Help with a Sentence for a Poem I'm Writing

[Nic]

Halò a h-uile duine! I'm hoping you won't mind helping me with a little stumbling block.

So some background information. Thug mi a' chiad bliadhna bhon AGA, ach às dèidh sin tha mi ag ionnsachadh air mo cheann fhìn còmhla ri caraidean.

I play at poetry in English. I wouldn't call myself a poet by any means, but I got the bright idea to try poetry in Gàidhlig. I used the found poetry method where you take words or phrases from other places and put them together like a word collage. Like a collage, you can edit them a little or keep them intact but add to them. For this, I used Duolingo's course. I'm having trouble with one of my sentences.


Now in English, I wrote:
The white eye (← this is the part that came from Duolingo)
remains unseeing.


In Gàidhlig, I wrote:
An t-sùil gheal
fhathast gun fhaicinn.


I'm not asking for them to match exactly; I know they can't because they are different languages. I want to make sure the meaning is right though, and I'm not saying something I am unaware of and that I don't mean. I think 'gun fhaicinn' means 'without sight'. So 'fhathast gun fhaicinn' would be 'still without sight'. Is this correct?

[faoileag]

Literally it means "still not seeing".

This is very idiomatic Gaelic usage:
Tha iad fhathast gun tighinn = they haven't come yet.
Meadhan-latha agus esan gun èirigh fhathast! - he isn't up yet.

So as a structure it's fine, but it depends what you mean.
If you mean "without the power of sight/eyesight, sightless", you'd need "gun lèirsinn".

[Níall Beag]

gun + verbal noun is more or less the negative of air + verbal noun

Tha mi air fhaicinn -- I have seen him/it
Tha mi gun fhaicinn -- I haven't seen him/it

You could maybe go with "gun leirsinn" -- "leirsinn" is usually glossed as "vision".

[Tha_Mi_Sgìth]

lèirsinn = fradharc = eyesight, seeing, vision, sight (the sense)
I don't discern the difference---does anyone know if there is one?

gun chomas faicinn = without the ability to see
fhathast dall = still blind

an t-sùil neo-fhaicsinneach = the unseeing eye

[akerbeltz]

lèirsinn is wider than fradharc. Both can refer to the biological power of vision but in terms of an abstract vision (e.g. of the future), only lèirsinn covers that.

[Nic]

Mìle taing, a h-uile duine! Bha agam ri smaoineachadh mu dheidhinn seo beagan. Tha mi a' smaoineachadh (from what faoileag and Niall beag wrote) gum bu chòir dhomh lèirsinn a chleachdadh.

Mar sin:
an t-sùil gheal
fhathast gun lèirsinn.

Ach s' toil leamsa 'fhathast dall'. Agus 'an t-sùil neo-fhaicsinneach' cuideachd, ach tha e ro fhada.

lèirsinn is wider than fradharc. Both can refer to the biological power of vision but in terms of an abstract vision (e.g. of the future), only lèirsinn covers that.

This is a really important distinction to know! Taing!


Would it be all right if I posted another line I'm having trouble with?

[GunChleoc]

Seadh siuthad agus chì sinn an urrainn dhuinn cuideachadh

[Nic]

Great! Thank you. With this sentence, I'm trying to communicate the concept of sunk. But after some searching, I think Gàidhlig has a more roundabout way of expressing it than English.

So for English, I wrote:
The black stone sunk
in the green pond.

And in Gàidhlig, I originally wrote:
Chaidh a’ chlach dhubh fodha
anns an luba uaine.

I've used 'went under' to express sunk. Come to think of it, I don't know why I wrote 'fodha' instead of 'fon' and didn't drop the 'anns an' to make 'fon luba uaine'. Probably the line length and overall shape made it look weird to me at the time. Now it looks weird to me at the moment.

I also looked up the word for a pond, so if it has any connotation I need to know about, please tell me.

[Tha_Mi_Sgìth]

fodha is correct. When there is no subject apply the pronoun to, they default to the masculine form: leis, ris, fodha, etc.
a' dol fodha is the usual way to say "sinking".

"luba" is a mire. Lìnne is a pond, but "lòn" is more widely used for a small pond or puddle.
For example, Peppa likes to jump in a "lòn puill" = muddy puddle (puddle of mud).
Note "lòn" also means lunch!
Maybe "lochan" = small lake/tarn, is what you are looking for?
(Note this can also just mean plural of loch!)

[akerbeltz]

lìnne > linne, the i is short

[Nic]

fodha is correct. When there is no subject apply the pronoun to, they default to the masculine form: leis, ris, fodha, etc.
a' dol fodha is the usual way to say "sinking".

Oh good, I got something right! I probably saw the construction on DASG or somewhere because it's not in really in my brain.

Feumaidh mi smaoineachadh air na faclan agus na mi airson a ràdh. Mire is dramatic but not necessarily intended. Taing!

[Níall Beag]

fodha is correct. When there is no subject apply the pronoun to, they default to the masculine form: leis, ris, fodha, etc.
a' dol fodha is the usual way to say "sinking".

Oh good, I got something right! I probably saw the construction on DASG or somewhere because it's not in really in my brain.

Feumaidh mi smaoineachadh air na faclan agus na mi airson a ràdh. Mire is dramatic but not necessarily intended. Taing!

After all, boats "go under" in English too, and it's a complete verb. "The boat went under the sea" wouldn't have any clear meaning in English. The Gaelic phrase works the same.

[Nic]

After all, boats "go under" in English too, and it's a complete verb. "The boat went under the sea" wouldn't have any clear meaning in English. The Gaelic phrase works the same.

I think I try to prime my brain to think 'these languages are different' so I'm not too hung up on differences that I sometimes overdo it. Then I am hung up when the languages behave similarly.


Rinn mi na ceartachaidhean. Mìle mìle taing, a h-uile duine!

Seo an dàn gu lèir:

Grian dhearg anns an speur.
Chaidh a’ chlach dhubh fodha
anns an linne uaine.
An fhuil ghorm a’ fuileachadh
dearg, agus an t-sùil gheal
fhathast gun lèirsinn.

Dè ur beachd?

[GunChleoc]

How about this:

An fhuil ghorm a’ fuileachadh -> a' dòrtadh

https://www.faclair.com/ViewEntry.aspx? ... 17F9779FCB

Also: dearg -> gu dearg (it's an adverb in this context)

[Nic]

A bheil a' fuileachadh ceàrr? I had considered a' dòrtadh, and in fact, wrote a draft of the poem with it, but I liked the flowing sound of a' fuileachadh. It is more of a seep than a spurt (like a' dòrtadh), nach eil? If that's not too gruesome a thing to say. If a' fuileachadh is wrong though then that, of course, outweighs sound.

Taing dhutsa airson gu dearg, bidh mi a' ceartaich sin.