I thought I would put together a small post of all the resources that I’ve currently listed on the blog already.
Getting into Irish Language Twitter
Websites for Improving Your Reading Ability
Tá Among Us ar fáil i nGaeilge anois!
"Among Us new Irish localisation has been described as "a cultural win for a thriving minority language" by one of the people who worked on it.
The monster hit game received a new update yesterday, and with it brought Irish localisation. Among Us is perhaps the biggest game ever to receive an Irish localisation, although it is not the first. "It's a MASSIVE win for a minority language and one of many I hope!" Úna-Minh Kavanagh, who spearheaded the project, said in a post on Twitter."
Tá sé seo go hiontach!
crappy-bard asked:
Hi! @gaeilge-rules suggested you could probably help me out here -
I’m trying to learn Irish but I’m having some problems. I know Spanish and Hungarian both fairly well and I learnt a massive chunk of those from reading books i already knew in their respective languages. I was wondering if you had any resources for finding public domain books in with Irish translations?? Things like Frankenstein? I know the original book damn near by heart so if I found a translation it would immensely help. I haven’t had much luck finding Irish translations of any literature really, so thought I’d reach out. Thank you!
ailichi answered:
Hi! Thank you for the ask, and to @gaeilge-rules for the thought! <3
You have my sympathies, Irish translations can be hard to find! Now, as far as these specific books (Frankenstein, The Time Machine, The Yellow Wallpaper) go, I don’t think that I can say I’ve seen Irish translations of them, except for a children’s retelling of Frankenstein, here. Public domain is difficult for any Irish books, I’m afraid! Second-oldest written language in Europe (after Greek) but the publishing scene is relatively young. I’d advise you to have a look around Litríocht, which is a catalogue of all the Irish-language books in print, and, as my friend said, An Siopa Leabhar, to see if they have anything you’ve read in English. I saw you liked Tolkien though (same! hi!), and The Hobbit has been translated, by Nicholas Williams. You can get that for free here.
There’s a list of Irish-language books on Goodreads, and as you can see, they’re mostly original works. There’s a very high degree of bilingualism with English among the Irish readership, so the demand for translations of English-language works is unfortunately (for yourself) quite low. I would also like more translations of English novels and plays! If you’ve read and liked the Odyssey or the Iliad before, then those have been translated, but I couldn’t find them to read online. Complete shot in the dark, but if you like Bertolt Brecht’s poetry, there’s an anthology in Irish by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh.
If you would like to (this is labour-intensive), you could read an English translation of an Irish-language book, and then go back and try out the original in parallel. The Islandman and an t-Oileánach by Tomás Ó Criomhthain might be a good pair (it’s an autobiography, not fictional though).
It’s very hard to find Irish-language writing for free! But there are great bookshops that have amazing levels of knowledge about what has been written, and translated, and where you might find them. As an occasional Galway-woman I’m going to recommend Charlie Byrne’s website; they have Animal Farm, the poetry of Sappho, The Life of Pi, and maybe of most interest to you, The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells available. But yes, you do have to order them and wait for them to arrive dhdhdh. Such is life.
These aren’t in Irish, but I thought you might be interested: the great play Translations, by Brian Friel (which frustratingly, I know has been performed in Irish, as Aistriúcháin, but the script was never published), and also a personal essay by Lydia Davis, who learnt Norwegian the same way as you are doing.
Basically I don’t have exactly what you looking for, but I hope this was helpful!! Seconding @briosca-sa-speir’s recommendation re. the VK link and dúchas.ie — and please enjoy your reading! xxx
crappy-bard asked:
Hey, do you know where I could find Irish translations of public domain books/plays? Frankenstein I know by heart (audio book narrator) as well as The Time Machine, Yellow Wallpaper, etc. Reading things I am already intimately familiar with has helped a lot with learning other languages, but Irish translations have been extremely difficult to find. Thank you!
gaeilge-rules answered:
oh god im sorry i missed this! hope it’s ok that i’m a bit late. honestly im not going to be much help on this one sorry maybe @briosca-sa-speir or @ailichi might know more? one thing that might be worth a look is websites for pirating academic books and seeing if those work.
i definitely can’t recommed libgen/.li for that particular purpose because that would be illegal
if you mean for free i have no idea, i'm sorry!!
I haven't tried archive.org, gutenberg.org, openlibrary.org etc. (if i remember correctly though the an béal bocht movie & book are both in the public domain on archive.org so maybe there's a few other books as well). I know that duchas.ie and corpas.ria.ie both have a few digitalised yokes of heterogeneous sort, but as you'd expect it's original material, as well as fairly old (especially the latter)
Sometimes language blogs/communities on vk.com (e.g. this one here) upload modern books and translations, but I wouldn't think they're in the public domain (or legal)
Legally speaking, I think an siopa leabhar remains the most relevant source as well as the richest!
crappy-bard asked:
Hey, do you know where I could find Irish translations of public domain books/plays? Frankenstein I know by heart (audio book narrator) as well as The Time Machine, Yellow Wallpaper, etc. Reading things I am already intimately familiar with has helped a lot with learning other languages, but Irish translations have been extremely difficult to find. Thank you!
oh god im sorry i missed this! hope it’s ok that i’m a bit late. honestly im not going to be much help on this one sorry maybe @briosca-sa-speir or @ailichi might know more? one thing that might be worth a look is websites for pirating academic books and seeing if those work.
i definitely can’t recommed libgen/.li for that particular purpose because that would be illegal
Made an Irish language word of the day blog mainly to keep my arse in gear on my studies, as if I don’t have enough to do already so enjoy:
B’fhéidir just hits differently
Even just the pronunciation bay-jir
[ID: a gif of a red heart shaped locket opening to reveal the word b’fhéidir on the left and ‘B’fhéidir, mo ghrá-sa’ on the right.]
