Hello there! My name is Mountain_King. This thread is designed so I can collaborate with all of you about how to best translate The Battle for Wesnoth.

What is Wesnoth?
Put simply, The Battle for Wesnoth is a free, open source strategy game. I'll allow the game's help file to explain the rest:


What am I doing?
The most recent development version of Wesnoth carries the translation files for over 50 languages, one of which is Irish. As the translation maintainer for the Irish translation team (which currently only consists of myself), it is my duty to work on providing the best possible translation for the game, and also to send updated translation files to the game developers.

Can you help?
In short, yes. I am still a ways from mastering the language and so I am not 100% certain about all of my translations. You can probably figure out the rest on your own...

Links
Battle for Wesnoth website
Wiki page for the Irish translation (contains a short glossary of wesnoth-specific terms)
Wesnoth unit directory as Gaeilge

I prefer to keep this particular post the same, so when I have a request for confirmation I will ask below this post (if the mods don't mind, of course). I don't want to clutter up the forum, so I am only going to use this thread for my confirmation questions, rather than starting a new thread each time.
And now, before I die from embarrassment of making this sound so much like an advertisement, I'd like to say "thanks!" in advance for any contributions to the translating process.

Best Regards,
Mountain_King

Welcome along, Iobaath (I presume?).

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Yes, it is me. Now how did you guess? Mountain_King is my username on the Wesnoth forums, so I figured I'd confuse myself less if I used it here too.

And now, for my first help request on the new forums (well, I couldn't go on forever without, could I?). The line in question appears whenever a friendly or enemy unit is "sighted" by your team. It shows up in various ways:

1. X Enemy units sighted!
2. X Friendly units sighted!
3. Units sighted! (X Friendly, X Enemy)

Since sighted and seen are essentially the same thing, and the question of who sighted the units is unimportant or irrelevant (thereby use of the autonomous form), then would the messages look like this i nGaeilge?

1. Chonarthas X aonad naimhdeach!
2. Chonarthas X aonad cairdiúil!
3. Chonarthas aonaid! (X cairdiúil, X naimhdeach)

Am I getting the hang of this?

Best Regards,
Mountain_King

I’m not sure if X cairdiúil, X naimhdeach really works well in Irish … but I think the context makes it clear what is meant, and the alternative would require a lot of finagling to get right, so we’ll just leave that.

I don’t know where you got chonarthas from—I’ve never seen it before. Did you perhaps just misread the book/site? The past autonomous of feic is normally chonacthas.

Apart from that, it looks fine to me.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Perhaps:

1. Chonacthas X aonad na namhad !
2. Chonacthas X aonad na gcarad !
3. Chonacthas aonaid ! (X aonad na gcarad, X aonad na namhad)

3. does get a bit long though, and since naimhdeach means "hostile" it is probably fine as you had it.

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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).

That's what I get for not double checking. Yes, Chonacthas is what I meant.



This is actually the part I was having trouble with. I can modify it though depending on the number of enemy or friendly enemies ("X Friendly" and "X Enemy" are actually two strings of their own). And there is enough space if I wanted to lengthen it (the message shows up in the middle of the screen). Which would you recommend? Something slightly shorter and more literal from the English or more like Breandán's?

Best Regards,
Mountain_King

bumpity bumpity?

I judge from the silence that Breandán's suggestion is good, so I decided to go with it. Now I have a new question to divert and confound you.

The multiplayer server here has a friends and foes element to it. However, it is called "friends" and "ignores." This is where it gets confusing. Irish doesn't seem to have a consistent way to talk about ignoring someone, and the fact that a verb is being used as a noun only adds to the confusion. These are the strings in question:

ignores list (a list of ignored people)
friends and ignores list
On ignores list
ignored
Add to ignores list
Friends/Ignores list.
Add as ignore (contrast with "add as friend")
Ignore all

Using the dictionary/focal definition for ignore wouldn't work here. It seems to require something entirely different, and yet the same. Does anyone have any suggestions on any of these strings?

Go raibh míle maith agaibh!

Mountain_King

A dangerous assumption. Like your game, it could just mean we are busy fighting elsewhere.

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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).

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