So I guess most of us know that the placename 'Dublin' comes from Dubh Linn, meaning black pool, but has anyone got any suggestions as to why the word order is the wrong way around.
Why en't it Linn Dubh?

Possibly because it wasn't an Irish settlement(I believe it was a norse settlement). I can't seem to find the reason, skimming through the chapter entitled: "The Age of the Viking Wars" in "The Course of Irish History." My guess is that it has to do with who named it. If it wasn't named by a native speaker then that could be a good reason. I may be way off, but that's my guess.

Ní féidir liom an fath a thuiscint go bhfeicim:

seicleabhar

ar "cheque book". Nuair a chloisim é sin, smaoiním:

seic leabhar

"Book Cheque", B'fhéidir go bhfuiltear ag scríobh seice le híoc as leabhar!

Blood group : Fuilghrúpa ( "Grúpa Fola" a ndéarfainnse )

Birthday : Breithlá ( "Lá Breithe" )


Caithin a thosaíodh á dhéanamh seo?! Ní thaitníonn sé liom

I know very little about the evolution of the Irish language but when compound words are created from a noun plus adjective, the adjective becomes a prefix and is placed before the noun. This is very common and there is nothing at all strange about it.

Other compound words with 'dubh'

Dubhaois

Dubhfhocal

Look up a common adjective like 'mór' in the dictionary and you will find dozens of compound words.

Compound words are also made up by simply combining two nouns. Again this is very common in Irish as in many other languages.

School bag:

Mála scoile

That's a compound word. Just because there's a space in the written representation of the language doesn't mean it's not "one word" in the language.

Proof:

Mála Scoile Sheáin, ní hé "Mála Scoil Sheáin".

When the descriptive word is moved to the front, another thing happens, the main word moves to the back. It would be grand if you had a little leprechaun on your shoulder that told you whether you were hearing:

"seic leabhar" nó "seicleabhar"

but unfortunately, we don't.

There are certain "irregular" adjectives that go at the start of the word, you may call them "irregular" or "prefixes", whichever you like. The thing is that we know for sure that they won't go after the word, eg.

An Fear Sean

You won't get that because "Sean" isn't an adjective that goes after the word. You'll see

An Seanfhear


Anyway, my point is that in order for people to understand each other we need gramatical rules. For example you can't just say:

Bhuail Seán mé

nó

Mé Bhuail Seán

nó

Seán Bhuail mé

for "I hit Seán"

Nor is it smart to say "seicleabhar".


Think yous do what?

Mo thuairimse.

Intresting, but back to my original Dublin etymology.

The Vikings named Dublin 'Dublinnia' in 988 or so. But the name is definately gaeilic.

I wonder why they didn't call it something from their own language?

I understand what you guys are saying about compound nouns, but the flipped adjetive/ noun seems rarer to me than you guys think.

Around Dublin are:
Mullach Ide
Sord Colmcille
Droghaid Atha
Ath Bui
Port Lairaige.

All in order. Perhaps this is why they decided to use 'Baile Atha Cliath' instead, to save such arguments. Hurdled fort, indeed! It's been a long day since I saw hurdled forts in Dublin. They should rename it 'Baile Breab' in honour of our current eh, eh tribunal events.

Baile Brigin is another.

"I wonder why they didn't call it something from their own language?"

There were settlements at Dublin before the Vikings came. The Vikings didn't take long to intermarry and cross-culturalise with the native Irish.The Viking King of Dublin, Sitric, who rebelled against Brian Boru and whose forces were defeated at Clontarf by Brian, was married to Brian's daughter!
It was probably simpler to keep the old name which all the native new. The Vikings were essentially traders. Changing the names of places was only likely to confuse and put off their customers!


"The Vikings named Dublin 'Dublinnia' in 988 or so. But the name is definately gaeilic."

That whole "a thousand years of Dublin 988-1988" was just a PR exercise by Dublin City Council to try to raise the morale and general image of Dublin city in a particularly bleak part of it's development. The city manager at the time admitted as much. They simply linked 1988 to some Viking battle that had happened a thousand years before. The town of Dublin is older than that.
Originally the Vikings were seasonal invaders of Ireland from 795, when the first Viking attacks were recorded. The annals record them as "wintering"(i.e. making a permanent settlement) in Dublin for the first time in 841. This could be accepted as the true date of the establishment of Dublin as a town. yet there was a monastery there before that and it could be argued that the origins of Dublin city go back even further. But it's definitely older than 988.

"Dublinnia" is simply a latinisation of Dublin and is quite a modern term(utilised more by the Dublin tourism authorities than anyone else) and wouldn't have been used until a lot later than the Viking period(Post-Norman period anyway)
As regard the "Áth Cliath" and "Dubhlinn", they were actually two different places though they both lie within modern day Dublin city.

The "Áth Cliath" was at one point of the Liffey, the "Dubhlinn" was at another. The "Dubhlinn" was a large pool at the mouth of the Poddle river where it enters the Liffey. The Vikings used to use it as a dock for their boats.It is now covered over but would have been roughly between where Dublin Castle is now and the river itself. The Áth Cliath on the other hand was an actual section of the river where it was shallow enough to cross.


"Hurdled fort, indeed! It's been a long day since I saw hurdled forts in Dublin. "

Where did you get "fort" from?

Baile Átha Cliath
-Town of the Ford of the Hurdles.
It's a long time since anyone saw such a thing in Dublin, considering that the name was coined over a thousand years ago.


"I understand what you guys are saying about compound nouns, but the flipped adjetive/ noun seems rarer to me than you guys think."

It was more common in Old and Middle Irish and survives mainly in old names such as Dublin, the same way that the old dative case still survives in place names like
"Corcaigh"(old dative case of "Corcach"(Marsh)
But it's still to be found in the living modern language.

The two best examples I can think of are the referring to the European continent as
"An Mhór-Róinn"
Also Irish speakers on the west coast islands call the mainland "An Mhórthír"

Gabh mo leithsceal - the fort/ford thing was me being mentally dyslexic and not thinking properly.

Ach ceapaim fos gur ainm an ait e don cathair.

I can't believe the whole 1988 thing was a scam! And after all the commerative 50p pieces I collected. Damn - I knew I should have just spent them on penny things and that paper you could eat that was made of rice but still tasted like paper. And when I think of all the viking projects we did in school....:-)

Fear na mBróg.

Just because you don't understand a concept, doesn't mean it's not 'smart'.

"Mála scoile" is not a compound word. You can't just adjust terms with a specific meaning to suit yourself.

Compound words made up of two nouns joined together are a common feature of the Irish language and have been in the past, and the way they are put together do come under straightforward grammatical rules.

'Seicleabhar' is the conventional and widely understood translation of cheque-book. If you wish to use 'leabhar seice' you would probably be understood but it's not the way it's used normally. You could also say 'book of cheques' instead of 'cheque-book' but that would not be the ordinary way of saying it.

'Seicleabhar' sounds the very same as 'seic leabhar' of course except that the latter written form does not comply with the rules.

A Antóin,

I understand perfectly.

Mála scoile is a compound word, as are:

cárta aitheantais, cárta poist

Seic is a word, Leabhar is a word. Under the rules of Gramadach na Gaeilge, we get:

Leabhar Seiceanna

Under the exact same rules, "seicleabhar" means:

Books Cheque

and "Fuilghrúpa" means "Group Blood", whereas "Grúpa Fola" means "Blood Group".

The meaning of of in English is incredibily ambiguous. In Gaeilge, we have:

pictiúr an bhuachalla
pictiúr den bhuachaill

Both could possibly be translated to English as "Picture of the boy", ie. "of" can imply ownership, and then again there's times when it doesn't. Not allot of clarity. Whereas in Gaeilge, "de" never implies ownership - if you want ownership, better whip out the Tuiseal Ginideach.


My Point
--------

Seicleabhar is exactly like saying: "I have a books cheque".

Fuilghrúpa is exacltly like saying: "I'm in that group blood"

They break a very very very fundamental gramatical rule which is the foundation of humans understanding one another's speech, ie. the words come in a definite order, first the main word, then the auxillary word. If you switch the two around, you're going to have to inform everyone that for that specific word, the grammar of the language does not apply. With "seicleabhar", people have been informed, but it's still incredibly stupid. Cheque Book, Book of Cheques = Leabhar Seiceanna.

But I suppose if the people who write the road signs in Ireland take over An Ghaeilge, we'll soon be saying:

Mé thóg mó scoilmhála.

Examples of compound words (comhfhocail)made up of joined nouns (ainmfhocail) in everyday use.

If I have trouble with my typewriting (clóscríbhinn) on my keyboard (méarchlár)I will look up my manual (lámhleabhar)

In the mála scoile you mentioned you will have both copy-books (cóipleabhair) and text-books (téacsleabhair).

To see many other compound words you can read the papers where you will see many examples in both the headlines (cinn-línte) and the editorial (eagarfhocal). Besides the photographs (grianghrafanna) there will be news of trade unions (comharchumainn) and results of polls (pobalbhreitheanna)

A Fhear na mBróg, you'll have great trouble in your árd-teist if you wish to excise such compound words from your vocabulary.

I'm not saying I won't use them or acknowledge their existence, what I'm saying is that the very first time I hear one of these compound words I'm going to be thinking that the words are in the right order, which they aren't. I suppose one just has to "learn" the words that are backwards.

Anyway, at the end of the day, ní thaitníonn siad liom. Opinion my is that just.

Á scríobh seo faoi dheifir:

Breathnaigh a Fhear na mBróg ar an difríocht atá idir 'comhfhocal' (a compound word: 'comhfhocal') agus 'aonad ainmfhocail' (a nominal unit: 'aonad ainmfhocail'). Ní comhfhocail iad 'mála scoile', 'cárta aitheantais' ná 'cárta poist'. B'fhiú súil a chaitheamh in athuair ar roinnt de na samplaí a roinn tú linn thuas le tuiscint níos iomláine a bhaint astu.

Mar chuidiú leat, níor mhiste cuimhneamh ar an difríocht mhór atá le feiceáil sa teanga eile, an Béarla, idir 'to overtake' (the other car) ach: 'to take over' (the country in a coup). Caith seal ag meabhrú ar chuid den obair sna postanna thuas arís agus tiocfaidh ciall an chomhfhocail leat níos réidhe. Is mó mo luí féin freisin leis an aonad ainmfhocail ach ní obaim riamh don chomhfhcoal maith ina áit bhailí féin.

To think that this stated as a thread about the origins of Dublin's name.

Níl aon fhadhb ar bith agam maidir le comhfhocal a chumtar ó aidiacht agus ainmfhocal nó réamhfhocal agus ainmfhocal, mar ní bhíonn aon débhríocht ann, mar shampla:

mórdhíol

mar tá a fhios againn ar fad nach dtagann an láithreach gur comhfhocal atá ann. Nuair a dhéantar ainmfhocal as aidiacht, mar shampla:

bocht ( poor, or a poor person )
homaighnéasach ( homosexual, or a homosexual person)

Go fóill, nuair a chloistear:

Bochtleoraí
nó
Bocht leoraí


Tá an brí céanna leo!

Agus, maidir le réamhfhocal:

Fuair mé é ar an idirlíon.

Ní fheicim aon débhríocht.


'Sé an comhfhocal le dhá ainmfhocal a bhfuil fuath agam air de dheasca a dhébhríochta!

TYPO TYPO TYPO

mar tá a fhios againn ar fad nach dtagann an aidiacht sa chéad áit agus mar sin, láithreach insítear dúinn gur comhfhocal atá ann.