Clan Motto Translation

[Calum Mac Neill]

You're welcome, ScotSites. You did very well to locate what you did. Even very literate Gaelic speakers can find difficulty with accents.

[Duthill]

Originally Posted by Magenta

I'm intrigued - what does your motto mean?

There are a number of clans who have that slogan . They are members of the Chattan Confederation . The Cat , refers to their common origin .

As has been mentioned already , the slogan is written in English .
Check with your clan chief about the reason as to why it is not in any other language .

[MacGillivray]

Thanks to everyone for your input! Yet again, I am far more than impressed by the quality of this forum.
Polwarth hit the nail directly on the head for the interpretation of the motto, and the translations posted are incredibly similar to the piecemeal translations I tried my own hand at, but I was completely out to sea when it came to proper grammar! As a brand new student in the process of trying to learn Gaelic, could I also trouble anyone for assistance in the proper pronunciation of the Gaelic version of the motto? I still don't quite have the hang of it yet.

[Calum Mac Neill]

"na bean don chat gun làmhainn"

English phonetics would be

nah benn donn khatt goon laaaaviñ

The word 'gun' can be pronounced like 'goon' or something like 'gn'.

The grammar is as follows.

na - negative imperative particle

bean - imperative form of 'touch'

don - to the

chat - dative singular of 'cat'

gun - without

làmhainn - glove'