Acallam na Senórach

MT

I've begun reading the Tales of the Elders of Ireland, a translation of Acallam na Senórach, in the Oxford University Press World's Classics range.

What I'm posting about is that word in the title for elder, senórach. This appears to have a similar etymological route to the English word senior and the Spanish senor (sp?). Now I'd always thought both the latter two were derived from Latin - Spanish forming out of vulgar Latin and English having been 'Latinised' through the Norman conquest - but what's the link with Irish. Was Irish once influenced by Latin as well? I'd thought Ireland had remained pretty much isolated from the Roman world? Or did the word enter the language via the Normans like 'baile'?

Gael

MT wrote:

I've begun reading the Tales of the Elders of Ireland, a translation of Acallam na Senórach, in the Oxford University Press World's Classics range.

What I'm posting about is that word in the title for elder, senórach. This appears to have a similar etymological route to the English word senior and the Spanish senor (sp?). Now I'd always thought both the latter two were derived from Latin - Spanish forming out of vulgar Latin and English having been 'Latinised' through the Norman conquest - but what's the link with Irish. Was Irish once influenced by Latin as well? I'd thought Ireland had remained pretty much isolated from the Roman world? Or did the word enter the language via the Normans like 'baile'?

I'm fairly sure the word "Baile" was in Irish long before the Normans. Dublin was called "Baile Átha Cliath" in Irish writings before the Norman conquest, for instance. Are you maybe thinking of "Báille"(Bailiff), which is definitely a loan word, that's probably from Norman-French, if not English.

But to answer your question, before even considering loan words between European languages, you have to realise that they are almost all Indo-European languages as well. They all came from the same root language and are all relations of each other linguistically. So there are simularities between them, even before you take loan words into account.

Indo-European languages have a certain amount of common words between them based on their common ancestry. I suspect that if there is any basis to a link between the words in Irish that you mention above and Latin, it's more than likely a prehistoric link rather than a Latin borrowing.
One example is the Irish word Rí - meaning King. The old spelling and pronounciation was 'Ríogh' which is very similar to 'Rex/Regis' in Latin. But it's known that the word "Ríogh" was in Irish long before any Latin influence. In fact, in another Indo-European language, Sanscrit, which was spoken in India, the word for king is 'Raj', but the Roman's never got anywhere near India in their conquest(even if Alexander the Great did, but he was Macedonian Greek of course).

See the following link for more on Indo-European roots in Irish:

http://w3.lincolnu.edu/~focal/backinst/backinst.htm

That said, Irish did borrow quite a few words from Latin when Christianity and the written word came to Ireland, but it was minimal compared to the mass borrowing by other languages like English and it was almost exclusively to do with learning/literature and the church/religion. for example:
sagart - sacerdos
scríobh - scribere
ifreann - infernum

MT

Thanks for the interesting reply. Do you have any idea which of the other Indo-European groups of languages the Celtic branch is closest too? I mean would Irish share more words of a prehistoric origin - not loan words - with Romantic or Germanic languages or some other group?

Gael

MT wrote:

Thanks for the interesting reply. Do you have any idea which of the other Indo-European groups of languages the Celtic branch is closest too? I mean would Irish share more words of a prehistoric origin - not loan words - with Romantic or Germanic languages or some other group?

Well Irish shares common or similar words with almost all Indo-European languages. For instance the Irish word for a donkey(asal) is virtually exactly the same as it is in Czech. But looking for common words is very random and is liable to be speculation a lot of the time. The clearest way that similarities show themselves between languages is in syntax(i.e. sentence structure and word formation).In that sense Irish actually has a lot in common with the Latin languages, in terms of gramatical reflection, the verb being the first word in a sentence, rather than the person as is in English and the other Germanic languages.
Another similarity with Classical Latin at least, is the use of prepositional pronouns in Irish
i.e. Irish - Dia Libh - God be with you(Rather than 'Dia le sibh')
Latin - Dominus Vobiscum (rather than 'Dominus cum Vobis')

I suppose the main four Indo-European groups of languages are Celtic, Germanic, Latin and Slavic. From what I know Celtic languages are most similar to the Latin group, though I know very little of Slavic languages, so there could be close similarities there too. Like the Czech example above.

GaryOR

Here's a few more words in Irish that came from Latin, this was published in Foinse this weekend. Athair - pater, Máthair - Mater, Arma - Arm, Cailís - Calix, Sagart - Sacerdos, Leabhar - Liber, Obair - Opera, Míle - milia

simu

MT wrote:

Thanks for the interesting reply. Do you have any idea which of the other Indo-European groups of languages the Celtic branch is closest too? I mean would Irish share more words of a prehistoric origin - not loan words - with Romantic or Germanic languages or some other group?

You might be interested in this theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic

It has been discredited by now though afaik.