Anyone know of an Irish etymological dictionary online or in book form? OK if it's all in Irish.

That is, I want to know the origins of all Irish words and how they relate to each other and to other European languages.

The great dictionary by Carl Darling Buck does compare Irish to other languages, but it's not really about Irish:
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Selected-Principal-Indo-European-Languages/dp/0 226079376/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278912717&sr=8-1

I'm looking for an etymological dictionary that's mainly about Irish.

I use "An etymological dictionary of the Gaelic language" by Alexander MacBain.

It is about the Scottish variety of the language, but in the long run it is historically the same language as Irish, so the etymology is the same. Only you won't find Irish vocabulary which has vanished from Alba and must look a bit around in the book, if you know only (modern) Irish spelling.

There is an online version somewhere in the net, as the 2nd. rivised edition was printed in 1911, the whole work is in public domain.

What concerns pure Irish publication I do not know any, maybe the DIL may be sometimes of help.

There's a Modern Irish of the DIL, ie. a list of Modern Irish words and the corresponding word (ie. from which it derives) in the DIL - mainly Old or Middle Irish.

MacBain is Scottish Gaelic, it's ok for most etymologies, I think, but some of them may be wrong, that book is quite old and historical linguistics has progressed since it was published...

This is the book I mentioned in the above message :

http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=999

Thanks! I had actually never heard of the DIL before. Not exactly friendly to browse through, but maybe the most complete one out there.

I saw the MacBain dictionary in my local library and now that I realize the etymologies are probably just about the same as for Irish, I'll see how much fun it is to browse.

I'm pretty convinced that Irish has a distinct connection to Romance languages, much more than to Germanic or anything else. So many words have cognates in Latin or French.

Irish has many early loanwords from Latin, and some from Medieval French as well. So these are not cognates.

The same old teacher (see fir buí thread) estimated that up to 25% Irish vocabulary had its origin directly from Latin or indirectly via Norman French.

A couple that jumped out at me were:

sagart cf. sacerdos - note the voicing of the 'c', the loss of the -os ending, and subsequent 'de-voicing' of 'd', suggesting to me at least, that whenever the word reached Ireland some form of the classical pronunciation was in use.

oifig cf. officium - again loss of ending -ium, and voicing of 'c'

I could squander my life on this stuff and re-invent all the wheels...

Natalica > Notlaic > Nodlaig > Nollaig...

lovely - didn't see that one

It has become Nadolig in Welsh and Nedeleg or Nandeleg in Breton :-)

When my kids were doing their Leaving Cert, they had to study "Stair na Teangan" (sp?).
If I remember correctly, they were told approximately

"church" words from Latin e.g eaglais
"law" words - many from Norman French
"business and ships" many from the Vikings e.g. bád

eadaoin

Here's the MacBain's I've been using:

http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/index.html

but for some reason I'm getting a 403-Forbidden error today.


Here are a couple other sources for it online:

text files for download
http://www2.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/faclair/macbain/

online searchable version
http://www.pmoran.net/macbain/

quote:

"church" words from Latin e.g eaglais
"law" words - many from Norman French
"business and ships" many from the Vikings e.g. bád

Roughly but the French ones aren't all about law, eg. páiste, garsún/gasúr...

quote:

Natalica

Latin. Natalicia

Aye, Natalicia, sorry.

Tháinig coinín - idir ainmhí agus focal - leis na Normannaigh, ach is focal le bunús Gearmáinic atá ann.

Bhfuil tú cinnte?
S iomaí teangaidh a bhfuil an focal "cú"/"con" aici mar chuid don ainm atá ar an choinín (Spáinnis conejo, Briotáinis kounif...) agus níl mórán tionchair Ghearmánaigh orthu sin.
Ach má tá, cad é an focal Gearmánach arbh as é?

Mo leithscéal, tá an ceart agat. Is ón Laidin fríd an tsean Fraincis a fuair na Gearmánaigh "kanin", deir mo Duden liom. (ach is Gearmáinic seachas Gearmánach a dúirt mé thuas - bhí na Normannaigh "Germanic" sular raibh siad Francach!)

D'usaid mise "Gearmanach" le "Germanic" a raidht, ni "German". Nil mé cinnte go n-usaidtear "Gearmainic" mar aidiacht.