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Irish as a semitic language ? | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Irish) | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6155 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 12 04 March 2008 at 5:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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In his book, Empires of the Word, Nicholas Ostler, states that Irish (Gaelic) shares 14 similar traits with the semitic languages. However, he does not detail what they are. The only similarity that I'm aware of is the hard H in Arabic, crops up in Irish, in such words as "chonaic". Does anyone know what the others might be ? Edited by DaraghM on 04 March 2008 at 6:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Damian62 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5459 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Irish, French | Message 2 of 12 15 May 2010 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The "a" with the sine fada pronounced by Connemara people such as La (day). This sounds identical to the Arabic "a" sound.Listen to Sean Nos singers from Connemara and listen to songs in Arabic...( I do not speak arabic).
Many years ago I had a friend from Jordan and he thought that Irish sounded something between Hebrew and Arabic. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6443 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 3 of 12 15 May 2010 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well the initial sound of chonaic occurs in German too, that's hardly an astounding coincidence. Given that the grammars of the two languages in question are totally and utterly different, I don't really know how it's a valid comparison whatsoever.
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| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5813 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 4 of 12 15 May 2010 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Phonological similarities are accidental, the same sound are found in may other languages and Irish has nothing to
do with semitic languages. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| fíorghael Diglot Newbie Ireland Joined 5420 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Irish, English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Arabic (Written), Italian | Message 5 of 12 21 May 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's undisputed that Irish is a Celtic, Indo European language, however it is plausible that Irish may have picked up some grammatic features from Semitic or other Afro Asiatic languages, possible through early Atlantic trade routes. Irish (along with other Insular Celtic languages) has some strange features that don't occur in older Celtic languages like Gaulish or other Indo European languages e.g.
VSO word order D'ól an fear an t-uisce. The man drank the water (Drank the man the water) compare to Arabic شرب الرجل الماء The man drank the water (Drank the man the water) Indicating posession using prepositions Tá leabhar agam I have a book (is book at-me) compare to Arabic عندي كتاب I have a book (at-me book) As well as consonanant mutations, strange forms of the verb 'to be' etc. However it is possible that a pre Celtic substrate unrelated to the Semitic languages explains all of this. Edited by fíorghael on 21 May 2010 at 7:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6372 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 12 21 May 2010 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
(edited) Russian use the same construction: у меня книга I have a/the book. (at/by me book) Edited by goosefrabbas on 22 May 2010 at 4:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 6144 days ago 288 posts - 441 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, Swedish, French Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian, Arabic (Written), Armenian, Pali, Burmese | Message 7 of 12 21 May 2010 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's generally thought that this constriction entered Russian via the Finno-Ugric or Turkic languages. All the other Slavonic languages use a form of the verb "imeti" to donate possession. This verb even exists in Russian but it is only used for abstract possession such as: иметь возможность - to have the opportunity. Irish (and the rest of the Celtic languages) are in no way related to the Semitic languages because they lack any trace of the defining feature of the Semitic family, triliteral root system. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| NativeLanguage Octoglot Groupie United States nativlang.com Joined 5342 days ago 52 posts - 110 votes Speaks: French, Spanish, English*, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Japanese, Mayan languages, Irish | Message 8 of 12 22 May 2010 at 12:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Here are a couple of relevant parallels I'm familiar with:
- VSO is the basic word order of Irish and Classical Arabic. - Lack of indefinite article, presence of definite article in both Semitic and Celtic. - Conjugated prepositions. Arabic `alaa 'upon': `aleyya (upon-me), `aleyhi (upon-him), `aleykum (upon-you), etc. Irish le 'with': liom (with-me), leat (with-you), leis (with-him), leo (with-them), etc. - Syntax of the genitive construct: noun(s) - genitive article - genitive noun. Additionally, both families only allow 1 definite article in a genitive noun phrase, which specifies the genitive noun. Compare Hebrew beit ha-sefer (house the-book) 'schoolhouse' and Irish Tír na nÓg (land the-Youth) 'Land of Youth' Looking at this from the perspective of historical linguistics, these similarities likely developed by chance. Another possibility is that they reflect common areal phenomena, which requires uncovering how and when the two families had the kind of contact that could produce this result. Most Celtic and Semitic linguists are skeptical of the few hypotheses elaborated so far. Some issues with linking Celtic & Semitic: the Celtic features above are unique to Insular Celtic (particularly Irish); these supposedly Semitic features don't show up in other languages more likely to be influenced (in, say, Italic by, perhaps, Phoenician); there is strong, ancient textual evidence supporting the idea that these features developed naturally in Insular Celtic; there is even stronger evidence that Proto-Semitic demonstrated most (all?) of these features prior to the existence of Celtic as a distinct Indo-European branch. A more plausible link is suggested by what possibly amount to Semitic loan words in our remote ancestral tongue, Proto-Indo-European (like PIE *woynos 'wine' from Semitic *waynu). See http://paleoglot.blogspot.com/2008/08/list-of-possible-proto -semitic-loanword.html for a sample list. It's a curious thought, since Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Semitic were likely spoken around the same time. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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