Hi Everyone,

I'm new on this forum so first of, Nice to meet you all. I would need your help to translate a very meaningful sentence to me in ogham. I would rather prefer a translation as trying to transcript english is not really the best. Ogham being more phonetic alphabet, I thought it would be more meaningful to translate it than to try in having an english transcription.

The sentence is "Forever and beyond time and space". Again it is very personal signification to me. I would like to get it tattooed.

In advance thank you all for your great help on this.

Cheers,
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Will

Technically, one doesn't "translate" into Ogham, since it was just a writing system for Old Irish. Note also that Ogham was not, so far as is known, normally used for writing expressions like the one you want, but instead just for simple inscriptions, mostly of names. As a writing system, it does not always work with Modern Irish, because the language has changed. So, you need to decide whether to start with a translation into Old Irish (with which most of us here are not very familiar) and then write that with Ogham characters, or instead use a translation into Modern Irish. Modern Irish can be written with modern fonts (like this one), or with the old sean chló characters, in case want you really want is just something "old-timey" looking.

If you're ok with a Modern Irish translation, here's a fairly literal version, but wait for others to critique it and get at least three in agreement on something before any tattooing:

Go deo 's taobh thall den t-am agus den spás
Forever and beyond time and space

Or, in the bunchló arsa font:
Go deo 's taoḃ ṫall den t-am agus den spás

Corrected now that I've found a way to do the points over consonants to show lenition, as discussed below.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

I overlooked the b in taobh. Did you do that at another site, or how is it done on here?

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

I just type in ‌ḃ, ċ, ḋ, ḟ, ġ, ṁ, ṗ, ṡ (ẛ), ṫ

Le firinne a rá:
I use a special keyboard layout, called Extremtastatur (in German):
AltGr + . and c = ċ

I use this:
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/mearchlar/gaelicuk.htm

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(SL)(GM)

Thanks for the hints. I've found another way as well. Rather than adjust one's keyboard, one can also download free fonts from this site:
http://www.gaelchlo.com/clonna.html

If you want to use a word which contains a lenited consonant, you can type the word (in MS Word) using one of those fonts, and then copy it into a post on this forum.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Hi,

Thanks so much for your answer and your explanations. I think your advise is indeed wise. I was liking the idea of the ogham writing as it is vertical. Now I do not want to mis-use it neither. Also modern Irish sounds definitely to be a better idea.

Thank you all for having taken time to read me and translate it for me.

I'm bumping this up again just to ask that some others comment on the suggested translation. As I said, we usually recommend getting at least three people in agreement before inking, especially because there are so many people walking around out there with bad Irish translations on their bodies.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

I can't think of a better way of saying it. I don't notice any mistakes, but then I hadn't noticed the B missing either

I don't think the apostrophe is necessary.

One thing I don't quite understand is the meaning of "beyond" there.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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