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#Post#: 10048--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: Alharacas
Date: December 9, 2018, 4:22 am
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Thank you for that interesting and informative post, Coligno!
--- Quote from: Coligno link ---
>
> People often assume that Irish/Gaelic and Welsh are similar,
but despite being related there's absolutely no mutual
comprehension whatsoever between them, and even cognate words
are usually unrecognisable to anyone who's not a Celticist (e.g.
Irish "ceann" = Welsh "pen"; Irish "fliuch" = Welsh "gwlyb").
>
--- End Quote ---
Yes, the few words, quotes and place names I've come across over
the years, both in Welsh and Irish, had made me wonder why they
looked so different.
Is there an explanation? Common ancestor, but then drifted apart
through... what? Lack of contact?
#Post#: 10063--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: SHL
Date: December 9, 2018, 12:06 pm
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--- Quote from: Alharacas link ---
>
> Thank you for that interesting and informative post, Coligno!
>
> [quote author=Coligno link=topic=666.msg10042#msg10042
date=1544315775]
> People often assume that Irish/Gaelic and Welsh are similar,
but despite being related there's absolutely no mutual
comprehension whatsoever between them, and even cognate words
are usually unrecognisable to anyone who's not a Celticist (e.g.
Irish "ceann" = Welsh "pen"; Irish "fliuch" = Welsh "gwlyb").
>
--- End Quote ---
Yes, the few words, quotes and place names I've come across over
the years, both in Welsh and Irish, had made me wonder why they
looked so different.
Is there an explanation? Common ancestor, but then drifted apart
through... what? Lack of contact?
[/quote]
@Alharacas
Don`t you think it`s odd, and kind of funny, the way the Brits
dumped all their crummy colonies, like Uganda and. Nigeria in a
heartbeat- no wars, no nothing, just packed up and said, „bye.
It´s been nice (Tschüss, war nett), but some places they`ll die
keeping, like some weird and disputed islands off of Argentina,
the Falkland Islands (like does anybody ever go there????
They`ve got, what, 600 sheep farmers there? God. It´s really
kind of hilarious. „Nigeria and Uganda, and others.....ah, you
can keep your countries. No problemo. Not those places because
theya re a mess, but hands off the Falklands!“
Don`t you love the stubborn British with some of their kooky
ideas? Like Brexit for example. Great example. They go out in
the world and introduce their „common law criminal code“ from
the 18th century, which includes their anti-gay, anti-sodomy
law, which all their colonies adopt them. Then they give all
their crummy colonies independence and leave them with their
ridiculous common law, and sodomy laws, run back to English, and
repeal those same anti-sodomy laws for themselves, the very ones
they are responsible for introducing to their colonies? What`s
up with that? The French never did that. And their former
colonies, like Jamaica turn homophobic and keep those laws
because the Brits had introduced them to them, and just say when
they leave, „Well, work it out for yourself guys.“
The Germans were not good at colonizing, unfortunately. They
had, wasn`t it, German East Africa or something, which is now
Namibia? But South Africa scooped it up for a while and German
just went home? And how come the Germans don`t have any islands
in the Caribbean that speak German, or the Pacific like the
Dutch, who even had Malaysia for a while. The Dutch have Dutch
speaking islands like Aruba? It´s a shame really.
#Post#: 10115--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: Coligno
Date: December 10, 2018, 7:37 am
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Alharacas, well, the languages were separated from each other
for quite a long time on different islands (maybe about 3
millennia, though exactly how long depends on which theory on
the internal classification of the Celtic languages -- including
the many extinct ones spoken in continental Europe -- you
accept, which is a bit of a contentious issue), so it's not all
that surprising that they're quite different.
Having said that, a lot of the differences are due to
dramatic-looking sound changes which mask an underlying
similarity. For example, Proto-Celtic, the ancestor of both
Irish and Welsh, had no p sound, but it had both k and kw. Now,
in some Celtic languages (including British, which is the
ancestor of Welsh) there was a development by which the kw
became p (this change wasn't unique to Celtic, compare Latin
equus and Greek ἵππος (híppos)),
whereas in others (such as Irish) kw merged with k instead. That
explains differences like ceann/pen ("head"), ceathair/pedwar
("four"), cúig/pump ("five"). Another change was Proto-Celtic w,
which became f in Ireland (actually originally bilabial
[ɸ], which some Irish speakers still use) and gw in
Britain, resulting in differences like fear/gwr ("man"),
fliuch/gwlyb ("wet"), fearr/gorau ("best").
The grammar of the two languages also has a lot of similarities
(VSO word order, initial mutations, conjugated prepositions, no
words for "yes", "no", "have", and all that kind of stuff).
#Post#: 10116--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: Coligno
Date: December 10, 2018, 7:49 am
---------------------------------------------------------
SHL, lot's of Irish people converted to Protestantism over the
years to avoid persecution by the English, so your ancestors
weren't necessarily Planters just because they were Protestants.
It might be possible to tell from the surname.
#Post#: 10117--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: SHL
Date: December 10, 2018, 9:01 am
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--- Quote from: Coligno link ---
>
> SHL, lot's of Irish people converted to Protestantism over the
years to avoid persecution by the English, so your ancestors
weren't necessarily Planters just because they were Protestants.
It might be possible to tell from the surname.
>
--- End Quote ---
Ferguson and O`Henry were the surnames but the O got dropped
from O`Henry in the States and it just became Henry. I always
assumed they were real Irish, and not Scottish settlers but now
I`m not too sure. I also had an ancestor from Fordstown, Co.
Meath in Ireland who was Catholic, which I know for sure.
#Post#: 10125--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: Coligno
Date: December 11, 2018, 2:43 am
---------------------------------------------------------
SHL, Ferguson is indeed a Scottish surname (I think the
Fergusons came over at the time of the Plantation of Ulster),
but O'Henry is real Irish, from the Tyrone area (it's the
anglicised form of Ó hInneirghe, and has nothing to do with the
Germanic name Henry).
#Post#: 10142--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: SHL
Date: December 11, 2018, 11:33 am
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--- Quote from: Coligno link ---
>
> SHL, Ferguson is indeed a Scottish surname (I think the
Fergusons came over at the time of the Plantation of Ulster),
but O'Henry is real Irish, from the Tyrone area (it's the
anglicised form of Ó hInneirghe, and has nothing to do with the
Germanic name Henry).
>
--- End Quote ---
Thanks, Coligno. That`s the opposite of what I always thought. I
thought Ferguson was a true Irish name and
O´Henry was a Scottish name because it sounds British. So it`s
the other way round. That is interesting. On my dad`s patneral
side his grandfather was adopted because he was born in 1863 in
a home for unwed mothers in Massachusetts. He was named William
McCort (or possible misspelled from McCourt) and his mother was
Eliza McCort (or McCourt) born in Glasgow. The father was
William Sproule from Ulster. But due to the unwed status of
mother, my great grandfather took the mother`s surname. At some
point he was adopted by a French Canadian family in Boston and
the surname changed to a French name (which is now my surname).
#Post#: 10163--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: Coligno
Date: December 12, 2018, 4:57 am
---------------------------------------------------------
SHL, many Scottish and Irish surnames are similar (for example
many of them begin with "Mac", which means "son" in Gaelic - in
fact "Ferguson" is an English translation of the Gaelic surname
"Mac Fhearghusa" = "son of Fergus" which could, theoretically,
be either Irish or Scottish, but, as it happens, it originated
in Scotland), but surnames beginning with "O'" (from Gaelic "ó"
meaning "grandson" or "descendant") are practically always
Irish. "O'Henry" only looks British English because Irish people
were required to anglicise their names when they were under
English rule, and it was probably a deliberate attempt to make
it look as English as possible, though really it has no
connection at all to the English name "Henry".
McCort or McCourt could be either Scottish or Irish, I think the
name exists on both sides of the North Channel, and the fact
that she was born in Glasgow doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't
Irish as there was a lot of migration from Ireland to Scotland
at that time (I suppose she must have been born around the time
of the Famine), and big industrial cities like Glasgow would
have been one of their main destinations. Sproule is a Scottish
Planter surname, it seems to be common in the Tyrone area.
#Post#: 10174--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mutually Intelligible Languages (or an excuse to post a
random video)
DIR By: SHL
Date: December 12, 2018, 1:44 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Coligno link ---
>
> SHL, many Scottish and Irish surnames are similar (for example
many of them begin with "Mac", which means "son" in Gaelic - in
fact "Ferguson" is an English translation of the Gaelic surname
"Mac Fhearghusa" = "son of Fergus" which could, theoretically,
be either Irish or Scottish, but, as it happens, it originated
in Scotland), but surnames beginning with "O'" (from Gaelic "ó"
meaning "grandson" or "descendant") are practically always
Irish. "O'Henry" only looks British English because Irish people
were required to anglicise their names when they were under
English rule, and it was probably a deliberate attempt to make
it look as English as possible, though really it has no
connection at all to the English name "Henry".
> McCort or McCourt could be either Scottish or Irish, I think
the name exists on both sides of the North Channel, and the fact
that she was born in Glasgow doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't
Irish as there was a lot of migration from Ireland to Scotland
at that time (I suppose she must have been born around the time
of the Famine), and big industrial cities like Glasgow would
have been one of their main destinations. Sproule is a Scottish
Planter surname, it seems to be common in the Tyrone area.
>
--- End Quote ---
Thank you very much Coligno. You’ve been a wealth of
information.
Yeah, my dad used to always tell us growing up that our „real“
surname was Sproule, which is what started my interest in
delving into all of this. The record I found on my great
grandfather (on my dad`paternal side) was that his mother was
Eliza McCort born in Glasgow, so I always assumed she was
Scottish. So, because she was unmarried, the son`s name was
William McCort. Like I mentioned, the birth was in an poorhouse,
and they did „ moral character interviews“ with each mother.
While interviewed, she was noted as being of „good repute“ and a
housekeeper, and the child`s father was listed as William Spoule
of Tyrone Co. Ireland. It was actually all quite interesting,
for me anyway. On my dad`s maternal side like I said, they are
all named ÓHenry and Fergusson, again from Tyrone county.
Actually, I`d like to go to Cookstown someday, just to look
around. It`s just one of those things I like to do, sort of
„ancestry exploration“, which is just an interest of mine, and
why I go every year to the Jever/Wittmund area of Ostfriesland
in Germany, because many of my mom`s ancestors were from there.
Again, thanks for you help. It was very interesting
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