Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Is go dte tu mo mhuirnin slan

I just found this haunting line in the Gaelic of a song I know well in English. Looking at the translation, it's a different version than the one I know (but then, every musician has their own versions, and if I know a song, it's generally from Atwater-Donnelly). The meaning is: "and safe forever may my darling be". Beautiful! I am not in love (for one thing, I'm much too young) with anybody, but the sentiment can be carried over to anyone you love in a different sense.

I don't speak any Gaelic (except for two phrases in Scots Gaelic), but I found the pronounciation key: "Iss go day too mavoorneen slahn". It looks ugly written out phonetically, but there it is. I'd love to learn Gaelic. Except, I know that if I were to learn Gaelic I'd have to lose my best excuse for not learning French: "I can't make sense of the spelling". I'm sticking to Spanish...at least until my spelling in English gets much better...