# Ruadh, or anyone who can help me with galic??

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruadh-or-anyone-who-can-help-me-with-galic/13870>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [February 15, 2000, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruadh-or-anyone-who-can-help-me-with-galic/13870 "2000-02-15T19:53:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruadh-or-anyone-who-can-help-me-with-galic/13870/21 "2000-02-17T01:26:00Z")

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Ya gotta love an irrational language with something for everyone. Actually I found a ref. in Western Scots Gael to ‘daoine-sith’ which translates roughly as ‘fairyfolk’, and to be honest that’s what I thought you were referring to in the OP.

JohnLarrigan – had we known it could be so simply we’d have been adding an ‘n’ to everything in sight . . . (don’t tell Ms.Crick I said that, okay?)

Dr. Watson  
“I’m glad you like adverbs – I adore them; They are the only qualifications I really much respect.” – Henry James

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**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruadh-or-anyone-who-can-help-me-with-galic/13870/22 "2000-02-17T06:15:00Z")

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Agus fágaimíd siúd mar atá sé. I would translate it as: “and we’ll leave it as it is.”

Johnny L.A., that wasn’t a bad guess though. The Irish for Mary is “Máire.”

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruadh-or-anyone-who-can-help-me-with-galic/13870/23 "2000-02-17T06:41:00Z")

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AARGH! I’ve been breakin’ my brain on the phonetics of ‘moire tashay’, and never would have come anywhere near ‘mar ata se’.

Ruadh, I bow to you. Looks like a dead cold hit from here. (BTW, how do you work out the conflicts between the dialects? I’m obviously only familiar with a bit of the Scots Gael from years ago, and that bit alone is different from baile to baile-beag, let alone trying to ken the bleedin’ Irish.)

Dr. Watson  
“Not a linguist, but cunning just the same.”

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**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruadh-or-anyone-who-can-help-me-with-galic/13870/24 "2000-02-17T14:52:00Z")

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The “mar atá sé” wasn’t that difficult to figure out, Crick, I just looked the lyrics up on the web 🙂 The translation is mine, though.

I do have trouble with the dialect changes particularly since what little spoken Irish I have (as I’ve posted earlier, I am **much** better at the written language) was taught to me by a speaker of Ulster Irish, which is quite different from the other dialects. Interestingly enough I once heard an Ulster speaker say she could understand Scots Gaelic better than she could understand Munster Irish.

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruadh-or-anyone-who-can-help-me-with-galic/13870/25 "2000-02-17T17:56:00Z")

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Doomo arigato, ruadh-san! 🙂

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