http://linguafrankly.blogspot.ie/2015/0 ... owing.html

Our friend Niall Beag was writing on his blog about the Welsh verb gyrru, which traditionally means to drive animals, but has now taken on the meaning of driving a car. He puts the change down to the influence of English, or at least he suggests that as a possibility.

I then read in the Cork Irish dictionary that there was traditionally a difference between tiomáint (driving horses) and comáint (driving cattle). Nowadays, tiomáint is used for driving cars, but some Gaeltacht people say driveáil (just as Welsh people say dreifeo).

I have heard aerach (literally: airy) used for homosexual. In FGB, the second definition for aerach is “lighthearted, gay, lively, frolicsome.” Gay in this sense wouldn't be the same thing as homosexual, but I think some people are using it that way now.

Any other examples of this kind of change being mirrored in Irish and English?

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

Actually, just about every Irish speaker I know uses "aerach" to refer to gay people. It's probably following English usage, but I don't see a problem with that.

Redwolf

These borrowings are a specific type of calque known as semantic loans. A Semantic loan - as suppose to simple loanwords, e.g. driveáil, húvar 'hoover' (vacuum cleaner) etc... - is where the semantic range of a native term is expanded to include the same range of meanings as an equivalent term in the foreign language with which it is in contact with. Semantic loans are usually the result of extensive language contact.

For instance, Old Ir. dliged 'right, obligation' was equated with its Latin equivalent ratio and thus expanded its semantic range to include other definitions of ratio, i.e. 'principle, theory'.

Semantic Loans are very difficult to identify.

I have often heard learners use grá in the same way that they would use it in English, e.g. Is grá liom sceallóga 'I love chips', tá grá agam don teanga 'I love the language'; in English 'love' is a very general term, whereas in Irish the word grá is reserved for the love between two people.

More idiomatic ways of expressing 'I love the language' would be tá an Ghaeilge im chroí istigh (agam), Táim ceanúil ar an nGaeilge, tá cion agam ar an nGaeilge, is breá liom an Ghaeilge, táim ana/ ro-thógtha leis an nGaeilge etc... . Coincidentally, the last one with tógtha, 'taken' has been borrowed into Hiberno-English as a semantic loan; as you will often hear 'he is very taken to the drink' when expressing 'love for, or addiction to something', you will often hear 'fond of (cion)' used similarly also.

Some more examples that spring to mind:

The use of clann when discussing the nuclear family.

A fairly well established calque, but a calque none the less, is the semantic expansion of (tá) fáilte (romhat) as a reply to go raibh maith agat, instead of níl a bhuíochas ort, go ndéana(idh) sé maitheas duit, go ndéana(idh) a mhaith duit.

The other type of calque is called morphemic translation and it is where a foreign word or term is analysed and translated into the target language; e.g. Old Ir. soscél 'gospel' - positive suffix so- + scél 'story', 'message' - is a morphemic translation of Latin evangelium, which in turn is from Greek εὐ 'good' + αγγέλιον 'message, news'. Tá sé ag bualadh mé, instead of tá sé ám bhualadh, sin do charr, instead of Is leatsa an carr sin. Another example is Ir. folús glantóir which is a direct translation of 'vacuum cleaner', as suppose to húvar above- a simple loanword. This type of calque seems to be much loved by the focal.ie crowed . However, the problem with this type of translation - and I suspect why Government documents that have been translated into Irish never get requested - is most of the time you have to retranslate it back into English to be able to understand the Irish and as a result the Irish translations are so encrypted with English that Irish speakers can't follow them.

For more on calques, Paul Russel gives a very short and straight to the point explanation of them on pages 438-439 in the New History of Ireland series, book 1 Prehistoric and Early Ireland, ed. by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín.

Simple loanwords tend to be perceived very negatively by Irish 'die hard' learners, the fact is they are probably the least intrusive form of foreign language influence. Instead, learners should be more concerned about the influence of English on Irish syntax and pronunciation then whether or not a speaker says fridge or cuisneoir, fón or guthán.

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

Very interesting



I totally agree.

I agree re loan words. Living languages borrow from one another all the time...there's no reason Irish should be an exception. I do find it odd, though, that Irish has adopted two letters not native to it (v and j) for some of these words, rather than adapting the words to its own spelling system.

I also agree that the shifting of syntax and mode of expression to something that conforms more closely to English is a serious problem...much, much more worrisome than a few loan words.

Redwolf

Completely agree on borrowing words. In fact oftentimes I much prefer to use the English variant than a nonsense Irish phonetic variant of it.

I agree with yous too
Borrowing words doesn't mean at all that a language is weakening etc. Look at English (2/3 of its vocabulary is either French or Latin), for instance. I don't know any language that doesn't borrow from other languages, and it's not a new phenomenon: I studied a bit of Hittite in the university (it's an old Indo-European language that was spoken in Turkey until the 13th century BC), and that language was full of loanwords (Sumerian and Akkadian ones). In some sentences, all the words were either Akkadian or Sumerian, but used according to Hittite grammar.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I understand this point. What I don't always understand is why some native speakers use so many English words when there are available words in Irish. Surely Irish has to create new words as technology and life progresses? I know it is a contentious issue about who should create such words, but I wish someone would sort it out!

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I agree with this stance too. I don't think it's a hard line one way or the other.

This isn't a native speaker thing, but I remember watching an episode of Aifric once, and her mother kept saying 'an bhfuil tú all right?" It's the same number of syllables for heaven's sake...what's wrong with saying 'an bhfuil tú go maith?"

Redwolf

It's a bit of both like anything else I think. Taking a strong stance either way is counter productive in my opinion.