You see, I'm working in a fantasy story in which there is a town based on the Celtic culture. In that town, they have a kind of magic which works by spelling a sentence (the sentence always follows this formula: [reactive], become [number] [size] [product], for example: "air, become one big granite", "granite" meaning "granite rock"). That sentence is meant to magically turn a material or object into another. I want that sentence to be in Irish, and I need an Irish speaker who can help me translate both, the basic formula and the air-to-granite example.

Welcome to ILF! There is a difficulty with your starting point. You are using an English language structure that does not work with Irish. Very simply an example: one book = leabhar amháin (literally 'book one'). You would have to accept a different word order or your sentence would not make any sense in Irish at all.

Here is a very tentative opening suggestion, but I really don't know if it's in the right ball park: Aer, bí mar eibhear mór amháin.

Wait for more.

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Hi. Welcome to ILF!

As Saoirse says, Irish is much more inflected than English and you may run into complications trying to use a "formula".


I think Aer has to be in the vocative in this case (oops ), i.e. a Aeir (or possibly uninflected a Aer).

Some Munster users may say that you can't use the vocative on an inanimate object and that could be true of their dialect. (Await confirmation of that from them.)

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Thank you for your help! I should have known the grammar was different than English :T There's no problem in changing the structure.

The formula will also change if you're using numbers other than "one." Using "cloch" (stone) as an example:

Cloch amháin: One stone

But...

Dhá chloch: Two stones
Trí chloch: Three stones
Ceithre chloch: Four stones
Cúig chloch: Five stones
Sé chloch: Six stones

But...

Seacht gcloch: Seven stones
Ocht gcloch: Eight stones
Naoi gcloch: Nine stones
Deich gcloch: Ten stones.

It gets even more complicated if/when you plan to get into double digits.

Also, your adjective will inflect based on the grammatical gender of the noun you're using. In your example, "granite" (eibhear) is masculine, so the word for "big" is "mór." But "cloch" is feminine, so the word for "big" would be "mhór."

Redwolf

I never heard that Breandán. Can you remember where you heard this? It's an interesting idea.

I do was expecting inflection, although I didn't see coming the diference between 2-6 and 7-10. I think that number will inlude one through five, and maybe until ten, but also will include quantifiers like "few" and "many".


I checked in Wikipedia and Wiktionary and saw about the vocative case. Right now I'm using thats what more sources tell me to, however, if I see it is wrong, I'll change it.

So, as far as I know, the formula is going [reactiveVOC], become(bí mar) ([productNOM] [sizeNOM] [numberNOM]*)
*[product], [size] and [number] can change position depending on content.
Is it right?