I'm interested in knowing what connections there are between Irish and the Scandinavian languages. In particular, are there any words that either came from Scandinavia to Ireland or went from Ireland to Scandinavia?


Is there a connection here:

Irish breá (fine/great)
Norwegian bra (good/well)


I also like this one:

Irish ól (drink)
Norwegian øl (beer, ale)

Ól = øl?? Just seems curious.

Although if I remember right, "ale" comes from Old English...


I've used Norwegian here just because I'm more familiar with it, but I'm really just interested in seeing if there are any connections between Irish and any of the Scandinavian languages, and which direction the words went in.

I can't speak to Norwegian "bra". Modern Irish "breá", however, is the evolved form of Middle Irish " bregda" , or using Early Modern spelling, "breaghdha". The word isn't found in Old Irish, and the most popular explanation is that it is an adjective derived from the placename "Brega", the region surrounding Temair/Teamhair/Tara. It would have originally meant something like "fit to appear at the assembly of Mag Breg; grand, opulent, etc." By the way, Scots has the word "braw" (= fine), but it's a variant of "brave". Could that etymology account for the Norwegian word as well?

A rather large number of words, nevertheless, were borrowed into Old and Middle Irish from Old Norse or its offspring. The majority of them deal with ships and sailing, and a smaller set deals with commerce.

As for drinking, I'm virtually certain that the "ól" ~ "ale" pair is a red herring, but Irish "beoir" (beer) was borrowed from Norse "bjórr".

Wow... So is there no relationship between Irish breá and Scottish braw? That's interesting.

quote:

As for drinking, I'm virtually certain that the "ól" ~ "ale" pair is a red herring, but Irish "beoir" (beer) was borrowed from Norse "bjórr".

Just to clarify, are you saying that there is no connection between ól and ale, or are you saying that there's no connection between ól and øl? Or both?

quote:

A rather large number of words, nevertheless, were borrowed...

Could you give a few examples? Any fairly common words?

Go raibh maith agat!!

quote:

Just to clarify, are you saying that there is no connection between ól and ale, or are you saying that there's no connection between ól and øl? Or both?

I'm just assuming that "ale" and "øl" are cognate, so both.

quote:

Could you give a few examples? Any fairly common words?

Cinnte, but don't judge me too harshly on the spelling of the Norse words! Also, in the case of some loans into Irish, it's not clear if they came from Old Norse or Old English, the two sometimes having nearly identical forms. By the way, today's Scottish Gaelic has even more Nordic loans in use than does Irish. Here's a small sample from Irish:

acaire (anchor) < akkeri
stiúir (rudder) < styri
seol (sail) < segl
margadh (market) < markadr
fuinneog (window) < vindauga
pónaire (bean) < baunir
iarla (earl) < iarl

This may sound a little strange, but the reason I joined this discussion board was to ask anyone who can help this question. Can you please tell me how to write FRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND LOYALTY in gaelic? A friend of mine is getting a claddagh tatoo and wants it written in gaelic. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, again.

Friendship : Cairdeas
Love : Grá
Loyalty : Dílseacht

Back to the point...

Irish has always given and taken words like every other language.

Eglise - eaglais,
Fóclóir - Folklore..

However there are just weird coincidences.

The Aboriginal Australian word for the english word "Dog" is "Dog." Fact.

Not sure about those examples you state.

Huh?

Thainig Eaglais ó ecclesia (laidin)
Níl nasc ar bith idir foclóir agus Folklore (béaloideas)

Focal -> Foclóir (lexicon)

Le cuir le liosta Dennis

pingin (níl an focal Lochlannach agam go beacht penga, is dóigh liom)

Not in my book Aonghus..

I took those two examples straight out of it.

But then again that book was a Dept of Education approved book do Ghaeilge san Ardteist

Which makes it right? Folklore has faic all to do with foclóir. The fact that a book is on an "approved" list doesn't mean it is totally free from error. Especially an approved list of a government office. Politics and patronage are more prevalent than scholarship there.

Labhríonn tú d'aon turas, go dearfa! Foclóir agus Folklore?

Also, what language does the word 'eglise' which you equate with eaglais come from?

It's not Latin.

(Message edited by pádraig on January 20, 2006)

The word 'bord' translates 'table' both in Irish and Norwegian. We use it in English too, in related meanings (room and board, on board ship etc.) I don't know if it came directly to Irish from Norse, however.

quote:

pingin (níl an focal Lochlannach agam go beacht penga, is dóigh liom)

Is é is dóichí go dtáinig sé ó penning an tSean-Bhéarla de réir LEIA.

quote:

The word 'bord' translates 'table' both in Irish and Norwegian.

Is féidir go dtáinig sé isteach sa Ghaeilge ón Sean-Bhéarla nó ón tSean-Lochlainnis, ach taobhaíonn LEIA leis an Sean-Bhéarla.

quote:

what language does the word 'eglise' which you equate with eaglais come from?

Is focal Fraincise église, a Phádraig. Ón Laidin a tháinig sé, ar ndóigh, rud a chiallaíonn go bhfuil sé gairid i ngaol le eaglais. Siblings atá iontu!

grma agus ceart go leor -- I forgot about the French-Latin conection.

Táim réasunta cinnte nach bhfuil gaol ar bith idir "Folklore" (saoícht na nDaoine - bealoideas) agus Foclóir.

De réir MacBain:-

facal, focal
word, Irish focal, Old Irish focul, from Latin vocabulum (through *focvul, Güterbock). Stokes and Wind. take it from Latin vocula.


Bheadh ionadh orm mura raibh gaol idir Focal agus Foclóir.

"I forgot about the French-Latin conection."

If we didn't have all the necessary data to retrace the evolution from Latin to French, their parentage would be much more difficult to perceive. Unlike Spanish or Italian, French has drifted so far away from Latin that the connection between the two is quite obfuscated at first glance.

Also at first hearing. To the English speaker familiar with French and the seeming discrepancies in pronunciation, pronouncing Irish should place him in familiar territory.

I cannot believe that 'foclóir' is deemed from 'folklore'. That is absolute ish. Like, so focal/focail -would the designer of that connection in the offical text not see the link?

Lucy a stór,
I was pointing out how terrible our Irish Language education is
"faic all " Lol..

Re: Foclóir - Folklore - Béaloideas: I notice in Domhnall's initial posting on this word he had a fada over both o's - Fóclóir. It wouldn't surprise me if some idiotic committee in the Department decided to 'modernise' Béaloideas to Fóclóir. Is there any way to confirm this one way or another?

how can foclóir mean dictionary and folklore

A Dhomhnall a grá,
I never thought anything else. Mar dheá.

Would the word for ship - "long" - be a Norse loan word too, do you think? Always imagine Vikings sailing into Dublin Bay...

"Long" (ship) has long been explained as coming from Lat. "(navis) longa", but more recently a good case has been made by Delamarre for "long" being a native Celtic word.

I have been wondering for quite some time what influence Latin had on Gaeilge. When I count to ten for instance I notice similarities between it and languages that derive directly from Latin. Go raibh maith agat.

Beir bua agus beannacht

Numbers from 1 to 10 are, amongst other few words, hardly ever borrowed.

The similarities you notice are due to the fact that these words are "cousins", descending from the Indo-European numbers. (Keep in mind that these languages belong to the same family.)