Hi I'm Alex.
I'm looking for advice on solving an audio language mystery, or a quick translation if possible.

The background is that my grandfather was 1st-generation american, son of either Irish and Scottish immigrants. His parents taught him a short prayer? or maybe motto?, presumably in Irish or Scottish that he in turn taught my mother. As the years passed, the original language and meaning of the phrase has been lost.

I'm hoping to find someone who can either point me to a free voice-to-text Irish/Scottish -> English translator (google translate doesn't support Irish or Scottish input), or someone who would be willing to listen to a short ~15 second clip of the beginning of this phrase and help determine whether this is Irish/Scottish and what this means.

I apologize I don't have a good chunk of text to include here--I'm not confident in my ability to transcribe what I hear phonetically. I'll try to include a rough guess of what the first few words sounds like to me, but these probably aren't trustworthy. Of course over a couple generations this phrase may have drifted and isn't anything recognizable anyway.

To me it sounds something like: "Tha hira hyunin milobik. Coryeal levran legrothe..."

Thanks so much for any ideas or help

Can you record a sample and post a link here?

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Thanks so much Jay for taking a look.
Here's a link to what I have on-hand.
Hopefully that has enough to determine whether this is Irish. I think there are a few more sentences in the full phrase though. I'll check if there is more and follow up with any additional audio.

Thanks

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzoReK ... sp=sharing

It could be Irish. I've caught at least one word that could be Irish (don't know how it may differ in Scottish Gaelic, though): peacaí (sins)

Redwolf

I think it's definitely Scottish Gaelic being read by someone who doesn't know how to pronounce the words which have been written down. The first word seems clearly to be Tha ("is"), which should be pronounced more like "hah". After that I can only pick out a few likely words, but I've found something in the Bible which is along the same lines, but not exactly the same. In John 20:23, there's this passage:

Ge b’e air bith iad d’ am maith sibh am peacaidh, tha iad maitlite dhoibh; agus co air bith iad d’ an cum sibh am peacaidh gun mhaitheadh, tha iad air an eumail.

That means, essentially: "Whoever's sins you forgive, they are forgiven; and whoever's sins you don't forgive, they are retained."
I've marked in red words from that passage which I can make out in your prayer, but I'm stumped as to the others. I'll keep trying to figure out more if I can, but perhaps Lughaidh can tune in and give it a try.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Great, thanks CaoimhínSF for checking it out. That is good to know if it is possibly Scottish. I started here thinking Irish more likely from the ancestry/history involved, but can try to also follow up on Scottish Gailec as another avenue.

I checked on whether there was any more recording to include but that is the full length of the phrase (at least that is all that is remembered). It is possible that the phrase has been corrupted over two generations of passing-along and memory and become unintelligible. Also though my mother and (I believe) my grandfather learned it verbally, the original itself could have been read (or misread) by whichever of his parents passed it along.

Thanks