For a very trivial reason, I need a good translation of “Dig We Must,” in Gaelic for use as a motto on a clan badge and in Latin for a coat of arms.
Thank you.
I assume Scottish Gaelic, since you said “clan badge.”
I’m not a native speaker by any means, but I do read it and I own about ten different Gaelic dictionaries, so here’s the greatest hits.
My English-Gaelic dictionary lists five words for dig:
bùraich
cladhaich
ruamhair
tochail
treachail
My Gaelic-English dictionaries give the following nuances:
bùraich: “dig lightly and irregularly”; also the genitive of bùrach, “confusion, disorder, shambles, delving, digging.” Buirich is a mattack, hoe, or spade. Seems to be a rare word.
cladhaich: “dig, delve, bore, burrow, dig, excavate, mine, quarry, scoop, trench, poke” (the Welsh cognate means “bury”)
ruamhair: “delve, dig with a spade”
tochail or tochladh: “dig, quarry” (tochailt is “a quarry.”)
treachail or treachladh: dig; near Inverary, “dig a grave”
So it sort of depends whether you’re digging a grave, a quarry, with hand-tools, or what. I’ll assume the most generic, claidhaich. Feumaidh sinn claidhaich. The pronunciation is something like FYOO-mee shin CLY-ihh (-hh as the h[sup]y[/sup] in hue)
The joy of Gaelic is that you can mess with the word order to get the nuance of English, but I’m not as sure how to do that. I’ll guess but don’t quote me:
Claidhaich a fheumadh
While I’m at it, I’ll take a stab at the Latin:
Fodendum nobis.
Thank you. Exactly what I needed. If it ever gets published I will try to remember you in the acknowledgements.
It will be used as the motto on the crest for a steampunk mechanical mole brigade, possibly the official name of their digging leviathan flagship.