Similarities between modern Irish and German raise the question of the origins of these languages. There are Celtic names and place-names in France, Germany and farther east. Gaelic folklore, too, often deals with events on the European mainland. Such evidence indicates that important cultural influences in Ireland came originally through an historic homeland, shared with Germanic peoples north of the Alps.
When tribes broke away from the great Indo-European family, the language(s) they spoke gradually differentiated. In the West, Celtic, Teutonic (Germanic), Slavonic, and classical Latin and Greek subgroups were formed. In the East, there was the Indo-Iranian subgroup, which comprised Zend, spoken in Iran, and Sanskrit, the language from which modern-day Hindi derives.
Smaller migrations always occurred against the general trend. As recorded in Indian scripts from the 7th and 8th centuries, an Indo-European people, the Tocharians, went as far as the Tarim Basin in China. Archaeological discoveries have shown that these people had red hair: the mark of the Celt.
Within subgroups, languages which have developed separately over some hundreds of years - sister languages - are only mutually comprehensible with some effort. Two close Celtic languages are Irish and Scots Gaelic. When separated for a greater length of time, the languages are termed cousin languages - for example Irish and Welsh.
Germans and Celts seem to have had a common origin in the remaining population of Indo-Europeans coming to Temperate Europe. The two peoples were the most westerly of this migration. They maintained settlements in close proximity, in the pre-Roman period. In consequence, there was on-going interchange – with consequential effects of political and cultural development.
‘Celt’ was a general name used by certain tribes whom Caesar encountered. Gerhard Herrm said poetically that perhaps they saw themselves as “the people who came from the darkness” (ceilt – concealment). ‘Gaul’ may be the word ‘ceilt’, without the final ‘t’. The Celts devised the name ‘German’. It may derive from the word gair (near) to mean neighbourly or gaé (spear) to mean spear-carrier or sharp-witted. The Roman word germanus (‘real’ or ‘authentic’) would have taken up the latter meaning.
Celtic migration westwards first moved from Bohemia and southern Germany to Gaul and from thence to Spain. Some groups then went south into Italy and others went back east, through Greece, to Galatia in Turkey and onwards. This last Celtic settlement lay to the south of Scythia, which is north of the Black Sea and now in the Ukraine. It was from Scythia that the Celts had originally come.
Historians like Strabo, the Greek, took the view that the Germans were the ‘real (or authentic) Celts’. The origins and Germanic-Celtic interrelations of early northern European tribes such as the Celtic Cotoni are unclear.
The Cimbri are usually referred to as German. Nonetheless, the names of both the Cimbri and of their king were indisputably Celtic. The tribal name is related to the Brythonic cymri (‘companions’) from which the name Cymru derives. The king was called Boiorix - ‘King of the Boii’ (a tribe of cattle-herders, which gave its name to Bohemia).
At the Battle of Aqua Sextiae, the Romans and their Celtic Ligurian allies were ranged against the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones. These tribes came from Jutland and not from Gaul and have all been regarded as Germanic.
Plutarch describes how, in Celtic style, the Ligurians heard the Ambrones rallying each other by calling out their individual and clan names during the fighting. The Ligurians then followed suit “for the Ligurians are known after their origins as Ambrones”. ‘Teutates’ was the Celtic god of the Northern Reaches.
These three tribes were either mistaken for Proto-Germans or were indeed linguistically close to them. They were hardly utter strangers to the rest of their northern neighbours: more likely the existence of dialect continua meant a degree of mutual comprehension.
Tacitus’ description of Celtic physical traits is similar to some descriptions of the Germans: nobody can now confirm whether he knew the difference between them. There is frequent confusion between Celts and Germans in classical texts. Western Proto-Celts were once a significant grouping of tribes, of differing physical characteristics, from which early Celtic and Proto-Germanic peoples may have come.
In any event, Celtic adventurers were stirred to strike out from their settlements, new and old - in Scythia, Spain and central Europe. Various groups reached Ireland, where they moulded into one people, and called themselves the Gael. In relative peace and isolation, they built a new civilisation, which extended to Scotland and the Isle of Man.
The territory was called the Gaeltacht - the Realm of the Gael. This is a mediaeval term like Frankreich - the Realm of the Franks. The Gael formed a highly developed society in which linguistic cohesion was maintained by professionally qualified poets and bards.
The legal system in Gaelic times comprised the Brehon Laws. These comprised a great body of civil, criminal and military law. It outlined five main classes of people, with their rights, duties and privileges.
It was possibly through contact with their historic homeland in central Europe, that the Gael imported the Germanic legal practice of imposing fines for crimes of personal injury. Indeed, the old connections between the Celtic and Germanic peoples are still a race memory, celebrated at festival time in Germany today.
The forces of history eventually sundered the Gaeltacht, bringing to a virtual end the further growth of one of the great European cultures of the Middle Ages, with its refined outlook and great scholarship. Procuring arms in a country without a steel industry had always been difficult. Gaelic soldiers often went to battle unarmed, hoping to prise weapons from the invader. In addition, the Celtic trait of choosing personal honour and glory over coordinated military strategy told against the bravery of the Gaelic armies.
Connections with continental Europe faltered, as the Gaelic Order was dismantled in the 1600-1700s, although it has been said that the kings of Munster continued to visit the mainland later than their northern counterparts.
The main routes by which the Celts had migrated to Ireland and how, over time, the Celtic culture took root are matters of debate. If our forebears were true to form, they came here by every means and route available. Examples from different records of Irish history bear this out. (The Latin names for countries are used in considering ancient connections with these places.)
By which route did those Celts come, who had most influence on Ireland’s culture?
To come to Ireland by sea via Hispania, in the first option, would have been cheaper but not a method for any great numbers. That names and place-names of Gaelic relevance persist across Temperate Europe stands as witness to the route to Ireland from Germania, through Gallia, being the most important.
Oskar is a common German name. Oscar was the grandson of Fionn Mac Cumhail, one of the great warriors of Gaelic mythology. Bregenz (formerly Brigantium) was the capital of a tribe which culted Brigid, Mother of the three Gods of Craftsmanship. Brigid is still a popular personal name. Fionn’s name is embedded in Wien.
Lyons (formerly Lugdunum) was named after Lugh, God of Skills. ‘Rhein’, or ‘Rih’ in Schwytzertütsch (Baden), means the ‘flowing’ (rith). That other great river, the ‘Donau’ means the ‘deep/dark river’ (domhain-abha). And ‘die Alpen’ means the ‘high mountains’ (ailp).
What other myths are set with central Europe as a background? There is the myth of Nuada, King and Champion of the Tuatha Dé Danann, in an epic battle with Streng of the Fir Bolg. The word ‘streng’ is pure German and means ‘the disciplined [champion]’. [The Tuatha Dé Danann were the people of Danu, Mother of the Gods. The Fir Bolg were an off-shoot of the Belgae. Bulga was the God of Lightning.]
The saga of the Táin Bó Froích (the Cattle Raid of Froích) tells how this hero goes on expedition to the Alps to recover his stolen wife and stolen cattle. There, he meets the Lombards (Long-Beards - Lang-Bärte).
There is also the tale of Labraid Loingsech (Labraid the Mariner), forebear of the Leinstermen, in his bid to overthrow Cobhthach Coel. In one version, Labraid receives help from the Franks, returning to Wexford before he joins battle with Cobthach and beats him, in 307 BC.
Although, as under the second option, very colourful leaders came to us from Hispania and all the kings of Ireland claimed descent from them, we do not have much information on the country itself. Gallicia housed a community of modest reach, which was well positioned as a port-of-call for Mediterranean traders bound northwards.
It is unlikely that any migration could have been mounted from Hispania, which would have been extensive enough to dominate Irish cultural identity. In Mayo, the Irish word for a rock stack in the ocean is ‘spinc’. One may imagine the traders of long ago, telling stories of their homeland and of the awesome Sphinx. Interestingly, Arabic blood has, in living memory, clearly a featured in certain island communities off Ireland.
The third option, the direct route from Scythia, is not a route for large or continual migrations to occur.
We have no real knowledge of the Celtic and Germanic languages spoken during Roman times. In line with the accounts of migration and of the place-names quoted, linguistic evidence hereunder, in IV.a-c, suggests that Irish may derive from a Celtic dialect, which to a degree was mutually comprehensible with Proto-German, as differentiation from Proto-Celtic into two subgroups was occurring. Perhaps it would be simplistic to seek a straightforward pattern of differentiation into linguistic subgroups.
Both languages possess grammatical forms and vocabularies, which indicate that there must have been substantial links, two thousand years ago. Thus it would appear again that the route to Hibernia from Germania through Gallia was the most traversed.
Some examples both of modern Celtic languages - Gaelic (Irish and Scots), Welsh and Breton - and of German will demonstrate that considerable linguistic divergence has occurred. The following are translations of: "I see her. My brother saw you."
Scots prefer another idiom for the first sentence, saying “tha mi ga faicinn”. Irish Gaelic also has this structure: “tá mé á [ag a] feiceáil” - literally “I am at her seeing”.
It might be asked if any real links, in fact, do persist between Gaelic and the other languages. The answer is yes, most certainly, but they need to be specially demonstrated. There are certain tools for this purpose (please see Annex).
Ogham was the original, ancient form of writing in Ireland, with limited applications. The modern morphemic system of writing originated in Greece: Egyptian hieroglyphs and Phoenician symbols were modified. The Greek alphabet was then used by the Etruscans, followed by the Romans, with adaptations to express voiced plosive sounds.
Roman script was used in Ireland following the arrival of Christianity. An artistic Gaelic alphabet was also devised better to cater for phonology. Certain elements were imported from the runic (derived from ancient Greek) and Arabic alphabets. Germanic peoples adopted the runic alphabet (also called the futhork). The widely used Roman script has to a large extent now replaced the national ones.
Irish is a pure language and the best-preserved dialect of ancient Celtic. The Celts were numerous and widespread and Proto-Celtic may have come from a last general development of Indo-European. Irish is as an important reservoir of Indo-European linguistic features.
Irish and German are synthetic, inflecting languages. Maintenance of good grammar was important in both cultures. This may have had more to do with keeping linguistic nuances distinct than some undefined linguistic conservatism, often suggested. Care about the proper use of Gaelic throughout the Gaeltacht was a matter of considerable effort and pride.
Both languages have article-noun-adjective declensions. Irish uses five cases and German four. This is because the Vocative case is inflected in Irish but not in German. Indo-European had up to eight cases. German uses the three genders (m, f, and n). Modern Irish has dropped the neuter gender used in Old Irish.
Irish and German conjugate verbs in Past, Present, Future and Conditional Tenses in the Active Voice. Both languages have a present and Past Tense in the Subjunctive Mood. Both languages use auxiliary verbs. Both use the Infinitive as a verbal noun. German, unlike Irish, has kept the Passive Voice: “der Reiter ist vom Dichter beobachtet worden” means “the horseman was observed by the poet”. Both languages can express the Passive Voice, however, using special constructions in the Active Voice.
Vowel sounds in both languages, as is often noted in Ireland, are pure rather than diphthongal. In Gaelic, vowels can be long (lá) or short (sa). In German, long (loben), half long (militär), and short (kalt) vowels have been described. Only long and short vowels tend to be distinguished in today’s German grammars. Pronunciation of written Irish and German are in many ways comparable, with eg the ‘ch’ sound being identical.
There is a standard practice in Gaelic to put a vowel between certain consonant pairs (where one of the consonants is usually an l, r or n). This vowel is called a helping or epenthetic vowel. ‘Dorcha’ (dark) is pronounced with a vowel sound between the ‘r’ and ‘ch’. In German, syllables end in a vowel when possible - syllabication - in a comparable process. Consonants within a word belong to the following syllable, whether open (ending in h or in a vowel) or closed (ending in a consonant). Note the German - adelig/adlig (noble). The ‘e’ is written in Süddeutschland.
There is an Indo-European characteristic to note. In Irish word pairs, the words which begin with ‘s’ denote good things and those which begin with ‘d’ denote bad things. Thus: sona (happy)/dona (bad), suairc (agreeable)/duairc (cheerless), subh (f, jam)/dubh (black, malevolent. m, something of greatest evil, potato blight). The German Sonne (f, sun) and Donner (m, thunder) may represent a corresponding formation.
Usage in Irish and German is only sketched below. Whilst direct overlap is now limited, it is worthwhile to ponder some aspects of the Mood in the two languages.
(The ‘dass’ may be dropped and the normal word order used in the subordinate clause.)
The use of the subjunctive facilitates precision of thought. This finer aspect of language has been eroded to an extent in recent decades. In everyday parlance, the present subjunctive in Irish may be replaced in subordinate clauses by the future tense. The past subjunctive may be replaced by the conditional tense. In German, the past subjunctive can be replaced with the present. Both forms can be avoided altogether.
There are differences in when the Gael and the Teuton see doubt to arise and can use the subjunctive! This must be one of the more rewarding areas for grammatical comparison.
Impersonal verbs in both Irish and German can function as personal verbs.
Irish has no reflective verbs. However impersonal verbs, which take personal pronouns in the dative case, perform this function.
There are reflective verbs to be viewed against the Irish construction, with personal pronouns in the dative or the accusative case.
Pronouns can be used as an anticipatory object in the main clause.
German grammars give the following example of a long compound word: Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftsdirektorsstellvertretersgemahlin - or Steam-navigation-company's-manager's-deputy's-wife.
Irish can manage a concatenation of nouns. These are separated noun compounds - eg: Bus scoile pháistí lucht labhartha Ghaeilge na hÉireann - or (the) school bus of the children of the people of the language of Gaelic from Ireland.
German will use a word root modified with prefixes or suffixes to form families of words eg.
Irish, again, does a little of this:
Both Irish and German can use the Infinitive form of the verb as a noun.
The indefinite article is not used after the verb ‘to be’.
That this poem actually begins erroneously with ‘Mise Raftaire an file’ has led many scholars to suggest that it was not, in fact, written by the great man himself.
The examples above cover some common ground, which has been kept between Irish and German. Neither has seen a period of linguistic decay, which brought about innovations to any exceptional degree. Nonethelss, new structures continue to evolve.
In Irish, for example, the phrase “tá mé ag dul go dtí an chathair” is one way of saying “I am going to the city”. The phrase literally means: “I am (at) going until the city comes”. The Middle Irish ‘go dtí’ (‘until comes’) shows the introduction of a relativistic concept. Modern Irish speakers will not be aware of this underlying meaning.
The sample list below contains over 120 leximes, found at random. These were sometimes inherited by both Irish and German from Indo-European, were taken from Latin or simply went from one language to the other. In all, a much greater, comparable vocabulary is indicated.
It is pronunciation, not spelling, which is most important. Although this study looks at linguistic similarities, which still persist, old spelling forms can be a useful guide to the origin of syllables.
Apart from established processes of linguistic change, slang usage can play a part. A common example of slang is the French word ‘tête’ (f, head). It derives from the Latin testa (f, jug).
| Irish | German |
|---|---|
| aingeal (m, angel - Greek ‘angelos’ or messanger) | Engel (m, angel) |
| ainm (m, name - Greek ‘onoma’) | Name (m, name) |
| aintín (m, aunt - Latin ‘amita’) | Tante (f, aunt) |
| angar (m, deprivation) | Hunger (m, hunger) |
| áit (f, place) | Ort (n, place) |
| as (from) | aus (from) |
| a/márach (tomorrow) | Morgen (n, morning) |
| asal (m, ass - Latin ‘asinus’) | Esel (n, ass) |
| athair (m, father - Latin ‘pater’) | Vater (m, father) |
| beirt (f, both - Old Norse ‘báthir’) | beide (both) |
| béal (m, mouth: bh = v, mh = v) | Maul (n, mouth) |
| bladar (m, cajolery) | blasen (to blow) |
| bláth (m, flower - Old Norse ‘blóm’) | Blume (f, flower) |
| bodhaire (m, deaf person - lenition, metathesis) | taub (deaf) |
| bogadh (to move) | Bogen (m, curve) |
| bád (m, boat) | Boot (n, boat) |
| bord (m, table) | Bord (m, shelf) |
| briste (broken) | brechen (to break) |
| bruite (boiled) | a/bruhen (scald) |
| buíon (f, band, troop) | Bund (m, union) |
| cáis (f, cheese) | Kase (m, cheese) |
| cancar (m, malignancy - Latin ‘cancer’ or crab) | krank (sick) |
| an chill (f, the church) | d’Chile {f, the church - Schwytzertütsch/Aargau (East)} |
| coinín (m, rabbit/little dog) | Kaninchen (n, rabbit/little dog) |
| compánach (m, companion) | Companie (f, company) |
| comh/arbacht (m, inheritance) | Erbe (m, heir) |
| c/liste (clever) | List (f, cunning) |
| clog (m, bell - mediaeval Latin ‘clocca’) | Glocke (f, bell) |
| cling (f, tinkle) | klingen (to ring) |
| coirb (f, basket) | Korb (m, basket) |
| craic (f, conversation) | Krach (m, crash, noise) |
| cú (m, four-legged beast, hound) | Kuh (f, four-legged beast, cow) |
| díreach (direct) | direkt (direct) |
| Domhnach (m, church - Latin ‘domus’or house) | Dom (m, cathedral) |
| doras (m, door - Indo-European root in Greek ‘thura’) | Tür (m, door) |
| dorcha (dark) | dunkel (dark) |
| droch- (prefix, bad) | Drück/eberger (m, shirker) |
| dúr (stupid) | Tor (m, fool) |
| eas (m, waterfall - Indo-European root in Greek ‘hudór’) | Wasser (n, water) |
| fada (long) | Faden (m, thread) |
| fás (to grow - Indo-European root in Greek ‘auxanein’) | wachsen (to grow) |
| fead (m, whistle) | pfeifen (to whistle) |
| Féile (f, feastday) | Feier (f, celebration) |
| feis (f, festival) | Fest (n, festival) |
| fíor (true - Latin ‘verus’) | wahr (true) |
| fios (m, knowledge) | wissen (to know) |
| forleag (to overlay, printing term) | Verlag (m, publishing firm) |
| forordaigh (to pre-ordain) | verordnen (to prescribe) |
| fuinn/eog (f, window) | Fen/ster (n, window) |
| gabhann sé (he goes) | gehen (to go) |
| gáire (m, laugh) | lachen (to laugh – metathesis, dental exhange) |
| gairdín (m, garden) | Garten (m, garden) |
| géar (sharp, Gaé - spear, Old Irish) | germanisch (spear-carrier - Latin ‘germanus’) |
| greim (m, grip) | greifen (to grasp – intervocalic aspiration) |
| íosfaidh (shall/will eat) | ess/en (to eat) |
| labhairt (to speak) | labern (to blab) |
| last (load, m) | Last (f, load) |
| léacht (m, lecture) | Lektor (m, lecturer) |
| leathar (m, leather - Indo-European root in Welsh ‘lledr’) | Leder (n, leather) |
| léine (m, shirt) | Leinen (n, linen) |
| loch (m, lake) | Loch (n, hole) |
| lochar (m, spoliation, Lit.) | lochen (to perforate) |
| locht (m, fault) | sch/lecht (bad) |
| log (m, place, Lit. - Latin ‘locus’) | Lage (f, site) |
| loise (f, radiance, Lit.) | los (free - Old Norse ‘lauss’) |
| loscadh {be (utterly) consumed by fire} | löschen (to extinguish) |
| lúdramán (m, loafer) | Luder (m, wretch) |
| luigh (to lie - Indo-European root in Latin ‘lectus’) | liegt (lies) |
| lucht (m, people) | Leute (f, people) |
| maighdean (m, maiden) | Madchen (n, maiden) |
| maise (m, joy) | Musse (f, leisure) |
| máistir (m, master) | Meister (m, master) |
| manach (m, monk) | Monch (m, monk) |
| marg (m, silver coin in Gaelic times) | Mark (f, coin) |
| máthair (f, mother) | Mutter (f, mother) |
| meas (m, act of measuring) | messen (vt, to measure) |
| méinn (f, mind, disposition) | Meinung (f, mind, opinion) |
| mó (more) | mehr (more) |
| morg (to decompose) | morsch (rotten) |
| muir (f, sea) | Meer (n, sea) |
| nochtadh (to bare) | nüchtern (clear-headed), nackt (naked) |
| obair (f, work) | Arbeit (f, work- metathesis) |
| an oíche/oidhche (f, the night)/anocht (tonight) | Nacht (f, night) |
| oideam (m, maxim) | Idee (f, notion) |
| ord (m, order - Latin ‘ordo’) | Ordnung (f, order) |
| pás (m, pass) | Pass (m, pass) |
| pian (f, gs péine, pain) | Pein (f, pain) |
| péire (m, pair) | Paar (n, pair) |
| préachán (m, crow) | s/prechen (to speak) |
| poc (m, he-goat) | Bock (m, he-goat) |
| ponc (m, point) | Punkt (m, point) |
| rá/radh (to say) | reden (to speak) |
| raiste/rois (cainte) {m/f, burst (of speech)} | Rutsch (m, slide) |
| rath (m, prosperity) | ratlos (helpless) |
| riail (f, rule) | Regel (f, rule) |
| ridire (m, knight) | Reiter (m, horseman) |
| ríocht (m, kingdom) | Reich (n, kingdom)/Rechte (f, right hand) |
| ritheann (runs or otherwise moves) | rennen (to run) |
| rod (red, spirited) | rot (red) |
| rothar (m, bicycle) | Rad (n, wheel), Rohr (n, pipe) |
| sáith (f, sufficiency) | satt (satisfied) |
| screadaíl (to scream - Old Norse ‘skraekja’) | schreien (to cry) |
| scríobh (to write) | schreiben (to write) |
| scoil (f, school - Greek ‘skholé’) | Schule (f, school) |
| seacadadh (to send) | schicken (to send) |
| searbh (sharp) | scharf (sharp) |
| seift (f, device) | schaffen (to manage) |
| siúl (to walk) | Schuh (f, shoe) |
| slocach (rutted) | schlagen, schlug (to beat) |
| slogadh (to swallow) | schlucken (to swallow) |
| s/macht (m, control) | Macht (f, power) |
| smig (f, chin) | schmeckt (tastes) |
| sneachta (m, snow) | Schnee (m, snow) |
| sníodh (to nit) | schneiden (to cut) |
| srón (m, nose) | schnarchen (to snore) |
| sona (happy) | schön (beautiful) |
| sparán (m, purse) | Sparkasse (f, savings-bank) |
| stad (m, stop) | Stadt (f, town) |
| stráice (m, length) | Strecke (f, length) |
| suí/suidhe (to sit) | sitzen (to sit) |
| teach (m, house) | Dach (n, roof) |
| teanga (m, tongue - Latin ‘lingua’) | Zunge (f, tongue) |
| toil (f, will) | wollen (to want) |
| trácht (m, traffic) | tragen (to pull) |
| tuath (f, territory, people) | Teutonisch (a Germanic tribe) |
| uair (f, hour, occasion) | Uhr (f, clock) |
| umhal (humble, submissive – mh = bh = w) | übel (sick, wicked) |
| um (at, around) | um (at) |
Germans became known as Teutons (from Tuath) and germanisch (from géar). The word Volk (n, people) may also have Celtic connections. With metathesis, the Gaelic word focal (m, word) resembles Volk. Das Volk, therefore, may have been distinctive tribes of ‘Speakers’. Perhaps they were noted to be using words and grammatical structures in increasingly different ways, by the main body of Proto-Celts. If so, this recognition of a special group may date back to the very origin of the Germanic peoples.
There are words which have an intriguing characteristic. Whilst they carry the same root in Irish and German - they have opposite meanings. The Irish word freagra (m) means answer but the corresponding German word Frage (f) means question. Similarly the Irish verb gheibheann siad means they get but the German verb sie geben means they give.
Brotherhood and a transparent system of determining one's honour (as reflected respectively by e.g. the relationship between kings and their people and the Brehon Laws) meant that, uniquely today, there is no du/Sie divide between the Gael . A plural sibh may be used only in addressing a Priest, on the understanding that he may be carrying the Sacred Host and, therefore, be not alone.
When Art MacMurrough and three other Irish Kings visited Richard II in Dublin, the English were horrified to see the royal guests sitting down to table with their minstrels and retinue. The Master of Ceremonies wrote: “They told me this was a praiseworthy custom in their country”. However, democratic conduct was foreign to the feudal English and the Kings were brought to separate table. The record of the Master of Ceremonies continues: “ The Kings looked at each other and refused to eat, saying I had deprived them of their old custom, in which they had been brought up.”
As regards the right to respect, the meanest clansman stood on an equal footing with his chieftain. It is interesting to note the pride of the chieftains in their upbringing.
So can the days of the week and the seasons. In Scots Gaelic, all the months are used with the definite article.
More striking perhaps are:
The prefix meanings here are close. But dictionary translations do not tell the full story, so:
German has weak nouns which add -n or -en to the nominative singular to form other cases. Strong nouns add -s or -es to form the Genitive singular. Mixed nouns are strong in the singular (-s/-es) but weak in the plural (-n/en).
Irish has weak plurals which have an 'i' before the final consonant of the nominative plural or add a terminal 'a'. All other plurals are strong.
German strong Declensions modify the root vowel of the word in the plural:
Irish Declensions have root vowel changes, in the genitive case singular or plural nominative, such as the following:
The doers of an action add the suffix '-óir' to the noun in Irish, '-er' in German.
German diminutive suffixes are -chen and -lein. A comparable Irish suffix is -ín.
These words begin the last syllable with an l sound and the German tch sound respectively. In Irish cailín is masculine and in German Mädchen (girl) is neuter because of these suffixes.
Roots of different origin can be used in the declension of single noun.
Irish can use a suffix to form an adjective:
German uses similar suffixes (In Irish, mh = v and bh = v):
Adjectives may lose a vowel in the syllable being inflected.
In the Irish 26-letter alphabet, d and t sound as in French. Vowels sound close to the German. Consonants may be reversibly softened with an added ‘h’ (grammar!). Thus: BH = W, CH = CH, DH = J, FH = -, GH = J, MH = BH/W, PH = V, SH = H, TH = H, SA = SA, SE = SCHE, SI = SCHI.
Etymology determines the sources and development of words. Philology is the study of comparative and historic linguistics. This draft paper does not speak from either discipline, as such, but reviews very briefly some observed linguistic connections between modern Irish and German, in the context of certain historical and mythological records.
The study of words is called lexis. The subject is complex: only some of the more basic tools are noted here. Changes with languages occur all the time. The focus of investigation in the foregoing work is (i) syntax and roots which have not changed very much and (ii) root changes, which did not occur in both languages, as differentiation interfered with the process.
Changes such as the consonant shift from ‘p’ to ‘v’ in German were not total even within the one language. There is the German ‘Bock’ and the Irish ‘poc’, for example.
Linguistic relationships have been briefly reviewed at three levels:
Having regard to the basic elements of language, useful comparisons maybe made by making reference to several paths of change. Some of these are sketched below.
Linguistic groups establish their own body of leximes (items of vocabulary with a single referrant), though the physical tendency to use ‘m’ to begin the word for mother, for example, and the use of onomatopoeia affect this. Loanwords increase vocabulary too (‘asal’ in Irish and ‘ezel’ in German come from the Latin ‘asinus’).
Sometimes a new label is introduced by using a word in a different class - conversion. For example, in Proto-Celtic the verb ‘to taste’ may have been used to provide a noun for ‘chin’. Thus today ‘schmecken’ survives in German and ‘smig’ in Irish.
Semantic range identifies a set of ideas by a particular lexeme. ‘Fad’ is used to suggest length in Irish (‘fada’). In German it is used to mean something long - thread (‘Faden’).
Methatesis occurs when a morpheme it turned around as in the German ‘sechs’ (ks) and the Irish ‘seasca’ (sk).
Metonymy occurs when the name of a part is used for the whole, as in the German ‘Dach’ and Irish ‘teach’. Other slippages of meaning can occur.
Derivation (Wortbildung) is another way to introduce a label. By adding a morpheme (the smallest unit of vocabulary with meaning), new words can be made. Thus ‘Mench’ and ‘Urmensch’ (mankind and primitive man) in German and ‘scéal’ and ‘úrscéal’ (story and novel) in Irish.
‘Mench’ above is called a base and the prefix ur/úr was added. Suffixes also modify meaning as in ‘cailín’ in Irish and ‘Mädchen’ in German.
Dental consonant exchange is common. Dentals are those consonants included in the phrase ‘no dollars’. Thus the Irish ‘dúr’ and the German ‘Tor’.
A word may lose a final part of a word (apocope) or an internal part (syncope). Again allow this to be happening in Proto-Celtic, so that today the final element of Burg (castle) in German is lost and the dental ’r’ is exchanged for ‘l’ to give Baile (town) in Irish. The final syllables of Indo-European words are inflected (to show case and tense) and, except for the patterns of change, are generally not useful for tracing connections.
With lenition, the influence of neighbouring vowels may weaken consonants, as in the German ‘Fabel’ and the Irish ‘fabhal’. Aspiration of initial consonants may result in their being dropped altogether; in that way ‘p’ was lost from the Irish ‘athair’.
With calques one language takes the principle of a foreign word but translates its constituents elements – rather than adopting and modifying the foreign word. Thus Irish has ‘teach spéire’ and German has ‘Wolkenkratzer’ for skyscraper. Sometimes a word may enter a language by different routes as in the Irish ‘ilstórach’ (skyscraper).
A morpheme may be any discreet syllable (German ‘gut’, Irish ‘maith’) or an initial consonant cluster (as ‘bl’ in German ‘Bläser’ and Irish ‘blader’). Consonant clusters may be divided using an epenthetic or helping vowel. This occurs especially in Irish eg with the insertion of a vowel between ‘n’ and ‘m’ in the word ‘aimn’. The comparable German syllabication has been noted.
Vowels tend to be interchangeable as in the German ‘Balg’ (shell, case, skin) and the Irish bolg (stomach).
Communities bind together with a common language, from which common ideas and concepts emerge through syntax and idiom, as seen in phrase formation. Such communities are as large as the level of communication between groups within them. Thus, speech changes slowly as one goes a particular route from eg Paris to Lisbon but those in neither city will understand each other. This points to the existence of dialect continua. Linguistic change is unstoppable, as in the story of the Tower of Babel.