djwebb2021 wrote:
I don't like things like "táim-se ann", which strike me as too simple for philosophical language.
I take your point about the simplicity of the language used in the expression, but that's how existence is generally expressed in Irish, eg.
an bhfuil Dia ann? - "does God exist?"
I find quite often when translating from English to Irish, and the English uses complex philosophical or scientific terminology (itself typically appropriated from Latin or Greek), that the natural way of expressing it in Irish seems somewhat imprecise or simplistic. I'm also led to believe that this is quite a common phenomenon in languages other than Irish. That technical language can feel unusual or clunky and so, where necessary, complex concepts are expressed in terms which may seem simplistic by comparison to those used in English. This may not be the case for other major languages like French, German, Arabic, etc., in which a significant amount of scientific and philosophical literature has been written over the centuries, but I suspect it is the case for the majority of the less widely spoken European languages.
In this case, though, I don't think there's anything complex about even the English. The most obtuse word in the phrase is "therefore". My suggestion would be to keep it simple:
machnaím/smaoiním, táim-se ann mar sin de.