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ancient irish and basque

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  • 06-02-2009 12:26am
    #1
    Daroxtar
    Registered Users Posts: 4,319 ✭✭✭


    I'm just wondering if anyone has done a comparison? My reason for asking is due to the very close genetic links between the basques and the population of connacht. Irish mythology says that the first settlers here were the descendants of King Milos who came from northern spain. This was always treated as pure myth but genetic testing has backed it up so has anyone found any links in the language to further the argument? I'm not looking for links between the current version of irish and basque as there are probably none but i want to know if anyone has compared older tongues.


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    #2
    tolosenc
    Registered Users Posts: 6,889 ✭✭✭tolosenc


    Any links are purely coincidental. The Irish language has a well understood geaneology going back to Proto-Indo-European.

    Basque has no such back story, and no link to any other language, save possibly the now long extinct Iberian.


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    #3
    Mooby
    Closed Accounts Posts: 108 ✭✭Mooby


    Agreeing with the last poster that Irish being of Indo-European descent is not related to Basque.
    However, there are some words in old Irish that do not look particularly Indo-European in shape. It is possible that these words were borrowed into Irish at some time in the language's prehistory. (Possibly borrowed from the language spoken in the British Isles prior to the arrival of the Celts?)


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    #4
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Old Irish is an Indo-European language, as other posters have said, so it has no relation to Basque. It is very difficult to pick out traces of the language that was here before that. Of course if you go back far enough it was some non-Indo-European language, but by the time Irish arrived other Indo-European languages might have been there. It's difficult to know.


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    #5
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Total newbie to etymology here, but fascinated all the same. If this is off topic - forgive me. I know nothing about the Basque language.
    I'm curious about the number of words which are broadly similar between Irish (contemporary) and French but starkly different in English.

    e.g.
    Mara, Mer, Sea.
    Capall, cheval, horse.
    Leabhar, livre, book.

    Is this to do with the Saxon influence on English?
    I would love to know too, how Nordic words were absorbed into Irish - if at all, but surely with place names like Leixlip and Wexford etc., there was some influence.


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    #6
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    See the bottom of the page for Proto-Indo-European.
    slowburner wrote: »
    Total newbie to etymology here, but fascinated all the same. If this is off topic - forgive me. I know nothing about the Basque language.
    I'm curious about the number of words which are broadly similar between Irish (contemporary) and French but starkly different in English.

    e.g.
    Mara, Mer, Sea.
    Capall, cheval, horse.
    Leabhar, livre, book.

    Is this to do with the Saxon influence on English?
    Two things you might find interesting:
    1) English wasn't influenced by the Saxon language, it is the Saxon language. Old English was the language of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. English gets its forms for those words because it shares them with other Germanic languages.
    2) Irish and French developed from similar neighbouring dialects of Indo-European. More accurately the mother language of Irish (Proto-Celtic) and French (Proto-Italic) developed from the same set of Western dialects of Proto-Indo-European.

    English tends to be different because it comes from a different branch of Indo-European dialects, the Germanic ones, which developed from Indo-Europeans spreading their culture up the Carpathian foothills. Irish and French developed from a spreading of Indo-European culture into the Hungarian/Austrian region.
    slowburner wrote: »
    I would love to know too, how Nordic words were absorbed into Irish - if at all, but surely with place names like Leixlip and Wexford etc., there was some influence.
    A lot were absorbed, in fact there are books on the subject. Irish absorbed the same type of Norse words as English, naval terms and terms for new household features such window/fuinneog.


    Proto-Indo-European: was the ancestral language to most languages in Europe, Northern India and Iran, as well as older languages in Turkey and Western China. It was spoken in Southern Ukraine and the Volga district of Russia. It spread across the world mainly because the people who spoke it domesticated the horse and had an open society (they let foreigners in as their own). After a farming crisis around 3600 B.C.E. they became a prestige group (good land, cattle, horses and an open society that was easy to join) and many people adopted their culture, language and gods.


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    #7
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Gosh! Many thanks for that scholarly reply, Enkidu. It's intriguing and raises so many questions.


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    #8
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    A lot were absorbed, in fact there are books on the subject.

    Any chance that you could point me in the right direction?


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    #9
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Quiet here, isn't it?


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    #10
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Sorry for the delay slowburner, I haven't logged on in a wee while.

    Check this book out:
    From the Viking word horde: A dictionary of Scandinavian words in the languages of Britain and Ireland, Diarmuid O' Muirithe, 2010.

    If you like something different I'll can give you other references. With less of a delay this time!


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    #11
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    I was only checking to see if there was still life in this forum, not just you Enkidu - there hasn't been much sign of it lately!
    I genuinely appreciate the reference - many thanks. I'm off to the library.


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    #12
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Two more curiosities in a similar vein. Mhathair/Mara. Mere/mer.
    Curious that mother and sea should be so similar.
    A further curiosity - I have not heard any language in which the word for mother does not begin with 'M'.


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    #13
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    slowburner wrote: »
    Two more curiosities in a similar vein. Mhathair/Mara. Mere/mer.
    Curious that mother and sea should be so similar.
    A further curiosity - I have not heard any language in which the word for mother does not begin with 'M'.
    There are some, although they are very rare. In Finnish, Akkadian and Sumerian for example. Although even then it's a vowel followed directly by a "m". The only case I can think of where there isn't an immediate "m" sound is in Assyrian (a late northern dialect of Akkadian).


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    #14
    _blank_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 41,926 ✭✭✭✭_blank_


    It's usually the first verbalisation a child makes, and it's very naturally so, all it involves is opening and closing the lips while expelling air and invoking the vocal chords.

    "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma"

    A very young baby wouldn't have proper control of their tongue to make other sounds.

    So, very young babies looking for attention from their mother, to get the mother's attention would call out "ma-ma-ma-ma", and the mother would respond.


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    #15
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    So does that mean men invented really difficult sounds in order to avoid childcare?:p


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    #16
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Enkidu wrote: »
    There are some, although they are very rare. In Finnish, Akkadian and Sumerian for example. Although even then it's a vowel followed directly by a "m". The only case I can think of where there isn't an immediate "m" sound is in Assyrian (a late northern dialect of Akkadian).
    Discussed this with somebody and they told me that even in Assyrian, although the word for mother doesn't have an m sound, that's only because it's a shortened version of the old word for mother and they still used and understood the old word.

    So it looks like it's M for Mammy all the time (unless you're an Assyrian in a rush).


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    #17
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Discussed this with somebody and they told me that even in Assyrian, although the word for mother doesn't have an m sound, that's only because it's a shortened version of the old word for mother and they still used and understood the old word.

    So it looks like it's M for Mammy all the time (unless you're an Assyrian in a rush).

    :D

    Probably something similar in Irish - " a Mhammy ".
    Do you think there is an correlation between 'sea' and 'mother' across various languages?


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    #18
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    slowburner wrote: »
    :D

    Probably something similar in Irish - " a Mhammy ".
    Do you think there is an correlation between 'sea' and 'mother' across various languages?
    Meeting somebody about this tomorrow, so I can tell you then!


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    #19
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Really boring explanation unfortuantely.

    The word for sea in Indo-European was: móri

    The word for mother:méh₂tēr
    So, they just happened to sound the same already in Proto-Indo-European, so they sound the same in the daughter languages.

    If you want to know how to pronounce the word for mother:
    mé = may
    h₂ = A blowing on glass type sound. The kind of sound you make when you want to see your breath on a window
    tēr = ter, but with a soft e, basically say ter with no effort, so that the e is kind of an "uh" sound. r is like a tapped r in
    spanish.


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    #20
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Really boring explanation unfortuantely.

    The word for sea in Indo-European was: móri

    The word for mother:méh₂tēr
    So, they just happened to sound the same already in Proto-Indo-European, so they sound the same in the daughter languages.

    If you want to know how to pronounce the word for mother:
    mé = may
    h₂ = A blowing on glass type sound. The kind of sound you make when you want to see your breath on a window
    tēr = ter, but with a soft e, basically say ter with no effort, so that the e is kind of an "uh" sound. r is like a tapped r in
    spanish.
    It might have been interesting - but now we know.
    Could we not invent a myth to make it interesting?


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    #21
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    slowburner wrote: »
    It might have been interesting - but now we know.
    Could we not invent a myth to make it interesting?

    After sealing the ancient mother goddess of destruction in the sea with the sword of Tanalgor, the Proto-Indo-Europeans bound the two concepts together with similar sound to keep her prison strongly embued with magic energies.:)


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    #22
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    The origin of Atlantis, without doubt ;)


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    #23
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Enkidu.
    Your input is required here
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=73592981#post73592981 :p


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    #24
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Back to annoy you again :rolleyes:
    Simple question if a bit unrelated to this thread - does the Irish Cashel originate in the Latin Castellum ?


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    #25
    _blank_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 41,926 ✭✭✭✭_blank_


    slowburner wrote: »
    Back to annoy you again :rolleyes:
    Simple question if a bit unrelated to this thread - does the Irish Cashel originate in the Latin Castellum ?

    I'm wondering if you are Irish?

    The Gaelic word for Castle is "Caisleán" (cash-lawn), Cashel is an anglicised version of that (as the names of almost every village, town and city in Ireland are anglicised versions of their Gaelic names).

    A lot of words entered Gaelic as borrowings from Latin, I don't see why this wouldn't be one of them.


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    #26
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Des wrote: »
    I'm wondering if you are Irish?

    The Gaelic word for Castle is "Caisleán" (cash-lawn), Cashel is an anglicised version of that (as the names of almost every village, town and city in Ireland are anglicised versions of their Gaelic names).

    A lot of words entered Gaelic as borrowings from Latin, I don't see why this wouldn't be one of them.
    :D Tá mé.
    Alright then - Caiseal


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    #27
    _blank_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 41,926 ✭✭✭✭_blank_


    slowburner wrote: »
    Alright then - Caiseal

    Caiseal is just another, probably older, way of saying Caislean.

    Where are you from? What's the Irish name of the place? Does it make sense today?


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    #28
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Actually Cashel does come from the Latin Castellum. The Eóganachta who built Cashel were a Gaulish tribe who originally didn't speak Irish. They named Cashel after the Roman Castellum which the would have seen in France.


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    #29
    slowburner
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    Des wrote: »
    Caiseal is just another, probably older, way of saying Caislean.

    Where are you from? What's the Irish name of the place? Does it make sense today?
    Kilcashel, and yep it makes sense, there's a cashel.


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    #30
    _blank_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 41,926 ✭✭✭✭_blank_


    slowburner wrote: »
    Kilcashel, and yep it makes sense, there's a cashel.

    Is/was there a wood/forest?

    Choill Caiseal - the Castle near the forest/Wood - or else the Forest of the Castle.

    Probably the hunting ground of the local lord back in the day :)

    OR

    A church, also near a castle

    Cill Casieal.


    Choill = forest
    Cill = church


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    #31
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Actually Cashel does come from the Latin Castellum. The Eóganachta who built Cashel were a Gaulish tribe who originally didn't speak Irish. They named Cashel after the Roman Castellum which the would have seen in France.
    In addition to this I should also say there are a few places in Munster with Gaulish or Latin names due to the migration of the Eóganachta.


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