Prosthetic f, backformation or eagal and feagal
Prosthetic sounds are nothing unusual in the… ah OK, right you are. A prosthetic sound is a "random" sound that gets stuck in front, the middle or at the end of a word to make it conform better with the sound rules of whichever language.
Many languages do this, such as Spanish. Spanish phonology (sound laws) has a rule saying that no word may begin with [sp] [st] or [sk]. However, there are words in Spanish which either have these initials historically or have them from loan words coming into Spanish. To get around this problem, Spanish phonology says "prefix [e]" … so Latin spīritus, scola, stabilis become espirito, escuela, and estable. Similarly Scandinavia, spot and Stockholm become Escandinavia, espot, and Estocolmo.
Errr and backformation?
Backformation means that speakers of a language take a native or adopted word and re-analyse it, as it were. This often happens in loanwords or native words whose meaning has become opaque. Opaque, when a linguist uses the word, means that the meaning is not clear from just looking at the word. For example, you can look at the word drumstick and figure that it's a stick that's used with a drum. But no matter how hard you stare at a hot toddy, chances are you won't figure it comes from a Hindi word for a palm-tree.
Where was I? Ah, backformation. English, for example, adopted the French word for cherries, cerise from Latin ceresia, both mass nouns which means there is no singular form. But because English has a very prominent -s plural, English speakers "figured" that the s must obviously be a plural. So, if many of those little fruits are cherries, one must obviously be - a cherry. This is called backformation. Gaelic does that too, but because it has the phenomenon of lenition at the beginning of words, unlike English, it tends to create backformations at the beginning of words.
Now, Gaelic phonology does not forbid words beginning with a vowel (don't laugh, some languages have no words beginning with vowels!) but it does have something like prosthetic sounds. Most notably [f]. In the case of Gaelic this comes about when native speakers re-interpret words beginning with a vowel as "a word which has lenited X". There is more than just one backformation however. Let's have a quick look at what can happen:
[h] ⇨ [t] | because lenited [t] yields [h], failing that, you drop it |
[ð] ⇨ [d] | because lenited [d] used to yield [ð] |
[θ] ⇨ [t] | because lenited [t] used to yield [θ] |
[v] ⇨ [u] or [b] | because lenited [b] yields [y] or failing that, sounds a bit like [u] |
[j] ⇨ [g] | because lenited [g] yields [ʝ]. This happens in words with a soft onset which is an almost [j] sound, as in English iota, which to Gaelic ears sounds like the word begins with gh th or dh |
initial vowel ⇨ [f] | because lenited [f] is silent - and this is by far the most common one, and about the only one, still active in modern Gaelic |
initial vowel ⇨ [t] | Because the masculine article in front of a vowel is an t- and the t- is sometimes wrongly attached to the noun itself. |
There are more, but those are the most common ones.
Examples to your heart's content, a lot of them are loanwords, except the ones beginning with f + vowel:
Source | Meaning | Gaelic | Irish |
---|---|---|---|
Latin fundus | foundation | bonn | bonn |
Latin jocosus | droll | geòrcaire glutton | |
Latin iota | a bit | tiota | giota |
Norse hǫll | hall | talla | halla |
Norse hnúkr | knoll | cnuachd | n/a |
Norse þopta | thwart | tabhta | tochta |
Norse Þórmóðr | (name) | Tormod | |
Norse Þorketill | (name) | Torcall | |
Norse vindauga | window | uinneag | fuinneóg |
Old Irish áinne | ring | fàinne | fáinne |
Old Irish allas | sweat | fallas | allas |
Old Irish ásaim | I grow | fàs | fás |
Old Irish ecla | fear | (f)eagal | (f)eagla |
Old Irish ilur | eagle | (f)iolaire | iolar |
Old Irish osclaicim | I open | fosgail | oscail |
Old Irish rádharc | vision, view | fradharc | radharc |
Old Irish uacht | cold | fuachd | fuacht |
Old Irish uath | hate | fuath | fuath |
Old Irish urusa | easy | furasta | furasta |
Scots/English haggis | taigeis | hagaois | |
Scots/English harness | àirneis | ||
Scots/English hatch (n.) | saidse | haiste | |
Scots/English halberd | taileabart | halbard | |
Scots/English heckle (n.) | seiceal | seiceal | |
Scots/English hoe | tobha | n/a | |
Scots/English hogshead | tocasaid | oigiséid | |
Scots/English thaft | tobhta | tochta | |
Scots/English throng | trang "busy" | trang(láil) | |
Scots/English viscount | biceas | bíocúnta | |
Scots/English vervain | bearbhain | beirbhéine | |
Scots/English vice | (tool) | bidhis | bís |
Scots/English walewort | mulabhar/mulart | ||
Scots/English wheel | cuidheall | ||
Scots/English witch | buidseach | ||
Scots/English wormwood | burmaid/mormanta | mormónta | |
Scots/English worsted | bursaid | mustairt |
Simplifly, simplify
No, languages don't always simplify stuff because otherwise we'd all be going round pointing at stuff saying 'uh' and nothing else. But let's leave that topic for another article. Another thing that effectively hides the origins of many Gaelic words is the simplification of certain sounds, either because this change happened throughout the language anyway or because it was necessary to adjust the sounds to fit the language (like the th > t change above).
For example, a language internal process changed many nd/nt sounds to nn and lt/ld to ll. You're probably aware of the coltas/collas issue. That's just an instance of a language internal simplification of lt to ll, nothing to do with English.
So here are some fun examples:
Source | Meaning | Gaelic | Irish |
---|---|---|---|
Latin argentum | silver | airgead "money" | airgead |
Latin candela | candel | coinneal | coinneal |
Latin hic pāx datur | peace* | pòg "kiss" | póg |
Norse eyland | island | eilean | oileán |
Old Irish cruind | cruinn | cruinn | |
Scots/English doctor | dotair | dochtúir |
- part of the old Celtic liturgy where peace was given just before Communion, involving a symbolic kiss
Let's talk about your sister
A particularly bizarre example of this is the Gaelic word for sister because it went through this several times:
- Indo-European used swesōr.
- Proto-Celtic used swesūr - Proto-Celtic, as in before Brythonic (Welsh 'n all that) and Goidelic (Gaelic 'n all that) split.
- Old Irish used siur AND fiur. OK, this requires some explaining. In the days before Old Irish, the words for my, your and his already caused lenition. So far so good, but this meant that Proto-Celtic swesūr became hwesūr, just like leniting s today. But as the hw never sat well with the language (a bit like thing becoming fing in London) it soon turned into an f, but our, your (pl.), their didn't, and didn't lenite. So, by the time we arrived at Old Irish, unlenited our/your/their sister had become ar siur, far siur, a siur, but lenited my/your/his sister had become mo fiur, do fiur, a fiur. Yes, slightly confusing.
- To get from Early Irish fiur/siur to the modern forms, we now have to go via the genitive forms for Gaelic (something which did not happen in Irish - don't sigh). So modern Irish just continues with the old roots using deirfiúr "sister" from deirbh fiur "true sister" and fiúr "kinswoman" (because two words are better than one…).
- However, Scottish Gaelic grabs the old genitives, fethar/sethar, and muscles them into piuthar. The p appears, of course, because f is quite obviously lenited p. Now why didn't you think of that before? ☺
Anyway, to get back to the point, this is the reason why you will hear some Gaelic speakers pronounce certain words with f and some without. It's a process that's still in the middle of happening, so until the language decides on whether it will stick with eagal or adopt feagal, you can take your pick about which one you prefer. It makes no difference, either way, as both are "good Gaelic words".
Beagan gràmair | ||||||||||||
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