1940s Irish sci-fi novel features early mecha and gravity assists
github.com
github.com
Here's my Translations of the Chapter titles. I'm pretty sure many of these have old-Irish style séimhiú (a dot above a consonant denotes what would now be a h after the consonant) in the originals that have not been translated by the OCR, so there are several missing h letters. If I weren't on a plane over Afghanistan, I'd download the PDF to check. Will update the repo when I can!
Pláinéid na feaca Súil Duine riamh = A planet no person's eyes have ever seen
An Radarc, tríd an gCiandracán = the view throughout the [Ciandracan] (this is a compound proper noun, "Cian" is "head" or "brain" and "racán" could be visor or rocket)
An Turas go Manannán = the Trip to Manannán
Manannán = Manannán (it's a noun, which is very similar to the Irish term for the Manx and the Isle of Mann).
Muintear Manannáin = the people of Manannán
na 'Cráidmí' = the Craidmi (I think it's just a plural noun)
An tÁrd-Máigistir = the high Magistrate, or possibly the supreme magistry
An Priorún = the Priory
Oidce sa Coill = The class/lesson/teaching in the woods/forest
An tinneall = the fire
Oidce tar Oidceanta = Lesson upon lesson
Lug Lám-fada = the long-armed lug
An Tróid leis na 'Cráidmí' = The war with the Craidmi
Diogaltas = Revenge
An téalod = not sure about this one> Oidce tar Oidceanta = Lesson upon lesson
I suspect these are actually mistranscribed by the project. That looks more like it should be "Oiḋċe sa Coill" or "Oidhche sa Choill" without the ponc séimhithe, and in modern spelling "Oíche sa Choill" - "A Night in the Forest". Comparing the transcription of the first chapter with the source in the PDF they're missing a fada (an acute accent for non-Irish speakers) in "ná".
Similarly, I'd probably render the second one as "Night upon Nights".
Not a native speaker myself, just a former gaelscoil student who's done their best to undo the gaelscoilis tendencies. Probably closer to a "heritage speaker" in the linguistic sense in some aspects.
Sadly out of practice these days, since I've been living in Denmark nearly three years. It's strange to lose competency in a language that you spoke every day for about 13 years.
I hope the project can upload a full scan at some point. I'm a huge sci-fi fan, and there's definitely a dearth of Irish language books in that genre.
The line between folklore and mythology is fuzzy, but this definitely falls on the mythology side of the line.
The battle/fight with the Craidmi. troid is singular whereas war is plural.
there are earlier north american examples; steam man of the prairies (1860s) being one.
(i'm big into mecha, sorry for the nitpick.)
While I am on mobile and (therefore) have not accessed the files, the ToC and description of the OCR process leads me to understand that the original print is in Irish, not English.
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/0c40c3f8-16de-4947-93c1-3...
I couldn't verify it, and a human translation would be preferable -- but it's probably good enough to get an idea of the story if you want to read some right now.
Not absolutely rigorous, e.g.
> "You have far more knowledge of the stars and the planets than any other living man"
Why "far more knowledge"? I don't see any emphasis like that in the original.
I'd have a few nits but they're of similarly small magnitude.
Ah yes, planets famously remain static in the sky…
The script can be mechanically translated to the modern characters, no ambiguity there. The spelling and grammar isn't the perfectly standardized Irish introduced in the 1940s and 50s - which isn't representative of how anyone ever spoke the language - but its differences are those a good to mediocre student might make anyway while trying to write the official standard.
It helps that this is clearly written for a YA audience. Literary Irish has lots of complicated constructions and idioms which are difficult to translate, but this does not.
(Although, part of me is also uneasy with that idea - using someone's culture & heritage as set dressing, without paying it any of the actual respect it deserves. It would be just as easy to copy a few paragraphs from Wikipedia, & use a Star Trek font to make something look fantastical, which is something I've done in the past.)
I don't know if I agree with that, but I will say that people in general deserve respect. If I were playing with an Irish player, I definitely wouldn't want to offend them by treating their language like set-dressing, and I wouldn't particularly want someone using my culture for that, either.
Sure some people might be offended, especially if you're an asshole about it. But generally Irish people are glad to share their culture, and delighted to see genuine interest from foreigners. Sad though our history is, we don't have the kind of issues that make some other groups more reluctant to share the symbols of their identity†.
† Notable exceptions apply, especially regarding English upper classes.
So, thanks for trying to be cool about this stuff!
The Punch Magazine-esque depiction of bucolic ignorance in ST:TNG {1} is probably the worst representation I can think of, but you still have recent romcoms {2} which the Irish Times film review section best describe as "...stunningly regressive stuff."
That said, even the most cutting satire is fully appreciated when done well. Steve Coogan's fantastic double-billing as his own look-a-like from Ireland was very well received here, negative connotations nonwithstanding.
{1} https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bringloidi {2} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Mountain_Thyme_(film) {3} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjEGbAFzJU
It also looks like the PDF in the repo is just the first 20 pages, it would be worthwhile scanning the whole thing cleanly and uploading to preserve this important work.