Hi there!

Hoping to get some assistance. I'm working on a tattoo to honor my husband as we approach our 10 year anniversary.

What I like is Mo chuid den tsaol.

I'm getting hung up on Tsaol or Saol. Is it an either/or situation or is one spelling more appropriate?

Thanks in advance!

Erica

Mo chuid den saol, Connacht and Munster Irish
Mo chuid den tsaol, Ulster Irish

Btw: It is Mo Chuid den tSaol in upper case.

Actually it's rather "Mo Chuid don tSaol" in Ulster, since we don't use "de".

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

It's also don/ den tsaol in Munster as well.

Munster Irish prefixes t to 's' following den/ don regardless of the gender of the proceeding noun.

The same is true following '(in)sa', eg. sa tsráid, sa tséipéal.

However, there's no t-prefix, regardless of the gender of the proceeding noun, following 'ar an': ar an sráid (M) vs ar an tsráid (CO).

Munster Irish doesn't differentiate between de/do, except for some petrified-prepositional-pronoun formulaic phrases with 'bain' when it means to 'take off clothing' : eg. Bain díot do chasóg.

But,

Bhain sé a cheann dó (ó as schwa)/ de 'he beheaded him'.

Apparently, Cork Irish differentiates do/de in the sense of 'off of', eg. th(u)it sé den chrann, whereas Déise and Kerry have 'don'. I don't know how common this differentiation is in practice.

The de/do dichotomy in the CO is a literary archaism; the two fell together in the 10th/11th century.

Cian

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice