Buntús na Gaeilge - People Fas Harvard - Harvard University

CEACHT A HAON / LESSON ONE
TEANGA IS CULTÚR
Ráiteachas (Saying)
Mise agus tusa agus ruball na muice. I and you and the pig's tail.
(all and sundry)
Greetings
The traditional greeting Dia duit `God to you' and its responsive Dia is Muire duit `God and
Mary to you' (short for Go mbeannaí Dia ... duit `May God ... bless you'), has gone somewhat
out of fashion in recent years, being rarely used by younger native speakers who increasingly use
haileó `hallo'. It is however still widely used, especially by the older generation. Instead of a
formal greeting it is also very common to ask the person you meet how s/he is (see Ceacht 4) or
to exchange a comment about the weather (see Ceacht 5).
Loanwords
Throughout its long history, Irish has borrowed freely from other languages, and loanwords
provide us with a revealing cross section of Irish cultural history.
The earliest stratum of major borrowing is from Latin. Christianity was introduced to
Ireland in the early fifth century, and apparently received enthusiastically, or at least without the
prolonged hostility it received in other parts of pagan northern Europe. Along with the new
religion came literacy and a new educational system reflected in the Irish educational vocabulary:
scoil < schola `school'
cathaoir < cathedra `chair'
cailc < calx `chalk, pebble'
peann < penna `feather, quill'
leabhar < liber `book'
léann < legendum `learning' (as in mac léinn `son of learning, student')
léacht < lectio `lecture' (cf. also leachtóir `lecturer' [B&I] / `professor' [US]).
Between the ninth and the eleventh century, the Vikings had a significant presence in
Ireland (`they came to raid and stayed to trade'). Linguistic borrowings are mainly in the areas of
ship building and trading, one of the trade imports being beoir `beer' (from Old Norse bjórr). Like
English, Irish borrowed the word for window from the Vikings:
fuinneog < vind auga `wind eye'
The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169 introduced not only Norman French,
spoken by the nobility, but also English, spoken by many of the mercenaries and subordinates.
Irish borrowed heavily from Norman French, including sophisticated architectural terms, and
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