Ceist faoi Logainm/ Placename question.

CrabRevolution

An chéad snáth a thosaigh mé

Easier to ask in English though. Its common knowledge that the Irish for Dublin is Baile Átha Cliath, but the English name comes from "Dubh Linn", though I think these were originally 2 different settlements. My questions are as follows:

1. Why is it "Dubh Linn" and not "An Linn Dubh" as it would be in the usual word order as Gaeilge?

2. Was there ever, even in old maps/descriptions, a direct 'translation' made to english of Baile Átha Cliath? Thinking along the lines of "Ballyacklee" or something

dubhthach

It's quite a common scenario regarding name order for example:
Devlin = Duibhleann
Dooghta = Dubhachadh
Doagheys = Dubhachadh
Dooard = Dubhard

I don't think "Bláth Cliath" ever had a direct translation into english, it's main use in sense is to talk about (a) the ford (b) monastic settlement (look at oval streetplan around whitefriat street church: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dublin,+Ireland/@53.3399045,-6.2647406,561m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x48670e80ea27ac2f:0xa00c7a9973171a0 )

The concept of the modern town in sense grows out of the Viking era and the name given to it by the (eventually gaelicised) norse.

Míshásta

In Irish the adjective follows the noun except for a few prefixes as in "droch-aigne" or "dea-rud".

However compound words can be formed by adding and adjective before the noun. Thus: "Mór-roinn", "eagarfhocal", "seicleabhar".

This applies to contemporary Irish - many of our placenames comes from a time when the language was quite different.

As the appropriately named Dubhthach said "Dubh" is used as a prefix in many names.

I would say that the correct spelling in Irish should be Dubhlinn and not two separate words "Dubh Linn" - even though that form is often used.

Just my opinion - I'm not an authority on the subject.

MathsManiac

More info here:

http://www.logainm.ie/Eolas/Data/Brainse/baile-atha-cliath-dublin.pdf

(Scroll down if you want it in English.)

AnLonDubh

An Linn Dubh could also be An Linn Dhubh by the way, since Linn is feminine. However An Linn Dubh is fine also since L,N,D,T,S often don't lenite in contact with each other.