tha gràdh mòr agam ort

[morrizzwaan]

dear forum,
last year i proposed my girl on top of ben lomond, now for our marriage i would like to use this:

tha gràdh mòr agam ort

as far as i know, it means 'my love is on thee always', but is that true ? before we use it we'd like to know the exact meaning. especially the word 'mòr' in it...

thanks a lot !

[Calum Mac Neill]

Morrizzwaan,

Mealadh nàidheachd airson ur gealladh pòsaidh! Congratulations on your engagement.

"Tha gràdh mór agam ort" means "I love you", literally, "I have love for you".

Tha (is) gràdh (love) mór (great) agam (at me) ort (on you).

"Tha gaol mór agam ort" means precisely the same thing.

The diacritics over letters indicate that the vowels so marked are long vowels, ie, drawled out in speech. The digraph AO also represents a single long vowel.

The acute over the O in "mór" has been replaced in the new orthography by the grave, eg, "mòr". However, the old acute shows what the new grave does not, namely, that the long vowel O here is the O in "dote" rather than the O in "dot".

DH is pronounced like a GH.

[Crofter]

“Tha gràdh mór agam ort”

“mór” means - big, large or great

Here your statement would more suitably be interpreted as “I love you greatly”

If one said “I love you dearly” it could be said to be a greater expression of one’s love than just “I love you” Your statement more closely resembles “I love you dearly”

If you wish to add “always” simply add “a ghnàth” to your statement.

Congratulations and best wishes on the big day. She can’t fail but be impressed, and flattered.

PS: Calum, with his usual flair has explained the grammatical intricacies.

Crofter.

[Calum Mac Neill]

Thanks, Crofter, forgot to add in the "great love"!

[morrizzwaan]

dear calum and crofter, first i'd like to thank you both very much for your kind reactions !!

so, if i'm correct, the translation for:

my love is on thee always

should be:

tha gràdh agam ort a ghnàth

with the 'a ghnath' added, and without 'mor'..

[Calum Mac Neill]

Is the strange "my love is on thee" really something you would want to say when getting married? "My love is on you" is not normal English and therefore can not be reflected in Gaelic translation except by something which is not normal Gaelic - maybe something like, "tha mo ghaol annad", literally, "my love is in you", which would be as equally odd and suggestive to the Gaelic ear as "my love is on you" to the English ear.

"Thee" is not normal modern English and, to do that in Gaelic, you would have to elevate to the Biblical "ta" instead of "tha".

So, had you written, "I love thee always", it could have been translated as, "Ta gràdh agam ort a-ghnàth". Having said that though, "tha mo ghaol ort" (literally, "my love is on you") is a slightly fancier way of saying, "tha gaol agam ort" (literally, I have love for you), so you could also say, "Ta mo ghràdh ort a-ghnàth" (I love thee always).

Ta (is) mo (my) ghràdh (love) ort (on you) a-ghnàth (always).

[Crofter]

Your statement now reads “tha gràdh agam ort a ghnàth”

This would be translated as “I love you always”