Cairt chluiche

[franc 91]

I'm trying to work out how to name playing cards. First of all, I've found on the net, an historical card game played in Scotland called Maw but what card games do Gàidhlig speakers play nowadays?
This is what I've found so far -

King - Righ (m) (with a fada on the i)
Queen - Ban-righ (f) (with a fada on the i)
Jack or Knave (but this is rather confusing) - balach (m), pàm (m) or munsaidh (f) ?
Ace - An t-aon - Ace of Hearts - Aon a chridhich
Spades - Speur (m) - (genitive) Spéir
Clubs - dubh-bhileach (m), crasg (f) or struth (m)
Diamonds - daoimean
Joker - pam (m) (but there seems to be some confusion between a joker and a knave)
For the lower cards, how would you say, for example the two of Clubs ? - an dà (followed by a genitive, I imagine, though I haven't found many genitives in the on-line dictionaries.)
For the three, I think you would say - triamh rather than tri.
Tapaidh leat

[poor_mouse]

Chan eil dad a dh'fhios agam mu dheidhinn sin, ach lorg mi seo san Fhaclair Bheag

amadan /amadan/
fir. gin. ┐ iol. -ain
1 fool, loony, mug, idiot 2 fool, jester 3 clown 4 humbug 5 joker (card)

eas /es/
boir. gin. -a, iol. -aichean
ace (in card games)

an eas a spaid
the ace of spades

gearr an t-aon de spaid aig Calum
trump Calum's ace of spades!

Seonaidh /ʃɔnɪ/
fir. neo-ath.
1 Johnny 2 jack (in cards)

trof /trof/
fir. iol. -annan
club (in cards)

sruth /sdruh/
fir. gin. -a, iol. -an
diamond (in cards)

daoimean /dɤiman/ Listen
fir. gin. -ein, iol. -an
1 diamond 2 diamond (knitting pattern) 3 diamond (in card)

[Seonaidh]

Nope - very rarely play cards, so no idea. However, the usual word for "queen" is generally written "banrigh" these days, with the genitive "banrighinn" (as it "Port na Banrighinn" - North Queensferry). You do come across forms like "bana-rìgh" and so forth - no idea what the "correct" usage is in the context of playing cards. Suspect many folk might just refer to "an dseag", "an cuìn" and "an cinn", but I could be wrong.

It might also be useful to note that playing cards did not originate in an English-speaking environment, but in (I think) a Spanish one. Hence the Spanish "swords" (espadas) became the somewhat incongruous "spades". "Clubs" seems to be genuinely old, being a tr*nsl*t**n of words meaning "staffs" or "pikes". As for "hearts" and "diamonds", these are relatively modern, with the original suits being known as "cups" and "gold (coins)". The "king" has always been a feature - though some early versions replaced two of the kings by queens, while the "queen" is a bit of an innovation, more usually a "knight" or equivalent in earlier versions. And the "jack" became generally interpreted as "heir to the throne", hence the German "Knabe" which gives the English alternative "knave".

Anyway, food for thought. Tronslotion is not easy: it's very seldom a one-to-one mapping process. It might, indeed, be better to get more thoroughly into Gaelic before attempting such tronslotions.

[GunChleoc]

Nice work on this - I can't say anything on the subject though except to do what luchag did - search the Faclair Beag. Or go and kidnap a native speaker.

BTW we have instructions on how to type with accents in the FAQ section. If you can't change your keyboard layout, there's always the Ω-Button