{"id":6854,"date":"2013-03-16T22:01:39","date_gmt":"2013-03-16T22:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.widmann.org.uk\/?p=6854"},"modified":"2013-03-16T22:01:39","modified_gmt":"2013-03-16T22:01:39","slug":"am-bu-choir-do-dhalba-a-bhith-na-duthaich-neo-eisimeilich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/am-bu-choir-do-dhalba-a-bhith-na-duthaich-neo-eisimeilich\/","title":{"rendered":"Am bu ch\u00f2ir do dh’Alba a bhith na d\u00f9thaich neo-eisimeilich?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Should<\/a>
Should Scotland be an independent country?<\/figcaption><\/figure>I’ve been wondering for a wee while how to express the official referendum question, “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, in Scottish Gaelic. A few enquiries on Twitter didn’t get me anywhere.<\/p>\n

I had this idea that the way to express “should” would be through some obscure verb form, but when I finally looked it up in my copy of “Scottish Gaelic in Three Months<\/a>\"\"” today, I learnt that it’s expressed as bu ch\u00f2ir do<\/i> “it’s proper for”.<\/p>\n

With that information in hand, it didn’t take me long to find a BBC blog page<\/a> which gives the question as Am bu ch\u00f2ir do dh’Alba a bhith na d\u00f9thaich neo-eisimeilich?<\/i><\/p>\n

Although I have no way to verify it, this looks correct to me. The structure is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Am<\/td>\nbu<\/td>\nch\u00f2ir<\/td>\ndo dh’<\/td>\nAlba<\/td>\na bhith<\/td>\nna<\/td>\nd\u00f9thaich<\/td>\nneo-eisimeilich<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Q<\/td>\nis<\/td>\nproper<\/td>\nfor<\/td>\nScotland<\/td>\nto be<\/td>\n<\/td>\ncountry<\/td>\nindependent<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

(I’m not entirely sure about the na<\/i>. I believe it means “in her” here — “in his” would lenite the following word, and the genitive form of the definitely article would require the genitive form of d\u00f9thaich<\/i> — and I suspect it’s here to bind together the infinitive with the rest, but I must admit I don’t remember the details.)<\/p>\n

If the government provided ballot papers in Gaelic, too, they would presumably then look as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

Am bu ch\u00f2ir do dh’Alba a bhith na d\u00f9thaich neo-eisimeilich?<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Bu ch\u00f2ir\n
  • Cha bu ch\u00f2ir<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    I wonder whether it would change the number of Yes and No votes if the question in English had been “Is it proper for Scotland to be an independent country?” too…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve been wondering for a wee while how to express the official referendum question, “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, in Scottish Gaelic. A few enquiries on Twitter didn’t get me anywhere. I had this idea that the way to express “should” would be through some obscure verb form, but when I finally looked it up in my copy of “Scottish Gaelic in Three Months” today, I learnt that it’s expressed as bu ch\u00f2ir do “it’s proper for”. With that information in hand, it didn’t take me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,164,117,130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-en","category-gd","category-linguistics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}