Farsi vs. Gaelic
10070...@compuserve.com
Hello,
In looking into my rather culturally mixed family, I've come across something that I'd like to know about. First, are the Gaelic people of Ireland the Galls of northern France - and in turn, are the Galls related to an almost "extinct" group of Persians called the Gilaks (spelling ?) who apparently live(d) along the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea. If this is true, then the similarity in the ancient name of Iran (Arianna) and the Gaelic name of Ireland (Eire) are not coincidental, rather they result from (my presumption) that these peoples are , however distantly, related. Secondly, and I guess finally, if all of this is true, then there might be some similarity between Farsi and Gaelic - my quest in all this long-windedness is, is there any reading material out there that any of you all might know about to shed some light on this subject.
Please reply to :
Tony Kehlhofer
10070...@compuserve.com
Many thanks !
Rich Hansen
In article <558fru$4...@dub-news-svc-3.compuserve.com>,
<10070...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>In looking into my rather culturally mixed family, I've come across
something that I'd like to know about. First, are the >Gaelic people of
Ireland the Galls of northern France - and in turn, are the Galls related
to an almost "extinct" group
I would have my doubts. Gall is a gaelic word and (I presume an ancient
one) for Foreigner. WIthout an historical dictionary of Gaelic I cannot
trace its origins further back.
>of Persians called the Gilaks (spelling ?) who apparently live(d) along
the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea. If >this is true, then the
similarity in the ancient name of Iran (Arianna) and the Gaelic name of
Ireland (Eire) are not >coincidental, rather they result from (my
presumption) that these peoples are , however distantly, related.
Secondly, >and I guess finally, if all of this is true, then there might be
some similarity between Farsi and Gaelic - my quest in >all this
long-windedness is, is there any reading material out there that any of you
all might know about to shed >some light on this subject.
Of course there is a relationship. 1) the Celts probably originated in an
area around the Black Sea. 2) There were probably Celtic speaking peoples
in this Iranian area at or around the time of the Persian entry into the
area. 2) Both Parsi and Irish are Indo-European languages and share some
common traits
Richard
--
| Richard R Hansen | saoirse |
| Santa Clara CA | carpe diem |
| rha...@best.com | |
Richard M. Alderson III
In article <558fru$4...@dub-news-svc-3.compuserve.com>
<10070...@compuserve.com> writes:
>In looking into my rather culturally mixed family, I've come across something
>that I'd like to know about. First, are the Gaelic people of Ireland the Galls
>of northern France
No.
Both are groups who spoke Celtic languages, but the two words are different:
The Galli (English "Gauls") were so named by the Romans; according to one well-
known Roman military historian (C. Julius Caesar), they called *themselves*
Celtae. (They were also known to the Greeks, as Keltoi.)
The modern Irish word _Gael_ arises in an older _goidhel_, and is a Celtic word
rather than Latin.
>- and in turn, are the Galls related to an almost "extinct" group of Persians
>called the Gilaks (spelling ?) who apparently live(d) along the southwestern
>shore of the Caspian Sea.
In the sense you intend, almost certainly not.
>If this is true, then the similarity in the ancient name of Iran (Arianna) and
>the Gaelic name of Ireland (Eire) are not coincidental, rather they result
>from (my presumption) that these peoples are, however distantly, related.
This particular linguistic chimaera was chased down and put to rest a century
ago. Be careful of one-word comparisons without a grounding in historical
linguistic methods.
>Secondly, and I guess finally, if all of this is true, then there might be
>some similarity between Farsi and Gaelic -
As it happens, there is not much surface similarity between the two languages,
due to roughly 6000 years independent development. At that time depth, one
requires a great deal of training as a linguist to see the similarities (which
would not necessarily be perceived as such by the layman).
>my quest in all this long-windedness is, is there any reading material out
>there that any of you all might know about to shed some light on this subject.
For the non-linguist, I would recommend Philip Baldi's _Introduction to the
Indo-European Languages_ (Southern Illinois Univ Press, 1983, ISBN: 0809310910)
as a fair starting place. A good look at the problem of the archaeology can be
had from J. P. Mallory's _In Search of the Indo-Europeans_ (Thames & Hudson,
1991, ISBN: 0500276161).
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
rha...@best.com (Rich Hansen) wrote:
>In article <558fru$4...@dub-news-svc-3.compuserve.com>,
><10070...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>>In looking into my rather culturally mixed family, I've come across
>>something that I'd like to know about. First, are the >Gaelic people of
>>Ireland the Galls of northern France - and in turn, are the Galls related
>>to an almost "extinct" group
>I would have my doubts. Gall is a gaelic word and (I presume an ancient
>one) for Foreigner.
I assume the reference is to "Welsh" (OE wealh-isc), a Germanic (> Slav)
term for "foreigner, Roman, Celt", and the origin of such diverse
geographical designations as Wales, Wallonia, Wallachia and Wlochy
(Polish for "Italy"). The original meaning may have been "Celt", if the
word is derived from the Celtic tribe of the Volci. No relation to
either Gaul or Gael.
>>of Persians called the Gilaks (spelling ?) who apparently live(d) along
>>the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea.
Gilaki is indeed an Iranian language, part of the Caspian subgroup,
along with Mazanderani, Talishi and some others. As far as I know, it's
a living language, although heavily influenced by Farsi.
>>If >this is true, then the
>>similarity in the ancient name of Iran (Arianna) and the Gaelic name of
>>Ireland (Eire) are not >coincidental, rather they result from (my
>>presumption) that these peoples are , however distantly, related.
>>Secondly, >and I guess finally, if all of this is true, then there might be
>>some similarity between Farsi and Gaelic
>Of course there is a relationship. 1) the Celts probably originated in an
>area around the Black Sea.
Not the Celts as such. The Indo-Europeans maybe. The homeland of the
cultures archaeologically associated with the Celts (Urnfield,
Hallstatt, La Te`ne) seems to have been Central Europe (S. Germany,
Austria, Czechia).
>2) There were probably Celtic speaking peoples
>in this Iranian area at or around the time of the Persian entry into the
>area.
I'm not sure what you're referring to.
There were no Celts in the area north of the Black Sea when the Iranian
(not exactly Persian) Scythians entered the area. The natives were
known as Cimmerians, and spoke an unknown but surely Indo-European
language. We don't know how the Cimmerians called themselves, but the
Armenians probably called them Gamir (Kimmerian is the Greek word). The
equation Cymry-Cimmerian [which the above would seem to be based on] is
just as shaky as Eire-Iran, I'm afraid.
But maybe this is a reference to the Galatians of Anatolia. Before the
Romans started picking on them, the Celts had done quite a lot of
expanding themselves. From their Central European homeland, they
extended towards modern France, Britain and Ireland, Spain, Northern
Italy, and along the Danube towards modern Hungary and Romania. From
there, they did some sacking of Greece, but the main body of Eastern
Celts trekked into Anatolia and established themselves in Galatia
(roughly around modern Ankara). This was however some time after the
demise of the Persian Empire by the hand of Alexander. Eventually,
Galatia was incorporated in the Roman Empire and became part of the
Greek speaking Eastern half of the Empire.
>[3]) Both Parsi and Irish are Indo-European languages and share some
>common traits
True.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Brian M. Scott
In article <librikE0...@netcom.com>, lib...@netcom.com says...
>m...@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) writes:
>>rha...@best.com (Rich Hansen) wrote:
>>>I would have my doubts. Gall is a gaelic word and (I presume an ancient
>>>one) for Foreigner.
>>I assume the reference is to "Welsh" (OE wealh-isc), a Germanic (> Slav)
>>term for "foreigner, Roman, Celt",
>Nope. "Gall" is, in fact, the Gaelic word for "foreigner," as seen
>in Donegal (Du/n na nGall), fort of the foreigner. (This is Modern
>Irish; a flip through Thurneysen reveals no obvious equivalent in
>Old Irish. Hm.)
According to the Dictionary of the Irish Language (Based Mainly on Old
and Middle Irish Materials), the oldest meaning of 'Gall' is 'a Gaul'.
An early citation seems to be 'Sanas Cormaic 683', but I don't know
enough about early Irish MSS to have the slightest idea how old that
makes the term.
Brian M. Scott
Eugene Holman
> Hello,
>
> In looking into my rather culturally mixed family, I've come across
something that I'd like to know about.
> First, are the Gaelic people of Ireland the Galls of northern France -
and in > turn, are the Galls related to an almost "extinct" group of
Persians called > the Gilaks (spelling ?) who apparently live(d) along the
southwestern shore
> of the Caspian Sea.
Before the Roman conquest of Gaul two thousand years ago most of what is
now France as well as the neighboring island of Albion (= Britain) were
inHabited by Celtic-speaking tribes, the nominal ancestors of today's
Welsh, Irish, and Breton as well as of the recently extinct Cornish and
Manx speakers.
The important word here is 'nominal': the history and descent of languages
follows different paths than the history and descent of people and ethnic
groups, for which reason a contemporary speaker of language X is not
necessarily related to the people who spoke an earlier form of that
language.
> If this is true, then the similarity in the ancient name of Iran (Arianna)
> and the Gaelic name of Ireland (Eire) are not coincidental, rather they
> result from (my presumption) that these peoples are , however distantly,
> related.
That the languages (Irish and Persian) are distantly related is
uncontroversial and known to every Indo-European scholar. On the other
hand, the names peoples, tribes, and nations use to refer to each other
are usually of recent origin and could not be used as evidence of
relationship. Note, for example, that we refer to the French using a word
which originally designated a Germanic tribe, the Franks. Nor can
relationship be demonstrated by some vague similarity. If that were true,
then Indonesian, in which the word for 'eye' is *mata*, and Modern Greek,
in which it is *mati* would be related, which they aren't. The proof of
langauge relationship requires use of the so-called comparative method,
and it is based not on similarity, but rather on recurrent and systematic
correspondences in form and meaning. Thus, the fact that dozens of words
of the basic (and presumably oldest and common inherited layer) of
vocabulary in Finnish and Hungarian exhibit the parallel Finnish p- =
Hungarian f- as in puu/fa 'tree', pilvi/felhö: 'cloud'; piikki/fog
'spike/tooth'; puoli/fél 'half'; pelk-/fél- 'to fear', constitutes a part
of the proof that they are related, while the more evident similarity
between the words filmi/film 'film', fysiikka/fizika 'physics';
politiikka/politika, polemiikka/polémia 'polemic', obvious borrowings from
a common source, does not.
> Secondly, and I guess finally, if all of this is true, then there
> might be some similarity between Farsi and Gaelic - my quest in all this
> long-windedness is, is there any reading material out there that any of you
> all might know about to shed some light on this subject.
As I said, Farsi and Gaelic are related, being both different modern
versions of a language no longer spoken called Proto-Indo-European. Any
introduction to historical linguistics such as R. L. Trask *Historical
Linguistics* (Arnold 1996, ISBN 0-340-60758-0) will give you the
background needed to understand and appreciate what this does and does not
mean. You might also want to take a look at 'Numbers 1 to 10 in 358
Languages' (URL: http/www.tezcat.com/~markrose/numbers.html) to obtain a
vague idea of the nature and degree of relationship between the
Indo-European languages.
Modern Irish Old Irish Old Persian Modern Farsi Meaning
aon oín aivaka- yak 'one'
dó da duviti:ya- du: 'two'
trí tri th't:ya si 'three'
ceathair cethir - chaha:r 'four'
cúig cóic - panj 'five'
sé sé - shash 'six'
Even without precise information as to pronunciation, it is obvious
that modern Farsi is related to Irish and English as well. You might also
want to take a look at Merritt Ruhlen's *A Guide to the World's Languages*
(Stanford University Press 1991, ISBN 0-8047-1894-6).
Regards,
Eugene Holman4
Julian Pardoe
Richard M. Alderson III wrote:
> >If this is true, then the similarity in the ancient name of Iran (Arianna) and
> >the Gaelic name of Ireland (Eire) are not coincidental, rather they result
>
> This particular linguistic chimaera was chased down and put to rest a century
> ago. Be careful of one-word comparisons without a grounding in historical
> linguistic methods.
Does this mean that "Eire" is not related to the IE word "arya"?
-- jP --
Richard M. Alderson III
In article <327DEF...@lonnds.ml.com> Julian Pardoe <par...@lonnds.ml.com>
writes:
>Does this mean that "Eire" is not related to the IE word "arya"?
The *Indo-Iranian* word _arya-_ is unrelated to _Eire_, yes.
homi....@gmail.com
homi....@gmail.com
http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/view/2682/iran-as-the-historical-tricontinental-bridge-and-ireland-an-ethnocultural-and-etymological-interconnectedness
Daud Deden
> then Indonesian, in which the word for 'eye' is *mata*, and Modern Greek,
> in which it is *mati* would be related, which they aren't."
Mati@Slovenian: mother
Mati@Frc: to caulk, matted
Mati@Indo, Mly: dead, die
Can anyone verify the claim that "mati" is eye in modern Greek?
Daud Deden
The evil eye, known as “mati” (μάτι) in Greek culture, is a curse thought to be given by a malicious glare that can cause bad luck or loss.
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-Filipino-word-for-eye-mata-come-from-the-Greek-word-mati
Ommation ~ mata, oita, eye, optic...
Leo Anthony Sgouros
Daud Deden
Ōps = eye in ancient Greek
Mati = eye in modern Greek
Matya = eyes in modern Greek
Matya-mu = your eyes in modern Greek
Hellanika = Greek
Hellene = Greco-