Bears

dubhthach · 05-09-2011 12:16pm #1

Was watching a program last night on National Geographic about Bears in Yellowstone park and having read recently that all Polar Bears have maternal ancestry to extinct "Irish Brown Bears" I decided to see what the word in Irish for a Bear was.

Focal.ie = béar -- doesn't sound very authentic looks like a direct borrowing from English. Which would be strange given that they found pagan Bear statues on Armagh's Cathedral Hill

From looking into Dineen's dictionary I see: Mathghamhain which is root of surnames McMahon, O'Mahoney etc.

Modern spelling would be Mathúna (post spelling reform), anyways abit of reading it would seem that in old-irish the word for bear was Math, gamhain of course means Calf, so Mathghamhain = "Bear Cub", it would seem that by "Middle Irish" period it just meant Bear, given that the animals were probably extinct for at least 1,000 years at this stage it's not surprising.

Personally I would prefer if Béar was removed from dictionary and Mathúna was used instead especially as the root word "Math" is used in Irish surnames.

eDIL says the following:

math
u, m., an archaic word for bear, K. M. Wortk. § 43 ; for deriv. see RC x 166 , xxvi 198 ; replaced in Mid.Ir. by math- gamain. gs. bruth matho, FB 52 = mathgaman, Eg. tond mairnech mathrúamdae, ib. (compd.?) = athruamda, Eg.

mathgamain
m. (cf. math) a bear: gl. ursus, Ir. Gl. 418. tír i fail m.€ mall, LL 136 a 34 . gs. bruth mathgaman, FB 52 Eg. = matho LU. pl. amal bíti mathgamna etir banbraid, RC xiii 456 § 52. gala mathgamna ┐ brotha léoman, BDD 92. mar leoman ic techta fo mathgamnaib, TBC 2163 , cf. 5585 and TBC² 1949. i n-earball an mhathghamna, TSh. 7431. math- ghamhuin, 1 Sam. xvii 34. nuallamuid amhuil mathghamhna, Isa. lix 11. Often used of a warrior: inmain m.€ mórglonnach, TBC 5354. an dā mathgamain morghlonnacha, CF 874. as mé an mathgamhain ar menmain, BNnÉ 285 § 273. is math- ghamhna meardha . . . a míleadha, Todd Lect. iv 82.21 .
Common as n.pr. m.: mathgamain mac Cennetigh, AU 966. m.€ mac Cendetig, Cog. 58.25 . dall Mathgamhna M.'s blind (bard ), 96.1 .

Interesting article here on "Divine Bear Cub"
http://www.mcmahonsofmonaghan.org/the_name_mathghamhna.html

Enkidu · 05-09-2011 3:59pm

You've stumbled on to something massive here dubhthach. "Bear" was a taboo word in all the "middle" Indo-European languages, i.e. after the Anatolian Branch, but before Indo-Aryan and Greek, this includes Celtic, Germanic, Italic.

Art is the genuine Old-Irish and in an earlier form (which I don't have in my notes right now) the original Proto-Celtic form of "bear". The Old/Middle Irish "Mathgamain" and "Milchobur = Honey Lover" are euphemisms, it was taboo to say Art. This word can be seen in the Gaulish:
Artoraíochas = Bear King (I've spelt this Gaulish word in Irish to better reflect its pronunciation.)

Actually even the English word "bear" descends from avoiding a taboo word. The real Germanic word for bear was Rktos (Try saying that), "bear" in Proto-Germanic meant Brown-One and was a way of avoiding the the real word.

dubhthach · 05-09-2011 4:05pm

Why specifically was it a taboo word though? That's interesting in it's own right.

Still I think people doing dictionaries are doing the language a diservice if they are gonna just be lazy and but Béar in as translation for Bear. I definitely think Milchobur is a great epitaph for a certain bear named Winnie.

Enkidu · 05-09-2011 4:20pm

My post above contains an error, Rktos is the Proto-Greek form, not Proto-Germanic.

dubhthach wrote: »

Why specifically was it a taboo word though? That's interesting in it's own right.

Of course nobody really knows, but the original Proto-Indo-European word for bear *rkso meant literally "The one who destroys", this is the word "Art" comes from and the one whose descendant was avoided in other languages. Considering the Indo-Europeans whose dialects went on to be Celtic/Germanic, e.t.c. lived in the forests of Europe where the bear was common place and called it destroyer, they must have taken the animal very seriously. So it's possible that it was a "summoning taboo", i.e. don't say its name in case it comes.

I should say it wasn't a taboo word in Proto-Indo-European itself, since they lived in the Eurasian Steppes. Only in the early languages of the Indo-Europeans who moved north and the languages descended from them.

dubhthach wrote: »

Still I think people doing dictionaries are doing the language a diservice if they are gonna just be lazy and but Béar in as translation for Bear.

Oh definitely, I think the spelling reform version Mathúna would be best, as you said.

I definitely think Milchobur is a great epitaph for a certain bear named Winnie.

deirdremf · 06-09-2011 8:16pm

Enkidu wrote: »

Of course nobody really knows, but the original Proto-Indo-European word for bear *rkso meant literally "The one who destroys", this is the word "Art" comes from and the one whose descendant was avoided in other languages. Considering the Indo-Europeans whose dialects went on to be Celtic/Germanic, e.t.c. lived in the forests of Europe where the bear was common place and called it destroyer, they must have taken the animal very seriously. So it's possible that it was a "summoning taboo", i.e. don't say its name in case it comes.

Definitely a possibility. Look at the use of the euphemisms "na daoine maithe" for the fairies/dead, and the use of "beainín uasal" for easóg in modern times for samples of that usage..
Alternately a totem name. I think in America and Australia lots of naming words are taboo, and specifically totem names.

Oh definitely, I think the spelling reform version Mathúna would be best, as you said.

Mathúin, surely. Wouldn't mathúna be the genitive?

Enkidu · 07-09-2011 8:39am

deirdremf wrote: »

Mathúin, surely. Wouldn't mathúna be the genitive?

Ah, duh!:) Thank you.

I've also found out that beithir was the word in the Bardic standard.

Agus · 11-09-2011 11:11pm

You are reinventing tbe wheel lads

The loanword is more common but some do use the word "mathúin/mathghamhain" and it can be found in some dictionaries.

mathghamhain
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/corpus/Domhnaill/scairt/caibidil7.html

mathúin
http://www.gaelsceal.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=322:mathuin-na-ruise-dragan-na-sine-agus-amba-tiogar-&catid=8:beatha&Itemid=294

http://193.1.97.44/scripts/focweb/Exe/focloir.exe

slowburner · 21-11-2011 12:28pm

Excuse my ignorance, but the McGowan/MacGabhainn surname - when did that become 'son of the smith' and latterly, Smith ?

http://pages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jmack/mcgowan/name.htm

deirdremf · 26-11-2011 4:20pm

slowburner wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance, but the McGowan/MacGabhainn surname - when did that become 'son of the smith' and latterly, Smith ?

http://pages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jmack/mcgowan/name.htm

Gabha is the Irish for smith - i.e. someone who works metal.
Gabha geal is a gold/silver smith.
Mac Gabhann means "son of the smith", translated to English as Smith, or transliterated as Gowan or McGowan.

Mathghamhain is an old word for "bear"
Mac Mathghamhna is a surname meaning "son of the bear"
Today it is usually written "Mac Mathúna", which is a more phonetic spelling, and is MacMahon in English.

dubhthach · 26-11-2011 6:24pm

Goibhniu is the name of the Irish "Smith God" the equivalent to the Roman Vulcan, though unlike Vulcan he doesn't have a Volcano to live under

Aard · 26-11-2011 6:27pm

Considering that Standard Irish isn't really a spoken language at all, it would be interesting if we did an Iceland on it and limited our use of loanwords. It wouldn't be too hard to make mathúin the Standard Irish for bear, which would be used in official documents, publications, and broadcasts.

(Also, tangential to the topic, but how good would it be to have etymology a significant part of the Leaving Cert Irish course?)

dubhthach · 26-11-2011 6:42pm

Aard wrote: »

Considering that Standard Irish isn't really a spoken language at all, it would be interesting if we did an Iceland on it and limited our use of loanwords. It wouldn't be too hard to make mathúin the Standard Irish for bear, which would be used in official documents, publications, and broadcasts.

(Also, tangential to the topic, but how good would it be to have etymology a significant part of the Leaving Cert Irish course?)

Given the amount of moaning I see about "Stair na Gaeilge" on Twitter from LC students I would imagine it would be damaging. Tbh the school curriculm needs more emphasis on spoken language.

To be honest I don't know why "Béar" is been pushed when Math/Mathúin is a perfect pre-existing word.

phatrat1982 · 28-11-2011 3:33pm

Aard wrote: »

Considering that Standard Irish isn't really a spoken language at all, it would be interesting if we did an Iceland on it and limited our use of loanwords. It wouldn't be too hard to make mathúin the Standard Irish for bear, which would be used in official documents, publications, and broadcasts.

(Also, tangential to the topic, but how good would it be to have etymology a significant part of the Leaving Cert Irish course?)

To be honest when we started out our kids all laughed at how similar so many Irish words already were to English so they took it up wholeheartedly thinking it would be super easy. Honestly for me I would think it would be better to stay away from loan words as much as possible, even here in the States in our English is cluttered with French and Spanish words people use everyday as if it was natural English, I try and stay away from those words as much as possible and look for proper English alternatives and I think anyone serious about preserving their native language might consider doing the same as much as possible.

The way I see it is language is a part of your culture, if you lose your language to an outside culture eventually everything else goes with it.
Now I know Ireland is separate from UK, but Northern Ireland is not, but to be honest I only found that out recently and only after I started studying Irish, most Americans still think Irish is just an accent and Ireland is just a "state" of Brittan.

Gaeilge72 · 05-12-2011 3:56pm

dubhthach wrote: »

Given the amount of moaning I see about "Stair na Gaeilge" on Twitter from LC students I would imagine it would be damaging. Tbh the school curriculm needs more emphasis on spoken language.

I agree, it is far more natural to learn how to speak a language and if they then have the interest they can further study the origins of it. As it is far too many teachers in this country cannot speak the language themselves. There should be more emphasis on the spoken language. I think that includes for the teachers themselves when training I'm not trying to ridicule teachers here but I think the emphasis on the spoken language in schools needs to start in teacher training.

There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the Irish language borrowing words. The English language has far more loan words than Irish does, even borrowing words from Irish. This is a natural progression of language. Sad to see old words go of course, but it happens in every language.

An gal gréine · 06-12-2011 3:18pm

I agree Gaeilge72, however, in the Gaeltacht there's a lot of "tá sé happy" (pronounced hapuí) and of course "sureáilte" has been around for years when all who use it know that "cinnte" exists; and of course they have several native ways of translating "happy" but dont. I suppose it shows the degree of bombardment English is having on Irish when this happens.

Gaeilge72 · 07-12-2011 12:51am

An gal gréine wrote: »

I agree Gaeilge72, however, in the Gaeltacht there's a lot of "tá sé happy" (pronounced hapuí) and of course "sureáilte" has been around for years when all who use it know that "cinnte" exists; and of course they have several native ways of translating "happy" but dont. I suppose it shows the degree of bombardment English is having on Irish when this happens.

Tuigim, ní maith liom féin na focail sin agus ní úsáidim iad!

I understand, I don't like words like that and don't use them! I'm from Co Cork myself but now live in Conamara. I have heard "Tá 'sorry' orm" in conversation! I don't think it is a phrase I will be picking up somehow....

It's far more unnatural when they are so explicit like that.

Aimsigh · 08-06-2012 5:00pm

Enkidu wrote: »

Art is the genuine Old-Irish and in an earlier form (which I don't have in my notes right now) the original Proto-Celtic form of "bear". The Old/Middle Irish "Mathgamain" and "Milchobur = Honey Lover" are euphemisms, it was taboo to say Art. This word can be seen in the Gaulish:
Artoraíochas = Bear King (I've spelt this Gaulish word in Irish to better reflect its pronunciation.)

Hi, Sorry for dragging up an old thread, but what would the correct spelling for 'The Bear Cub' be if you took 'Art' as the word for Bear?

My best attempt is 'An Coileán Airt'

Bears

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