes sold as, “rapeseed oil” in other countries. Here’s a [Guardian article](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jun/12/rise-of-rapeseed-oil) and a [BBC article](http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/rapeseed-oil), both referring to it as rapeseed oil. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/34 "2016-03-29T03:20:50Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > I don’t think this is a consistent usage outside the US and Canada. The culinary product is often referred to as, and sometimes sold as, “rapeseed oil” in other countries. Here’s a [Guardian article](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jun/12/rise-of-rapeseed-oil) and a [BBC article](http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/rapeseed-oil), both referring to it as rapeseed oil. And my cousins, who are canola farmers in Saskatchewan, always used to refer to their crop as rape (1980s, when we were last on speaking terms…). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/35 "2016-03-29T09:44:54Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Well, not exactly, because the dot-version is (essentially) an older orthography. For a database to code both versions, it would have to enter the entire dictionary twice, just in case someone uses the old-fashioned h-free system. And there are a lot of words that are one thing with the dots, but map onto another without, as in the raibh / ráib example (especially if you ignore the fada / acute accent). In the case of a general spelling change, it could also be possible to create a rule (“if someone enters ḃ, make it bh”), but doing that actually takes more work and computer power than having both spellings in the list. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/36 "2016-03-29T20:09:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What surprises me is that the Irish words for “man” and “woman” are very obviously related to the Latin ones. They’re _not_ particularly similar to the Germanic roots, which argues against it being a general Indo-European thing… but on the other hand, “man” and “woman” are quite fundamental concepts, not the sort of thing you’d expect to be loanwords. Italo-Celtic is a thing. Dé / Deus deis / dexter (compare Sanskrit _dakshina_: right hand, south) dilig / delecto, delicia (delight) Ever notice how \*cara \*means the same thing in Gaelic and Latin? Once my next door neighbor was a woman from Scotland named Cara. My first thought was how’d she get an Italian name? Second thought: oh, right: _anam cara_. Pure Italo-Celtic. What is it with the 6/8 meter shared by Irish jig and Italian tarantella, anyway? Funny how mná is an anagram of man, but it’s just one of those coincidences. Mná is the plural of bean\* \*pronounced “ban” but with a slender b. Although /b/ and /p/ in Irish seem to me to be the letters least affected by slenderization, so would it make less difference in this instance? Bean is from Proto-Indo-European \*gwen- ‘woman’ which is also the source of Greek gyne, Persian zan as in “zenana”, Swedish kvinna, English queen. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/37 "2016-03-29T21:16:43Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna] _anam cara_ [/QUOTE] Punctum delens strikes again: _anam ċara_ (/anam xara/) ([what popularized the phrase](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dxFSybZIL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)) or _anam chara_ (/anam xara/) English speakers\* seem determined to project their lack of diacritics onto other languages. \*not you: this error is extremely widespread, and this phrase is almost always written _cara_ in English contexts, rather than _ċara_ or _chara_. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/38 "2016-04-01T11:57:44Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Punctum delens strikes again: > > _anam ċara_ (/anam xara/) ([what popularized the phrase](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dxFSybZIL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)) > or > _anam chara_ (/anam xara/) > > English speakers\* seem determined to project their lack of diacritics onto other languages. > > \*not you: this error is extremely widespread, and this phrase is almost always written _cara_ in English contexts, rather than _ċara_ or _chara_. Thanks for the correction! The way to spot those when unmarked would be to learn all the lenition rules, which I haven’t yet done. On behalf of many languages, I share your feelings about the erasure of diacritics. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/40 "2016-09-19T09:29:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What surprises me is that the Irish words for “man” and “woman” are very obviously related to the Latin ones. Er… why is that surprising? Irish and Latin are sister languages, descended from a common ancestor. Do you find it surprising when a particular Spanish, French, and Italian word are all “very obviously” related? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781/41 "2016-09-19T11:07:03Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Can’t it be done word for word ? It is indo-european… Just because two languages are in the same language family does not mean that one can make a “word for word” translation between the two languages. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaelic-translation-please-need-answer-fast-ish/749781.md?page=3)