Hello,

Being a Joyce, I thought it would be apropos to get the Joyce Family Motto tattooed on myself.

However, as interested as I am in honoring my heritage via permanent body marking, it is important to me that I should at least be able to offer a passable, verbal pronunciation of this phrase in Irish.

I have scoured the Internet for a suitable text-to-speech function that would help in this, to no avail. So, I have turned to the various, more-intelligent HUMAN BEINGS that I have "access" to, thanks to this Internet machine.

If any of you out there could assist me in not only translating...

"Death, or Live with Honour"

...for me, as well as providing a phonetic way to speak the translation, I would be eternally grateful!

Thank you, much.

Irish is very noun-oriented, and "live" doesn't always work well in Irish as a verbal command, but with a slight change you could have:

Bás nó saol fiúntach
Death or an honorable life

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

Interesting.

Just out of curiosity, does that make google translate incorrect when it says the translation from English to Irish is:

Bás, nó beo leis onóir

Also, how would you pronounce both phrases? If you could spell it phonetically, I would really appreciate it!

Thank you for taking the time to help me out!

I think "fiúntach" is more like "worthwhile".



That would be grammatically incorrect.


beo - is to be alive, rather than living.

But if you want to use the word onóir maybe you could say -

An bás nó beo le honóir. Death or be alive with honour.
OR
Fáigh bás nó mair le honóir. = Die or live with honour
OR
Fáigh bás nó caith do shaol le honóir. = Die or live your life with honour
OR
An bás nó onóir = Death or honour

(I think there is a h there)
Wait for others to comment or correct spelling.

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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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Google Translate can be good for getting the gist in your own language of something which is written in another language. It is not good for composing text in a language with which you are not familiar, because it makes many grammatical, spelling, and word choice errors, as Bríd has indicated was true in this case. Google Translate does not actually "translate", by the way. It assembles bits of translation from things people have said online (which may or may not be correct) and tries to guess how to put them together, with "guess" being the operative word -- with no attempt to adjust the grammar or phrasing. If you want to see what happens, find a page online in another language and then ask Google Translate to translate some of it into English for you. You will see how odd the English version can be. The same thing usually happens when you go from English into another language.

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

Interesting, and thorough! Thank you for the info!

And I noticed that you specialize in Connemara Irish? Is it significantly different between the different regions / counties in Ireland, just out of curiosity?

Also, could you send me an mp3 of the "Die or live your life with honour"?

And does this translation seem correct to everyone else on here that is much more an expert than I?

Thank you so much for all your help!

Once more agree on which is the best translation I will be happy to make a recording for you.

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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.
___________________________________________________________

Sounds good, thank you!

I look forward to hearing more input. Such a fascinating language.

Looks good.

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

Click on the arrow -
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There are 3 main dialects in Ireland. There is very little difference, only some words and pronunciations are different.