I'm an irish student in France trying to do a project on french influences on the irish language. Now obviosly I've forgotten all i learned for the leaving cert but I do know they exist. Can any one help me out?
Go raibh maith agaibh

There isn't that much of an influence, really; there are lots of languages that French has influenced much more. Still, there are some French loans into Irish and some linguists argue that the Munster stress system was influenced by French though other researchers deny it.

A lot of words came from french into irish when the French speaking Normans invaded the country in 1169.

Coinín (rabbit) comes to mind

But "rabbit" in french is "lapin"?

garsún agus garçon

i've read that therea re at least 30000 common words in english that are either directly from french, or with heavy french influence. english has been an influence on irish. I have felt that irish got most of those words with questionable french origin via english.

seomra from chambre...eaglais from eglise..fitz from fils oops thats not Gaeilge!!..

Some of the Normans who invaded spoke French when they arrived in Ireland-obviously a type of French that wasn't the standard language that emanated from Paris from the 16th (??) century onwards! there is some poetry in existance from 'Irish' French speakers!

There was actually a section about influence from other languages under the "Stair na Gaeilge" section of the Leaving Certificate. One thing I can remember, words ending in "áiste" came from French:

oráiste
bagáiste
pasáiste
cabáiste

They also grouped words into genres, for instance we got a lot of words about sailing and boats from a certain group of people, and a lot of words about trade and commerce from another group of people. The Irish for money is "Airgead", while the French for money is "Argent". They both also mean "silver".

Eaglais came from Latin ecclesia; it came into Irish before there was any French!

The same with airgid from Latin argentum

Coinín is documented as coming from the Normans; but as it is of Germanic origin it may have stayed in the speech from Norse.

Yes, the Swedish word for "coinín" is "kanin". Most words suggested here are in fact not of French origin at all, but Latin words that are also found in French - airgead and eaglais are two examples of such words.

because french developed from latin, and english has so much french in it (and therefore bastardized latin), and all four languages ostensibly share a common proto-indo-european root, unless you're dealing with technology words that will give you a date before which it could not have been introduced to the language, it would be nigh-on-impossible to determine which language was "really" the culprit, or if it just happened to be a parallel creation of the language itself.

Can anyone tell me what the origin of the French word "chez" is? That is, "chez" meaning "at the house of", i.e. Chez Pierre meaning At Pierre's place or At the house of Pierre. In Irish this would be " Tigh Pheadair". Tigh comes from teach, a house. But where does "chez" come from? It bears no resemblance to "a la maison de" which is a litteral translation of "at the house of". Curiously enough, chez is pronounced "shay" and tigh is pronounced "chee". Any information on this matter would be appreciated.

TSJ: Can anyone tell me what the origin of the French word "chez" is?

My Petit Larousse says it's from Latin casa, "maison".

:-):-)

--Al Evans

Kanin/coinín is documented as having been introduced by the Normans. Eaglais and Airgid are present in manuscripts which predate English and French influences.

Remember that there are irish language glosses (notes in Irish on Latin Manuscripts) and manuscripts going back at least to the sixth century.

What I meant is that the Normans are credited with introducing the rabbit to Ireland, and that it is therefore not surprising that the animal should have a Norman name in Irish.
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~edrice/mammals/rabbit.htm

And remember that the Normans had only been in France for a few generations, so they would still have had a lot of Norse words in the language.

Some seafaring and monetary terms came into Irish from Norse (stiúir, margadh, pingin, seol (?))

For the other words, here is what MacBain gives:
http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/index.html
eaglais
a church, Irish eagluis, Old Irish eclais, Welsh eglwys, Breton ilis; from Latin ecclêsia, English ecclesiastic.

airgiod
silver, so Irish, Old Irish arget, Welsh ariant, Breton arc'hant, Gail. Argento-, Argento-coxus (a Caledonian prince): Latin argentum; Greek @Ga@'/rguros. English argent is from the Latin.

Airgead < argat, anuas chugainn as an Ind-Eorpais dar le DIL, foclóir Acadaimh Ríoga Éireann agus dar le Kim McCone 'Stair na Gaeilge'.
Cuimhnímis ar Lugh Argatlám / Lámfota s'againn féin, Ludd Llaw Ereint na Breatnaise.

Baineann 'argue' (make clear) an Bhéarla leis an bpréamh chéanna (Ayto, J, 1990), agus 'argóint' a tháinig isteach chugainn féin freisin ar ndóigh.

Mar leis an miotal eile, an 't-iarann', ba í an Cheiltis a bhronn ar an nGearmáindis sa chás sin (ibid.).

B'fhiú don scata anseo a mbeadh spéis acu i stair focal, cuairt a thabhairt ar Sean-Ghaeilge-L:
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/liosta/old-irish-l/

Is maith ann an saineolaí! GRMA, a Sheosaimh.

Srathair in áit na diallaite mé a Aonghuis, go leor den am mo léan, ach is leor an iarracht a dhéanamh measaim.

Hi everyone!
My name's Stefania and I'm Italian. I was really interested in reading your forum (only the English part obviousely...)even if I'd like to learn also some Gaelic just because I like everything that is concerned with ethimolgy. Anyway I'd like to know if there is any translation of my name in Gaelic. Stefania (Stephanie) comes from Greek and means "crowned". I found a sort of translation on the internet, that was "Stiofáinin" but i'm not sure... Could you help me?
Another thing that I noticed is that the way you say in Gaelic "how are you?" is very similar to the Spanish "como estas tu?" and the Italian "come stai?". Is there a connection with the Iberians?
Thank you very much. Stefania.

Nach mór an trua an easpa sanasaíochta inár bhfoclóir GB.

Bhi an focal 'cony' in úsáid i Sasana ar dtúis, tháinig an focal 'rabbit' isteach sa Bhéarla níos déanaí.

De réir m'fhoclóra tagann cony ó Middle English 'cunin(g) via Anglo-French 'coning', Old French 'conin, from Latin 'cuniculus'

It's a great pity that our Irish-English dictionary doesn't have any etymological information.

The English used 'cony' at first for the animal now known as the 'rabbit'. It derives from an earlier form of French. So Aonghus is most probably correct in stating that the Irish 'coinín' came from Anglo-Norman French.

Stefania, a chara,
Benvenuta a Daltai!
Di dove sei in Italia e come mai ti interessa il gaelico irlandese? I miei nonni erano irlandesi ma abitavano in Italia, ed il mio nonno era di madre lingua irlandese.
Magari già conosci questi corsi online in italiano:
http://www.gaelico.net/corsi.htm
Slán beo!
Chris

Ciao! Io sono di Milano anche se i miei genitori sono tutti e due di vicino Napoli. M'interessa il gaelico irlandese perchè sono innamorata dell'Irlanda. Tutti gli anni cerco di venirci almeno per qualche settimana per migliorare l'inglese e perchè lì mi sento a casa. Io ho 19 anni e vado a Bray da quando ne avevo 13. Ho tanti bei ricordi e belle esperienze lì, quindi sono legata in modo speciale all'Irlanda, ai suoi paesaggi e amo la sua cultura. Per questo mi piacerebbe approfondire la mia conoscenza del gaelico,una lingua davvero affascinante a mio parere e soprattutto una lingua che deve rendere gli Irlandesi fieri delle proprie origini come popolazione forte e tenace. Il sito gaelico.net lo conosco,anche se per me è molto difficile capire la reale pronuncia delle parole e anche la costruzione. Inoltre si tratta di una lingua con una costruzione grammaticale davvero singolare e non mi è semplice studiarla online. Il problema è che gli irlandesi a milano sono molto molto meno degli italiani a dublino...quindi è difficile che ci siano dei corsi in città. Tu invece dove vivi? sei mai stato in italia?
slàn. Stefania.

Stefania, a chara,
Tá mé buíoch díot as do theachtaireacht.
Io sono a Glasgow in Scozia. Da bambino, passavo l'estate vicino alla Spezia, dai nonni di un mio compagno di scuola (i miei nonni invece abitavano a Trieste) e poi, da grande ho lavorato a Latina nel Lazio, ed a Sestri Ponente vicino a Genova.
Capisco benissimo che è molto difficile studiare una lingua online, soprattutto per la pronuncia. In questo sito del Daltai però c'è una sezione che ti possa aiutare con la pronucia, ma non è per niente come parlare la lingua con le persone di madre lingua.
Ci sono molte persone a Dublino che parlano il gaelico, ma ai turisti può riuscire difficile trovarli.
La prossima volta che sei in Irlanda sarebbe un'ottima idea spostarti verso una delle zone "gaeltacht", dove ci sono tante occasioni di sentire parlare la lingua ed anche di parlarla per chi ne ha il coraggio!
Beir bua agus beannacht agat!
Chris

quote:

Ci sono molte persone a Dublino che parlano il gaelico, ma ai turisti può riuscire difficile trovarli

Mai, there are places where it is good to start looking!

Trí D, Dawson Street, is a café run by Gael Linn where the service is in Irish.

Also, have a look at http://www.clubsult.com - I'm told up to a 100 people attend their fortnightly social functions.

Also, if hillwalking is your thing, see ... http://hop.to/cnocadoiri

A Stefania, tá céad míle fáilte romhat!

Unfortunately, I cannot speak Italian but thanks to some knowledge in French, Spanish and Catalan I can read your posts in Italian without any difficulties. I agree fully with you concerning on-line courses and pronunciation; although there are some decent courses on-line they are no substitute for a 'real' course. Judging by your first post your English seems very good and thus I would recommend the course 'Learning Irish' by Ó Siadhail. It's by far the best course available and it contains a lot of recorded material. Every text and every word in the course are found on the tapes, pronounced by native speakers from the Conamara Gaeltacht. This was the course I first used myself, and when I had finished it I went to live in the Gaeltacht for some months and found that I was able to get by without any English :-)

By the way, it's nice to see someone from Milano here. Just one week ago I submitted a paper to a major conference that is to be held in Milano in May next year, so I hope to be able to visit your city. Some of my best friends have actually lived in Milano. I hope you'll enjoy this message board, it's a great place to exchange thoughts. If you want to reply in Italian please do, it's great practice :-)

Slán go fóill!

Hi Jonas, sorry for being so late with my answer but I've been in Rome and then in Neaples till two days ago. Grazie per la tua risposta and for giving me some advise about Gaelic. Anyway I think I'll wait till next summer, when I'll be in Ireland again (I hope...). I think that I'll find lots of books and tapes there that will cost me less than here. Anyway I'll remember the course you recommended me.
It's interesting to read how many languages you can speak. Are you Finnish, aren't you?
Isn't it difficult to learn a Latin language?
I find German very hard and I don't know how it could be possible for me to learn Finnish!
Did you study Latin too? I've studied it at school and I found it very useful and interesting. Are there any connections with the Gaelic languages?
Un saluto.
Ste.