A Celtic quiz for you. Does this Irish name start with the sound p, the sound b, or the sound f?
Awww, you knew it was a trick question, huh? Indeed, Irish words can do something
quite unusual. They can mutate their starting sounds.
I'm busy piecing together the epic history of Gaeilge. Tugging at threads, grasping for
one that ties everything together, I'm noticing I barely have time for name drops.
Proto-Celtic - boom - next!
Ogham - boom - next!
Mutation - BOOM - no, no, wait.
Let's explore that one.
In its preliterate days, about the most traumatic thing to happen to the start of Irish words
was that its p's fell off. Without this process today we'd be speaking of Pireland! So while
Rome said piscis and pater, Irish has iasc and athair. Even Ireland's oldest writing
system is missing a sign for that p. But, otherwise, this Ogham script has neat syllables
and beautiful inflected Celtic endings.
Just a couple hundred years later though, Goídelc emerged with a mystery. It was suddenly
so different that it left linguists stumped how Irish could've changed this fast from
Ogham. Out of the blue, or the emerald green, come manuscripts filled with mutations.
Mutations that Irish will never let go of. They come in two flavors. First, soft. That's
a flavor? Séimhiú, lenition, weakens letters into fricatives
or even glides: clann, mo clann.
Deas, dheas. Tú, thú. Some lenitions have changed since Old Irish, like h and ɣ
were once th and dh. We even lost my favorite lenition: today's wɔːr was once ṽoːr.
The old cló settled on marking lenition with a dot. Nowadays, you plop in an h.
Mutation number two is urú, literally darkening or "eclipse". Eclipse automatically turns
any voiceless sound voiced. P, t, c become b, d, g: poc, bpoc, croí, gcroí. Voiced
consonants turn nasal: bóthar, mbóthar. Gaeilge, nGaeilge.
If you count like this book, you'll find a third mutation: hhhaspiration. This one's
about vowels, specifically adding h to vowels after some words that end in a vowel.
Kind of breaks up the two vowels: Old Irish ed but ní hed. And modern Éireann, but na hÉireann.
What makes mutations especially devious is that they're triggered by grammar. If you
asked an Old Irish scribe whose "tech" this is, you better have known the difference between
masculine a /θʲ/ech, feminine a /tʲ/ech and plural a /dʲ/ech! And Modern Irish?
Oh yes, it keeps doing this: a theach, a teach agus a dteach!
This happens go leor. Mac means a son. Muc is a pig. You say an mac but... an mhuc. Why?
Because feminine! Some words trigger an eclipse instead: i bPáras, i mBaile Átha Cliath,
i bhFlorida.
You will be is beidh tú. But if I ask, it's an mbeidh tú?
And if you won't, ní bheidh tú.
With no word for "yes" or "no", mutations are a must.
Where do these transfigurations come from? Recall that those early elegant grammatical
inflections had eroded. This often left Old Irish nothing more than a slender consonant
to mark a meaningful difference: macc, maicc, dún, dúin.
With its endings crumbling around it, Irish noticed something, and just in time: the very
words that triggered these endings had also been messing with beginnings. Triggers ending
in a vowel, like the feminine article, had been softening the next sound: an mac, an mhuc.
Triggers in a nasal, naturally, turned the next sound nasal: Gaeilge, i nGaeilge.
Now, with beginnings in place, triggers themselves were free to erode or even vanish entirely.
Irish had evolved a new way to do grammar.
And when did this happen?
Ask Welsh. Look! Cymraeg has mutations, too!
Well then, clearly these must be inherited,
part of their shared Common Celtic ancestry. I'm told not. Instead,
their parents gave them the tools. Time provided the problem.
Each language came up with its own own solution.
So when you shout to Pádraig, remember to use the vocative: a Phádraig!
When you speak from the heart: ó mo chroí.
And when something's in Irish, it's i nGaeilge.
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