Tag Archives: Indo-European
Who Says Irish Doesn’t Have Many Cognates with English? (Cuid a Trí/Pt. 3: Grian, Gealach, Sol, Luan) Posted by róislín on Apr 30, 2013
(le Róislín) Continuing the quest for cognates (naisc thíos), let’s look at another pair of words, sun and moon, each of which typically has many similar-looking cousins throughout the Indo-European language family. Given that the Irish word for sun is “grian” and the Irish for “moon” is “gealach,” it looks like we have a bit…
Who Says Irish Doesn’t Have Many Cognates with English? (Cuid a Dó/Pt. 2: Téarmaí Gaoil, Focail Ghaolmhara) Posted by róislín on Apr 27, 2013
(le Róislín) Ascaill, axilla … in the last blog* we talked about how Irish may, in fact, have many focail ghaolmhara with other languages. The words are just not always cognates with English, at least not basic everyday English. Most of us are more likely to say that “ascaill” means “armpit” than to say that…
Is Éan É! Is Eitleán É! Ní Hea — Dreige Atá Ann! (Sorry, Clark!) Posted by róislín on Feb 16, 2013
(le Róislín) Or should that be “dreigít“? Or “dreigeoideach“? Bhuel, all three really, I guess, depending on what stage of the event you’re talking about. I thought I had learned all that téarmaíocht réalteolaíoch, at least the buntéarmaí, years ago, but when the news reports start coming in about the Chelyabinsk event, I realized I…
As Easy as “a hAon, a Dó, a Trí” – Na Maoluimhreacha i nGaeilge Posted by róislín on Mar 19, 2009
(le Róislín) Quite a few of the basic Irish numbers from one to ten are recognizable if you know at least one other European language. In each case, the actual number is preceded by the single letter “a,” which here is the numerical particle. It has no actual meaning. It simply indicates that a “maoluimhir”…