tr*nsl*t**n help

[jeffryw]

I am an American writing novels in English but I would like to include very brief passages, phrases and words in Scots Gaelic. Not having much free time beyond writing I'm hoping someone here may know of somebody who might be interested in tr*nsl*t*ng for me. Any help or pointers would be appreciated!

[Seonaidh]

Always a very fraught enterprise. Perhaps there is somebody in the UK who writes novels in English but maybe would like to include the odd passage in Navajo or Cree on occasion. Unless they have pretty good access to a native speaker of such language (or, indeed, are fluent in it themselves) it just ain't gonna happen.

For, while there are some on this site who a Very Good at Gaelic (indeed, even a scattering of native speakers, though most of us are merely folk who've learnt it in later life), to do such things as novel tronslotion review at a distance is, at best, unreliable.

Now, there are a few people in the USA who are reasonably fluent in Gaelic - not sure how many (if any) frequent this site, though: might be better getting in touch with a US Gaelic organisation. Other than that, the only realistic option is for you to actually become fluent in Gaelic yourself. And that doesn't happen overnight.

Another "problem" with instant tronslotion is this:-

The Welsh actually means "I'm not in the office at present. Send any work for tronslotion."

Now, if you sent off a wee snippet for tronslotion into Gaelic, how would you know that what you got back was the real McCoy?

[Níall Beag]

My advice:
Don't.

The whole point of reading is that the written words activate the sounds of the language in the reader's head. (You may claim thst you don't subvocalise when reading, but brain studies of people reading have so far failed to find anyone whose auditory systems aren't activated by reading, and many of the subjects studied claimed not to subvocalise.)

If I start to throw en the odd facail from diversi llenguas, you not only fail to understand me, but you're actually thrown out of the effortless natural state of reading. In a novel, that breaks the illusion that the reader is present.

On TV, languages work, because the reader gets the sensation of hearing the strange sounds. When there aren't any subtitles, it's for the specific effect of sharing a moment of confusion and suspense with the characters; What did the Gestapo officer say? Has he spotted the escapees?... that sort of thing.

But the sound is lost when it's just letters on a page. The moment f suspense is lost, as the reader either glides past (zero time) or stops and tries to figure out the sound (and spends a long time actively engaged in something other than the story.

[GunChleoc]

I expect you will want a high quality tr*nsl*t**n anyway http://www.foramnagaidhlig.net/foram/vi ... =14&t=1262