My own mental image that best gets to the nature of translation involves picturing each language as a fixed set of stepping-stones in a stream. Suppose you are translating from Burmese to Welsh. A Burmese utterance is a pathway from one place to another via the [Burmese] stones. They seem to be located in convenient … Continue reading Translating Street Names Into Gaelic
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Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: “Doing The Dubhs”
[The letter] h is one of the most common letters on any page of Gaelic, and as a result has become the victim of its own popularity. In pseudo- or pidgin Gaelic it is used by many who do not know the language well and feel that the liberal insertion of a few examples of … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: “Doing The Dubhs”
Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 2
Last time, I introduced the concept of “Hillwalkers’ Gaelic”, which I abbreviated “HG” to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic (“SG”). I did so in the context of a comic poem entitled “The Climber’s Guide to the Pronunciation of the Gaelic Tongue“, which appeared in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal of 1897, probably written by the … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 2
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Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 1
The pronunciation of Gaelic hill names is fraught with difficulty for the non-Gael. One problem is the striking way in which some consonants are not pronounced at all. This is the Gaelic phenomenon of lenition, in which the addition of an “h” to a consonant changes and softens its pronunciation. Some lenited consonants, particularly “dh” … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 1
Lane Greene: Talk On The Wild Side
It is perfectly possible to reconcile strong opinions on individual points of grammar and usage—including dislike of a particular usage, or fear that a change to the language might introduce confusion—with a belief that the language on the whole is built to adapt, to minimise confusion. What do you think of that cover? I’d read … Continue reading Lane Greene: Talk On The Wild Side