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#59655 03/05/02 12:16 AM
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"S'adore i sim caid him faite"

I honestly haven't a clue what it means. When I asked, I was told, "it can't be translated directly into English without losing some meaning". Any help appreciated!




#59656 03/05/02 12:28 AM
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S'adore i sim caid him faite - Dear Angel : I studied a bit of Gaelic a couple years ago, but didnpt get very far. I must say however, that your sample just does not look like Gaelic.


#59657 03/05/02 12:51 AM
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...your sample just does not look like Gaelic.

The person who said this to me is of Celtic descent and said it was Gaelic. Could it be misspelled? Any takers?


#59658 03/05/02 10:34 AM
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"S'adore i sim caid him faite"

Dear Angel,

I've been speaking Irish/Gaelic for 25 years and this is not a Gaelic phrase. Now that doesn't mean that they aren't celtic words. Let me analyse them and let others cross-analyse my conjectures.

S'adore This is too latin to be Gaelic. It looks more like a Norman influence so is probably Middle English akin to Chaucerian English. No Gaelic word combinations contain S'a

i Probably pronounced 'ih' rather than 'eye'. If it refers to the first person singular then it is not Gaelic. In Gaelic there isn't a first person singular! The verbs and grammar do this job. i isn't a Gaelic word. Guess: Welsh?

sim No idea. Possibly Old English. Could be a corruption of the Welsh cym

caid Now we're getting somewhere. caid (cahd) is an Irish word but makes no sense with the other words above. The first real Gaelic word. But it is also an OE and Welsh word.

him Definitely not Gaelic. Germanic. Possibly Anglo-Saxon. Norse?

faite I think this should be pronounced faw-tcha The closest Gaelic word I can think of is fáilte (fawl-tcha) which means 'welcome'. faite could mean something completely different, however.

So we have a highly unusual phrase like something out of Beowulf. Perhaps a few of the words have been mis-spelled or maybe they are not Gaelic but from another celtic language (there are several). Could you contact yoru friend and maybe clarify the spelling? Then I should be able to help you further.

Regards,

Rubrick


#59659 03/05/02 11:19 AM
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Angel,

Have you written this phrase out phonetically or was it written for you? Irish/Gaelic is not written phonetically so you will inevitably have made mistakes if you did.

However, since my last post I got a second opinion from a colleague of mine who studied Irish to third-level. She doesn't recognise any of the words and thinks that it is possibly Latin.

Maybe Mav can help if it's Welsh.

Regards,

Rubrick


#59660 03/05/02 01:18 PM
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Rubrick,

Thank you for your help. This was cut and pasted from an IM that I received, exactly as I received it tho. I do sincerely thank you for your efforts tho.

Angel


#59661 03/05/02 02:59 PM
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I've been reliably informed that it is most likely Breton - a celtic dialect from the Brittany region in North-Western France.

Any Francophones want to check it out??


#59662 03/05/02 07:46 PM
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...it is most likely Breton...[E.A.]

[lightbulb-e] The person saying this to me was born and raised on Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia, Canada. Does this help?


#59663 03/05/02 07:48 PM
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fwiw, here's a link that claims to be a Gaelic-to-English dictionary:

http://www.sst.ph.ic.ac.uk/angus/Faclair/


#59664 03/05/02 07:51 PM
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I always thought Cheap Breatuinn was heavily Scottish.


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