"Halò a bhalaich, dè an t-ainm a th' ort?"
Translation:Hello boy, what is your name?
8 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I wonder if the distinct phrasing of this idiom ("what name is on you") relates to the traditional belief that names have power and that it was dangerous to give your true name to the wrong stranger. So the question is basically asking "what name are you using (wearing)" which allows for a false name to be given without it actually being a lie.
And in my head I like to translate this as "what name do you wear?" It just feels right that way. It saddens me that this is not an acceptable translation to the program (although I understand why it isn't)
Because a bheil…? is the form meaning is…?, a question expecting yes/no answer. And the question here is what is your name? and not eg. is the name nice? or sth like that.
wh-type questions (ones beginning with what, who, where, how, and similar question words) in Gaelic often involve relative clauses.
I actually answered basically the same question in a bit more depth in the How are you, Ewan? discussion. Ant I tried to explain structure of wh-questions in multiple other Duolingo discussions, among them eg.:
edit: I initially linked a wrong discussion in first link, now fixed
There is no single word meaning what is your name.
I did go over the structure of this question in the threads linked in another comment:
- Cò ris a tha an t-sìde coltach an-diugh?: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/35370423?comment_id=35371794
- Dè an t-ainm a th’ ort, a charaid?: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/35586980?comment_id=37251272
- Who are you?: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/36041452?comment_id=36044060
My answer was marked wrong but was exactly the same as the corrected one!