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The Daltaí Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2006 (May-June) » Archive through May 08, 2006 » Brother/Sister « Previous Next »

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DJW (Unregistered Guest)
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Posted on Friday, April 28, 2006 - 12:47 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Dear all,

I expect many of you already know the following, but I was excited to find it out. I had great trouble finding the words for brother and sister in Dinneen's dictionary. The words are given in Learning Irish as deartháir (pl deartháracha) and driofúr (pl driofúracha), and the words seemed somewhat bizarre, seeming to be rare cases where an Indo-European language had words for brother and sister not connected to the common IE roots. So you can understand my pleasure after leafing through many pages of Dinneen's when I found that the word for brother was: dearbhráthair/dearbh-bhráthair or dearbráthar (plurals: dearbhráithre or dearbhráithreacha). The word for sister was deirbhshiúr or deirbhsheathar (plurals: deirbhsheathracha or deirbhshúracha).

So the Irish words are IE after all! Bráthair apparently means "kinsman, cousin, relative"; siúr means "sister, a female relative, a sister in religion". The dearbh- or deirbh- prefix means "genuine, own, blood-", although it is somewhat easier for me to think that dearbhráthair means "dear brother" :-)

Pronunciations of dearbhráthair given in Dinneen's: dreatháir, dritheair, dirtheáir in Munster and Connaught; dráir in Aran Isles; dearthair in Donegal.
Pronunciations of deirbhshiúr given in Dinneen's: driofúr, drifiúr, diorfúr.

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Peter
Member
Username: Peter

Post Number: 104
Registered: 01-2006
Posted on Friday, April 28, 2006 - 02:57 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

In Connemara:

dearbhráthair

(as if spellt)

dritheáir, dreáthair as well

deirbhshiúr

drithiúr, dreithiúr, drifear, dreabhar (CF&Aran)

Peter



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