Another Tattoo Fail: Big Sister’s Big Mess
“Big sister” got it very wrong
A chairde: I’m just recovering from three weeks on the road, culminating in the annual week-long Irish immersion course in Butte, Montana (an event I highly recommend, by the way!), and I’m a bit fried (Irish: Tá mé spíonta -- I’m spent).
I plan to write about the Butte course next week, when I’m a bit recovered (and when the roofers are done making loud noises on my soon-not-to-be-leaky roof). There’s a lot to write about!
I can’t let a bad tattoo go by, however, and since this one fell into my lap last week, I give you...
Big Sister’s Big Mess: Four Mistakes in Two Words
It’s hard to believe that a person could get so much wrong in a simple two-word phrase. Two words: four mistakes. That may just be something of a record.
This person was clearly going for “Big Sister,” but unfortunately what she ended up with is nonsense.
Let’s Start With the Accents
The first thing that any Irish speaker or learner would notice here is the accent marks. In Irish, the accent marks ALWAYS slant to the right (Like the one over the “u” above. That’s called an “acute” or “long” accent...in Irish síneadh fada). Left-slanting (grave) accents simply don’t happen.
Scottish Gaelic is a little different in that respect. In the form of Scottish Gaelic currently spoken in Scotland, the accents slant to the left...just the opposite of Irish There’s also a form of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Nova Scotia, Canada, that has both left- and right-slanting accents. This raises the question: Was our hero going for Scottish Gaelic, Canadian-style?
Unlikely, I’m afraid. As it happens, The Scottish Gaelic word for “sister” is very different from the Irish word...so different that there’s no mistaking them. The Scottish Gaelic word for sister is piuthar. The Irish is deirfiúr. So she either got the accents wrong or she got the word for “sister” wrong. I’m banking on the former.
Accents matter, folks. They’re not just there to look pretty. If you have the wrong type of accent, or an accent where one shouldn’t be (or none where one is needed), the word is misspelled, and may even take on a different meaning.
And I can’t emphasize this enough: While Scottish Gaelic and Irish are very closely related, and similar in many respects, they are different languages, and you can’t just swap words or features between them.
A Problem with Placement
An incorrect accent mark might be easily corrected, but unfortunately that’s not the only problem with this tattoo. In Irish, the adjective follows the noun it modifies. “Mór” (”big”) is the adjective here, and must come AFTER “deirfiúr.”
People with little or no language-learning experience tend to assume that word order in one language is the same as word order in another. Sorry folks...It just doesn’t work that way. Languages aren’t codes for one another (if they were, all we’d have to do to learn new languages is memorize vocabulary lists!).
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You can’t simply plug Irish words into English syntax and hope to have something that makes sense. In English it may be “big sister,” but Irish needs a “sister big.”
And Then There’s Gender
As with most European languages, all Irish nouns have a grammatical “gender,” which affects what happens to the words around them.
“Deirfiúr” is grammatically feminine and, in most cases, when feminine nouns are followed by an adjective beginning with a consonant, that consonant must be “softened” or “lenited,” which changes its pronunciation.
In contemporary Irish, lenition is indicated by putting an “h” after the consonant (in the older form of Irish writing known as “seanchló” it was represented by placing a dot over the consonant).
So what this person needed was “Deirfiúr Mhór.” Oops! Good thing it’s not perman...er...oh.
But Wait! There’s More!
There’s one more error in this tattoo, even after all the grammatical errors are addressed. Did you spot it? Look closely.
To add spelling insult to grammatical injury, our unfortunate tattoo-ee has left out a letter. Instead of “deirfiúr,” she’s got “deifiúr” -- the first “r” is missing.
The Big Question: Why?
Tattoos can be a beautiful form of self-expression. They’re also, however, a pricey, painful, and permanent form of self-expression. If you’re going to get one, isn’t it worth the time and research necessary to make sure it’s perfect?
I never have understood why anyone would get a tattoo in a language he or she didn’t personally speak...at least without doing A LOT of research. Sadly, many of the Irish tattoos out there are clearly the result of little or no research. Certainly that’s the case with “Big Sister” here.
Just don’t do it, folks. And don’t let your friends do it. Friends don’t let friends get bad tats. Put in the time before you lay down your money. Is that too much to ask?
GG
P.S. Some have questioned whether “mór” (”great/big”) is the correct adjective here. I admit that I was concerned about that myself (I would have said “deirfiúr is sine” -- “eldest sister”), so I consulted with native speaker friends of mine, who assured me that “deirfiúr mhór” is just fine for “big (in the sense of “elder/eldest”) sister.
Coming next week: “Rocky Mountain Haigh: Irish in Montana”
