tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31875695.post4079320565501567783..comments2024-02-07T21:24:37.121-08:00Comments on Blogtrotter: Pangur Bán, Breatnais & naisc focail leis GaeilgeJohn L. Murphy / "Fionnchú"http://www.blogger.com/profile/16616876266772470719noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31875695.post-58791946236527956982009-02-17T11:30:00.000-08:002009-02-17T11:30:00.000-08:00Go raibh maith agatsa/ llawer o ddiolch, Bo! I kne...<I>Go raibh maith agatsa/ llawer o ddiolch, Bo!</I> I knew you'd like this list. And, I learned a bumptiously stalwart word of the day, "hypocoristic." All those Greek syllables for but a "pet name," indeed. <BR/><BR/>P.S. Checking "diolch" in Gareth King's misleadingly titled "Pocket Modern Welsh Dictionary" (unless you have a very large coat), I see this phrase to make your day: <I>"Mae'n bosibi ein bod ni yma diolch i gomed."</I> Maybe that happy portent (unlike that in the Bayeux Tapestry) can be traced back to those B.L. mss. that you're researching?John L. Murphy / "Fionnchú"https://www.blogger.com/profile/16616876266772470719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31875695.post-51317638787325472022009-02-16T14:06:00.000-08:002009-02-16T14:06:00.000-08:00A lot more of these are Latin borrowings, ussually...A lot more of these are Latin borrowings, ussually ecclesiastical, than are noted as such: dyserth, Sadwrn, traeth, mynach, coron etc are all from Latin. So they aren't true Insular Celtic congnates between W and Ir. at all. But the rest are. Modryb is only a half-cognate of mathair - it points back to a British i-stem *matrapi, 'aunt' ('motherly person, little mother' - something like that) - the word mam (<*mamma) is a hypocoristic that has displaced the original celtic *matir, from which Irish mathair descends. I'm a bit suspicious about ewythyr as a cognate of athair but willing to be persuaded - the problem is you are starting from something like *(p)atir, and the -t- should go to -d-, not -th-, in Welsh, and I'm not sure that a cluster ewy- could arise from primitive *a-. There is a cognate of athair though in the word edryd, 'lineage, [paternal] descent', which points to a British word *atritos, or the like, 'fatherly thing' (note the celtic loss of I-E *p-!).<BR/><BR/>The Welsh words for 'mother' and father should have been **mod(y)r and **ed(y)r, but as I say, they generalised the pet-forms *mamma and *tatos, --> mam and tad.Bohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10333815636018847583noreply@blogger.com