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Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 4:50 pm
by Mairead
Halò, a h-uile duine! I'm writing up a museum pamphlet about songs, some of which are in Gaelic. I've been tr*nsl*t*ng the Gaelic titles myself but this one was so strange I wanted a second opinion. The song is called Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain, which I'm currently tr*nsl*t*ng as “The galley of Cloven Godfrey”. Does that make sense? Is "cloven" this guy's byname? Or have I mistranslated the last word? Your help is much appreciated!
Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 2:47 am
by faoileag
Not sure where you got 'cloven' from. In AFB cloven is 'crodhan'. Very different pronunciation.
Any translations of the song title tend to keep an Anglicised version of 'Chrobhain', such as Gorrie Gròvan.
e.g.
http://www.ambaile.org.uk/detail/en/427 ... oraidh.htm
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/54472/6
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=31829
The nearest to 'cròbhan' that I found is
'crobh /kro
fir. gin. -a, iol. -an
1 paw 2 hoof 3 claw
OR
guth cròbhaidh
deep voice
cròbhaidh /krɔːvɪ/
bua. coi. -e
deep (of tone)
Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 8:27 am
by Mairead
When I copy and pasted the word into AFB, they just gave me the crodhan entry. *shrugs* Thanks for your input!
Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 8:57 am
by GunChleoc
drodhan can also mean "clumsy hand", and then I found entries like crobh-dearg = bloody cranesbill (geranium sanguineum). So, unless we actually know what the name means, better leave it alone and follow faoileag's suggestion.
Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:33 am
by akerbeltz
Yes, sorry, the entry for
crodhan/crobhan in the dictionary was a little older and had not been re-visited. So the dictionary correctly redirected you from the inflected
chrobhain to the root but because you entered an inflected form, the right (Dwelly) side did not show
crobhan (the clever redirects only work in the new (left) dictionary column.
I've now amended the entry. It's basically a diminutive of
crobh paw/claw/hoof/clumsy hand as the others suggests.
Thanks for posting, it's hard to keep track of entries which need a second look and people mentioning this helps
Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 7:18 pm
by Mairead
Ah thanks for the explanation! This discussion has been very helpful. We were feeling a bit cheeky so we went with "Clumsy Godfrey" in the end.
And glad that I was of help for you, too!