SOME CELTIC SITES.

Trevor sent me links to three interesting-looking sites, and since I’m frantically boxing books, I’m just going to throw them up here and hope somebody likes one or more of them. Thanks, Trevor!

Metro Gael: “Gearóid Ó Colmáin’s blog consists of articles written for Metro Eireann, The Irish Democrat, and other writings. His interests include current affairs, the arts and languages. … Gearóid speaks Irish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Swedish and English and has a rudimentary grasp of Latin, Ancient Greek, Welsh and Japanese.” A man after my own heart. This post is about leprechauns: “It has become the most effete cliché in our vacuous tourist industry. Yet very few people know what it means, where the word comes from.” Yes, some of the posts are in Irish; just scroll down. Unless, of course, you read Irish.

If you do read Irish, you’ll get more than I can out of Acadamh Fódhla, according to this page “a steering group on sean-nós song, music and lore.”

Finally, Keltalingvaj Novaĵoj has “Novaĵoj pri keltaj lingvoj, bretona, irlanda, kimra, kornvala, manksa, kaj skotgaela, speciale kiel ili esta parlataj kaj instuataj en Kanado kaj Usono.” But don’t worry, the actual posts aren’t in Esperanto!

Comments

  1. Patricia says

    Thanks for these – they are all very interesting sites (N.B. “seanós” is a typo for “sean-nós”).
    Best of luck with the move.

  2. I realize you’re in haste, but the posting on leprechauns is unmitigated rubbish. The uncontested etymology of leprechaun is < ModIr. leipreachán, luprachán < MIr. luchrupán < OIr. luchorpán < lú- ‘small’ (PIE *legwh) + corp ‘body’ < L corpus, and all this babble about “little stooping Lugh” and “zealous monks” is the merest invention. What’s more, reach < *reikjan has no cognates outside Germanic, and there is no reason to think it has any connection with Reich, rike, rich < *reiks < Celt. ríx.

  3. Woops — thanks for the correction! Take site with salt, I guess.

  4. Hmm, given its date perhaps the leprechaun post was intended to be unmitigated rubbish.

  5. Good point.

  6. If you do read Irish, you’ll get more than I can out of Acadamh Fódhla
    Not particularly much. It is the usual fake-Irish with bad grammar and bad spelling.
    Yes, some of the posts are in Irish; just scroll down. Unless, of course, you read Irish.
    Gearóid Ó Colmáin’s Irish is not particularly good either. To start with, he uses terminology of his own making, like “teasú domhanda” (“global warmthing”) for “global warming” (correctly, “téamh an Domhain” or “téamh domhanda”). That sort of thing was acceptable before the Internet; now that we have the online terminology database http://www.acmhainn.com, there really is no excuse for being that sloppy.

  7. Tsk. Thanks for the informed commentary!

  8. A Phanu: Go raibh maith agat as an rabhadh faoin droch-Ghaeilge atá le fáil ar na suíomhanna siúd. Ní bhacfaidh mé leo (bhuel, b’fhéidir go mbacfaidh mé agus samplaí den seafóid a fheiceál chun iad a sheachaint!). [frc]
    A Hata: Please continue to share anything concerning Irish or other Celtic languages. Your post on eDIL (electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language) was very welcome! Slán

  9. That sort of thing was acceptable before the Internet; now that we have the online terminology database http://www.acmhainn.com, there really is no excuse for being that sloppy.
    I might add to this that Matt Hussey, who has published Gasaitéar Eolaíochta and probably other popular science books in Irish as well, used to edit a popular science quarterly called An t-Eolaí back in the nineties, much of whose content is available on Seán Mac Suibhne’s pages, here:
    http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~smacsuib/eolai/igeol005.txt

  10. PlasticPaddy says

    I came across Middle/Old Irish seabfháid = “false prophet” while looking for something else. There seems to be a resemblance with seafóid, but probably it is just that seab “crooked/false” is the first element in both. I was unable to find any other explanation for the word seafóid.

  11. Thanks for reviving this post; I’ve fixed a couple of dead links.

  12. per incuriam says

    There seems to be a resemblance with seafóid, but probably it is just that seab “crooked/false” is the first element in both. I was unable to find any other explanation for the word seafóid

    Seafóid (also spelled seabhóid) is a straightforward compound of the preposition seach and the verbal noun of the verb ‘to be’. Old Irish sechbaid. Compare seachmall, seachrán etc.

  13. It is true, as John Cowan says, that the explanation of leprechaun as coming from Lugh an Lamh fhada ‘Lugh of the long hand’ is no longer accepted.

    However, at least certain students of Irish do not now accept the etymology “ModIr. leipreachán, luprachán < MIr. luchrupán < OIr. luchorpán < lú- ‘small’ (PIE *legwh) + corp ‘body’ < L corpus” either.

    The latest suggestion, which by now may be the consensus among students of Irish, is that the word goes back to Latin LUPERCALIA (see the summary of the new research at https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=leprechaun).

  14. The full report of the new research is:

    Rodway, Simon, Michael Clarke, and Jacopo Bisagni. 2012. “Leprechaun: A New Etymology.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies. Vol. 64. Pp. 46-84.

    It is freely downloadable as a PDF at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289720627_Leprechaun_A_New_Etymology.

  15. PlasticPaddy says

    @pi
    Thanks. The only thing I do not completely understand is why the ch was lost intermittently for sech, always for dech, but never for tech.
    dech > dea
    tech > teach
    sech > sea, seach
    What is the conditioning factor for dropping the ch in modern forms?

  16. PlasticPaddy says

    Also
    bech > beach
    nech > neach
    So the default for nouns would seem to be not to loose the ch. Or was it somehow restored?

  17. per incuriam says

    dech > dea

    That’s not actually right. Dea (also spelled deagh) derives not from dech but from deg. Dech was the old superlative form, now replaced by fearr.

  18. PlasticPaddy says

    @pi
    What is your source for separating deg and dech? eDIL has them as doublets, both with the superlative meaning. I think tech also has a doublet teg.

  19. per incuriam says

    What is your source for separating deg and dech? eDIL has them as doublets, both with the superlative meaning

    If using eDIL you’ll find the relevant information under the headword dag, an earlier form of deg.

  20. PlasticPaddy says

    @pi
    Thanks for being so patient.
    In the compounds there is some variability, i.e.
    deg-innscnech is the attested adjectival form of dech-inscne (modern word would be dea-inscneach). But I think what you are saying is that the development is deg > dea and that any of these forms with dech are not relevant. So what other parallels do you know of for sech > sea in the comparanda sechbaid, seafóid? Other Cech > Ceach, not Cea, at least the ones I know. Note also lecht > leacht, cecht(ar) > ceacht(air). The only sort of parallel I can think of is g>gh in e.g., teglach > teaghlach, where gh is silent in the modern word. Is this the same conditioning environment for Cech > Cea (say, compound with first component ending in Cech and second component beginning with a consonant which is not t,r)?

  21. David L. Gold says

    Further to Martin’s two comments of 17 June 2021: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has adopted the recently suggested etymology of English leprechaun:

    from Irish Gaelic leipreachán, from Middle Irish lupracá;n, luchrupán, luchorpán : probably alteration (influenced by lú-, small; see legwh- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots, and corp, body, from Latin corpus; see kwrep- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots) of Latin lupercus, member of the luperci, a group of Roman priests who during the Lupercalia ran up the Palatine from the Lupercal, the cave where a wolf suckled Romulus and Remus (probably from lupus, wolf; see wkwo- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots) + Irish -án, diminutive suffix.

    For the semantic development from luperci to leprechaun, it appears that the accounts of the luperci in classical texts were misunderstood by early Irish scholars, who believed the luperci to be a race of wolfmen and interpreted their run up the hill to be an escape from the Biblical flood by taking refuge in Ireland. This conception of a race of nonhuman beings inhabiting Ireland evolved into the folklore of the leprechaun [https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=leprechaun].

  22. That is a really wonderful etymology.

  23. David L. Gold says

    Regarding Martin’s second comment of 17 June 2021, the team of three researchers working on the now not so new etymology of leprechaun divided up the work and each published an article in his field of specialization:

    Rodway, Simon. 2010. “Mermaids, Leprechauns, and Fomorians: A Middle Irish Account of the Descendants of Cain.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies. Vol. 59. Summer. Pp. 1-17.

    Clarke, Michael. 2012. “The Lore of the Monstruous Races in the Developing Text of the Irish Sex Aetates Mundi.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies. Vol. 63. Summer. Pp. 15-50.

    Bisagni, Jacopo. 2012. “‘Leprechaun’: A New Etymology.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies. Vol. 64. Winter. Pp. 47-84 [Rodway and Clarke were not authors of this article].

    Later, a fourth article, building on those three, was published by someone who had not been a member of the team:

    Sims-Williams, William. 2015. “Leprechauns and Luperci, Aldhelm and Augustine.” In Carey, Murray, and Ó Dochartaigh 2015:409-418.

    Carey, John, Kevin Murray, and Caitríona Ó Dochartaigh. 2015. Sacred Histories: A Festschrift for Máire Herbert. Dublin. Four Courts.

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