Hi everyone,

This is a very open request for any known of any resources of etymology of Irish words. I would be very grateful if you could post them here. Unfortunately a book/work that is a linguistic exploration of the etymological history of Irish words won't be of much use to me: ideally I would have a dictionary/searchable database that I could turn to with the learning of each new Irish word.

I can speak English, Irish and Italian quite well, and a bit of French also. It is Italian that I have been learning most actively recently, and a new tactic I have begun to employ with great success is to take a look at the etymology of the Italian word. If I can link it to something I already know in either English, French, Italian itself or Irish (it does happen!), the chances of me remembering that word skyrocket. For example, I'm no longer just content to take at face value that Ir. "tearmann" = Eng. "sanctuary". I need (if possible) to know why! Though I'm also perfectly aware of the high probability of an Irish word having an origin that I cannot connect to anything else.

However, an online search hasn't revealed very much. Does anyone know of any online or offline resources for etymology of Irish words? Though I'm certain that academics exist that could give me a detailed run-down of the probable origin of most Irish words, I have a terrible fear that a lot of this work in this area may not yet have been done, at least in a work that is easily consultable/findable. Does anyone have any ideas? For anyone who is interested, I include below my best example of how much what I'm looking for has helped me enormously in other languages.

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The example I'll never forget is of me trying to commit to memory the Italian phrase "venire a galla" (Eng. "to surface"). I consulted the bible of online Italian etymology here:

http://www.etimo.it/?term=galla&find=Cerca

In some way, it has to do with plant excretions, whose meaning then was transferred to humans as meaning a sickness of some kind, when something would be excreted by the skin. With no other connection to anything I previously knew being found, I was just going to have to try to drive this phrase "venire a galla" into my memory by force. But far down the page, to my great surprise, I found that it is in fact connected to the Irish word "galar"! Job done!

Briain.

McBain's etymological dictionary of Gaelic is online. Although it is designed for Scottish Gaelic, it's relatively easy to look up Irish words in it if you know the patterns to the spelling differences between the two languages. It can be difficult as well in that it does not properly display vowels with accents (I don't know why), but it's usually possible to figure out what the vowel is from the context. I have a hard copy of the dictionary, so I use that instead. Here's the URL:
http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/index.html

Here's a typical entry, in this case for the word each:

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

Thanks Caoimhín.

The search function on that link isn't working at the moment but I've found MacBain's dictionary elsewhere

I’m pretty disheartened by the fact that the only etymological resource I have found for Irish is a (said to be often mistaken) etymological dictionary of Scots Gaelic

At this point I would even settle for a book that hasn’t been digitised yet…

If anyone has any other resources to share, I’d be very grateful,

B.

Scottish Gaelic is mostly derived from old irish- 90% I would say- although a lot of latin itself has influenced old irish hugely- correct me if I am wrong Caoimhín. Dáil Riata/ riada tribe from Ulster brought gaelic to Scotland in the 5th centuary AD. There abviously would be some loan words that Irish wouldn't have from English (scottish gaelic would have adopted a lot more English words), Norsk etc... in saying that even Norsk itself has influenced words that are in both Irish and Scottish like bróg- shoe, cnaipe- button. The two languages would have remained pretty much the same until the latter part of the Middle Ages. The spelling would have been fairly similar also until recently. In the 1940 when irish went through a standardisation and spelling reform. A scottish gaelic etymology isn't far off an Irish gaelic etymology.

Don't be to disheartened

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I wouldn't say Latin has influenced Old Irish hugely... There are several Latin words in Old Irish (that you can't even see most of the time because they were spelt and pronounced in a completely different way, eg. sacart, saegul, Modern sagart, saol, which come from Latin sacerdos and saeculum), but apart from that, let's say in grammar or pronunciation I don't think there's much influence...

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

Sorry that was my fault, I was refering to Caoimhín about the Scottish Gaelic part. I don't mean in a pronounciation way, what I meant was a lot of irish words have a latin etymology. The thread was about etymology of words. And in that sense no other language has influenced irish more than latin not even English words. Contact with Wales and thus the Latin empire brought about writing in Ireland through ogham (but the creaters of this writing system were heavily influenced by Latin)- Expedition by the Déise and the Uí Liatháín in Wales, the Sanas Cormaic and the Historia Britonnum conflict as to which tribe was were but fundamentally Irish tribes had invaded and conqueed some of the coast of Wales and Crnwall. The vast majority of words that are to do with the church have a Latin etymology- sacart as you mentioned, bachall from bacalum, pascha- cásc, peccatt (peaca- sin)- peccátum.cásc- pascha. A lot of words came in that have nothing to do with Christianity- (ol Ir) póc (póg)- pácem) and the vast majority of words to do with Countries. Some words have come through Gaulish into latin and then into Irish- Kerros- Carr - chariot or old. Ir carpat (carbad)- chariot also.

It is largely accepted that words that came in before 500AD - the P was dropped as Q- Celtic people couldtpronoune the P. Words that came in after 500AD P was kept. The word Apostle is a good example of that as it entered the Irish language twice.
(old Irish achsal then later as apstal= apstal= (apostolus). Words went through a serious of syncopic and apocapic changes- e.g apostolus- achostolus- achstolus (syncopy on a 3 syllabal word)- achosal (apocope- achsal (further syncope)- achsal- axel (found in Amra coluim Chille).

There were some general rules also- latin words beginning with f where changed to s:furnus- sorn (us dropped because of apocapy) and fenestra- senester (old. Ir for window). Words beginning with V in Latin changed to f e.g vitulus- fíthal.
You could also make the etymological argument that both latin and Irish are both Indo- European languages and thus both originate in and around Anatolia and India. Buth then again most languages in Europe and India have a Indo- european origion. There are a few exception Basque being one. An example of the Indo- European relation is the word Father- *PoTER- pater (Ltin), father (English), athair (p dropped Q- Cheltic).

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the Indo-European p has been dropped in all Celtic languages actually. But one may be mistaken because IE kw has become p in the Brythonic languages... so there are p's in these languages, but they don't come from IE p

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

Ya I know, it was even dropped by Welsh for awhile but was reintroduced later on again sometime in the 5th century if i'm not mistaken. According to my lecturers the German vater and English father are just the p séimhithe, why they put a séimhiú on the p i didn't ask him, wish I did now.

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The Welsh p's that cme from IE *kw? Looks strange, normally the consonants that disappear don't appear again like that.



There's no explanation, people prefered to pronounce p like f and that feature spread throughout the Germanic-speaking area. I don't think one can explain that.

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

Tagann roinnt laetheanta na seachatine sa Ghaeilge ó'n Laidin: Domhnach..Dominus..An Tiarna,
Luan ..Lunes.. An ghealach,
Máirt..Martes..Mars,
Satharn.. Saturn.
Ach seo na cinn Ghaeilge: Aoine..Fast Day,
Céadaoin..an chéad lá aoine sa tseachtain,
Déardaoin .. Dé idir dha Aoine.. an lé idir an chéad is an dara aoine!


Tá an aoine/troscadh (fasting) as feidhm ar fad seachas ar Chéadaoin an Luaithrigh agus ar Aoine an Chéasta