An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language/Supplement to Outlines

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An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language (1911)
by Alexander MacBain
Supplement to Outlines
1809318An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language — Supplement to Outlines1911Alexander MacBain

SUPPLEMENT TO OUTLINES.

1. cf. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India as to how far the statement is to be limited as embracing India. Concerning Asia the statement is to be restricted to living Aryan languages.

2. v. J. Hoop's Waldbäume und Kulturpflanzen (Trübner, 1905), pp. 113-114, 382-384. The question is far from being settled.

3. cf. G. Dottin: Les désinences verbules en r en Sanskrit en italique et en celtique. He regards the passive in r in Celtic and Italic as an independent creation, the common element r going back to the period of Indo-European unity. Even the future in -bo he regards as a possibly analogous formation and different in origin and development. Compare critique in Revue Celtique, 18, 343, where M. D'Arbois de Jubainville takes exception to some points. Irish, contrary to the Latin, has conserved the Indo-European perfect. Further, see G. J. Ascoli: Osservazioni fonologiche concernenti il celtico e il neolatino in Actes du dixième congres international des Orientalistes ii. ème partie, Leide Brill, 1895; cf. Indogerm. Forschungen Anzieger vii., i., 70. Also Windisch in Grundriss der Rom. Philologie, where most of the relative literature is summarized and discussed. The views of M. D'Arbois were made accessible some years ago in a paper in the Celtic Magazine, ed. by Dr MacBain. cf. Giles's Manual § 449.

4. cf. Rhys's Celtae and Galli in Proceedings of the British Academy. Dr MacBain's notices of it in the Scottish Historical Review and in the Celtic Review are of interest, as also Sir J. Rhys's references in his Celtic Inscriptions of France and Italy, reviewed by the writer in the Scottish Historical Review, July, 1908.

5. See Stokes on Pictish and Other Names in Bezzenberger's Beiträge, Band 18. In the second edition of Skene's Highlanders of Scotland, Dr MacBain clearly summarizes the whole of the Pictish problem. Dr Zimmer's views were made accessible in a paper treating of Matriarchy Among the Picts given in the writer's Leabhar Nan Gleann (Edin.: N. Macleod).

6. See Old Celtic Inscriptions by Stokes in Bezzenberger's Beiträge, B. xi., 112-141; Rhys's Celtic Inscriptions of France and Italy, and reviews by Thurneysen in Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie.

7. cf. Rhys and Jones: The Welsh People; v. Henry's Lexicon Etymol., p. xxiii., where he refers to the dialects of Modern Breton. On the periods of Old Breton see Loth's Vocabulaire Vieux-Breton, Paris, 1884, ch. i.

8. The presence of z (for vowel-flanked s) can only be explained by assuming that the Ogmic alphabet was invented or imported before the regular disappearance of s between vowels—v. Bezzenberger's Beiträge, xi., 144. Mr R. A. Stewart MacAlister, in his work on The Ogam Inscriptions (London: D. Nutt), suggests a different value in the case of z; in which case, if we have f for z, we require to read v for the f of this transcription of the Ogam alphabet.

9 Add K. Meyer's old Irish treatise on the Psalter (Oxford: Clarendon Press), his edition in the Revue Celtique of the Old Irish version of Tochmarc Emere; and Félire Oenqusso (2nd ed. by Stokes in Publications of Henry Bradshaw Society).

10. About one half of the contents was transliterated by the writer in Leabhar Nan Gleann; cf. Stern's critique in Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie. One of the chief poems has since been found in a good version in an Irish MS. from Ratisbon, of which an account has been given by the writer in the forthcoming volume of the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness.

11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. cf. the writer's treatment of The Gaelic Dialects in Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie; also Rev C. Robertson on the same subject in the Celtic Review; M. Macfarlane's The Phonetics of Scottish Gaelic; and Professor Mackinnon on Scottish Gaelic Dialects in a paper in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness.

19. "h in anlaut before a vowel seems to come from p. So apparently in Irish haue = πάις, and Hēriu cognate with πιερία. This change is regular in Armenian, see Brugmann's Grundriss, §30"—Stokes in Pezzenberger's Beiträge, 23, 44. In last ed. of the Félire Stokes regards íre as the cognate of the Greek word cited. But this does not affect the cases in which an historic h seems to represent a vanished p; compare the m for n in the derivation of amharus; and see Dr Pedersen's Vergleichende Grammatik der Keltischen Sprachen, as well as the second edition of Brugmann's Grundriss der Vergl. Grammatik.

20. A great levelling, as compared with what one must infer from the historic development of Indo-European, has taken place in Gadelic. Dr MacBain's Indo-European Alphabet is therefore simplified in the gutturals, although perhaps it would have been more regular to have put in a labio-velar series apart. Osthoff recognises three k-rows, labio-velar, velar, palatal, in the mother-speech; v. Indogerm. Forschungen, 4, 246; Wharton's Etyma Latina recognise the three rows c, k, q; cf. Zupitza's treatment of the gutturals. In Gadelic the velar and the palatal series have fallen together, but there is a distinct treatment of the labio-velar.

21. Contamination may have been at work here. But although the Cymric cognate is daigr, and Old Latin shows dacruma, O. H. German, zahar, O. Icelandic, tár, Germ., zähre, in view of the Gadelic forms, we may take the pre-historic form to have been *dṇkru, which developed on the Brythonic side into a proto-Celtic *dakru. Compare Dr Walde's Lateinisches Etymolvgisches Wörterbuch, p. 319, also p. 5, where L. acer is given as cognate with Irish Gadelic ér, high.

22. méith should be mèith, as in the Dictionary, with long open è; this is diphthongized in the Northern dialect as mīath—a case of diphthongization of long open è where there has been no compensatory lengthening.

23. See Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, Band 3, 264, 275, 591.

24. See Zupitza on i, j in Celtic, in Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, 2, 189-192.

25. See Foy in Indogerm. Forschungen, 6, 337, on Celtic ar, al = Indogerm. , ; and Zupitza on , in Celtic, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, 35, 253.

CORRIGENDA.

Page xxxiii.—In the third line from the bottom of the page, for krid on, read kridion; in the eleventh line from the bottom of the page, for the word in brackets, read (ballons).