English loanwords of irish origin in the 1850s-1920s

Alsounder this category is the wordasthore, “my treasure, my darling”, used both in Irish and English literature as a word used exclusively by speakers of the spoken Irish language.

The only adjective,skit, also falls in this category, referring to cheerful people who can make others laugh. This word was mentioned by James Joyce, the famous Irish novelist, in his book The Dubliners.

Words related to agriculture (2 lexemes).

This category includes two words, both directly related to Irish agriculture. Bawneen/bauneen (both variants are possible), a type of waistcoat from undyed flannel worn by farm-labourers, anddaer-stock,cattle that belongs to the landlord but is in the use of a vassal or tenant.

Words related to politics (5 lexemes).

This category is the most important for this study because it includes words directly related to politics.

Ardri, a Head King. From Irish бrd- “chief” and rнog “king”. The word is mentioned in the Imperial Dictionary to refer to Head Kings of the early period of Celtic history.

DailEireann, the lower house of the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland. From Irish DбilЙireann“assembly of Ireland”. The word is first mentioned in 1919, when Irish nationalists first created it as a revolutionary parliament.

Flath, a lord. The word is mentioned in several works on Irish History to refer to the lords of the Anglo-Saxon period in the history of the British Isles.

Gaeltacht, which has already been mentioned above.

Sinn Fein, the name of an Irish organization that was founded by Arthur Griffith, an Irish writer and politician, in 1905. From Irish sinnfйin, which is translated as “we ourselves”. This word even in its translation conveys a clear message of the pursuers of this movement, who fought for independence of Ireland and a revival of Irish culture and language.

It may be noted that the words DailEireann, Gaeltacht and Sinn Fein directly refer to the events that took place from 1850 to 1920. This is indicated not only by the fact that they were borrowed during the period of the Irish Home Rule, but also by their direct definition. These words are used in all political and fiction literature directly related to the Home Rule, for example Arthur Griffith's The Sinn Fein Policy(the speech by Griffith presented at a convention in Novermber 1905 that was published in pamphlet form afterwards).

Words related to food and cooking (5 lexemes).

All words in this category are the names of food and drinks that are characteristic of Irish culture and cuisine.

Barmbrack, a currant-bun, which is a traditional Irish dish. A corruption of Irish bairigenbreac “speckled cake”.

Drisheen, a sausage made from sheep's blood, milk and seasoning. From Irish drisнn “intestine”. It was mentioned on several occasions by James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake, The Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. There was also a note about this dish in the British newspaperThe Daily Express, dated March 9, 1928.

Smahan, related to food and drinks and used to denote a taste or nip. From Irish smeathбn “a drop”. Again, it was mentioned by James Joyce in The Dubliners.

Taggeen, a small cup or glass of spirits. From Irish taidhgнn. The word was used in fiction as something the speakers of Irish would say as a slang.

Words denoting animals (4 lexemes).

Words falling into this category denote different fish, like gubbahawn, some small fish,moulrush(now obsolete) and slat, a salmon out of season.

However, there is also one more word denoting a young bird, which is also used widely in Irish literature as a playful form of address:

birdeen, a young bird or a young girl. This is a hybrid form, from English bird and Irish -нn, a diminutive suffix. The word was even used in the title of the book by I.J.PostgateRobin in khaki: a book of birdeens.

Words related to geography (2 lexemes(.

Two words fall into this category, one of which, bothan, refers not only to Ireland, but also Scotland, and means a small cottage in a secluded area. The second one, iґllaun, denotes an islet.

Words related to sport.

All the words in this category are directly related to hurling, which is a popular sport in Ireland. They were widely covered by British newspapers, in particular the Guardian.

Camogie, a game similar to hurling, played by females. From Irish camуgaнocht.

Puck, a stroke or shot at the ball in hurling. May be of imitative origin, from Irish poc “butt, blow, stroke in hurling”.

Sliotar. the hard leather ball that is used in hurling. From Irish sliotar “a ball used in hurling”.

Words related to history and archaeology (8 lexemes).

There are two words that are related to archaeology, namely, crannog, an ancient lake-dwelling in Scotland and Ireland, and cumdach, an ornamental book-casket.

Goidel, from Early Irish Gуidel, is a word denoting a member of the Goidelic-speaking culture.

Shagroon, from Irish seachrбn“wandering”, refers to an early settler in New Zealand from whatever part of the world except Britain. The word used to be a part of New Zealand slang, but is now a historical word.

Tuath, from Irish tuath “people”, also cognate with Old English юйodand Middle English thede. Denotes a tribe or people in Ireland.

One word related to geology.

Esker, mentioned above.

Words related to mythology (5 lexemes).

The words belonging to this category have a special meaning in connection with the rich mythology of the Celts, and in particular the Irish. All of them have important historical and social meanings, and are introduced into English through dictionaries or literature related to Celtic mythology.

Fomorian, from Irish fomor “pirate, monster” is a race of pirates of giants in Celtic Mythology, perhaps initially used to denote the gods of darkness and death. May also be used as an adjective.

Geis, a taboo in Irish folklore. The word is usually used in historical literature, but was also mentioned in The Observerin the following quote: “apparently, a man could be either: (1) Born under a `geis' prohibiting certain actions on his part, or (2) Laid under `geis' either at birth or any time during his life, either by divine or human agency.

Sheogue,a fairy, from Irish sнog“fairy”.

Thivish, from Irish taibhse, taibhsн(plural form), a ghost, spectre or apparition.

Tir-na-nog, from Irish TнrnanУg“land of the young”, a land of youth in Irish Mythology, an Irish version of Elysium.

One word related to economics and finance.

Gombeen, from modern Irish gaimbнn, a derivative of Old Celtic *km?bion. It is translated as “usury”. It may also be used as an attributive in gombeen-man or gombeen-woman “a money-lender”.

One word related to music.

Oireachtas. A musical festival held annually by the Gaelic Leaugue of Ireland. From Irish Oireachtas “gathering”.

One word related to transport.

Pookhaun. From Irish pъcбn, of uncertain origin. It is a small fishing boat. It was once mentioned in The Times as one of the types of fishing boats in the following quote: “Fishing boats of a better description than the canvas canoes (hookers and pookhauns of from 5 to 15 tons) are to be seen in the little creeks and harbours”.

Words related to anatomy (2 lexemes).

Rib (not to be confused with rib, a long curved bone that forms the rib cage), from Irish ribe “single hair”, of unknown origin. Denotes a strand of hair.

Spaug, from Irish spбg. A clumsy foot.

One word related to art.

The only verb that was borrowed between 1850s and 1920s,

to rime, from Irish ruaim “alder tree”, to steep or boil wool in water with alder twigs to make the fabric a reddish-brown color.

The adoption of this verb can be explained by the fact that there is no lexeme in the English language for such a specific action.

One word denoting a festival.

Samhain, from Irish Samhain and Scottish Gaelic Samhuinn, the first day of November that was celebrated by the ancient Celts as the beginning of winter and new calendar year.

One word related to religion.

Scoloc, from Old Irish scolуc, a word to denote a scholar or a school.

One word related to plants.

Starrigan, from Irish starragбn“small projection, obstacle”, a young or decayed evergreen tree, often cut for firewood. Also a stick or a branch of this.

Thus, it can be concluded that of the 56 lexemes analyzed in this research paper, only 3 directly relate to the Irish Home Rule movement, which is 5.3%. The words are Gaeltacht, Sinn Fein and DailEireann.

Despite the fact that the result is low, it can still be concluded that historical and political events might have influenced the general interest in Irish culture, history, arts, social structure, and nature and the subsequent borrowing of a number of words denoting the Irish realia from the Irish language into the English language from 1850 to 1920.

2.3 THE ANALYSIS OF THE SOURCES

Each lexeme analyzed in this study was attested in a written source. The Oxford English Dictionary was used to obtain information on these sources.

It is worth noting that all of the 56 lexemes are mentioned in rather different sources, and not one type of them, which is a curious topic for analysis.

Nevertheless, these sources can be classified into the following groups:

1) Dictionaries and encyclopedias;

2) Fiction and historical books;

3) Scientific publications;

4) Magazines and newspapers.

Almost all of the lexemes, which were discussed earlier, were introduced into the English language with the help of all kinds of Irish literature. It was not limited to works of art only; in addition to all sorts of books and academic works, many borrowings were first attested inIrish magazines and newspapers, such as The Gaelic Journal, a monthly magazine that was founded in 1882 and ceased publication in 1909, Observer, an Irish newspaper that still exists to this day, The Scots Magazine, the oldest magazine in the world that is still in publication in Scotland, The Press and Journal, another Scottish newspaper that is considered the oldest newspaper in Scotland, The Irish Times etc.

Unlike Irish and Scottish newspapers and magazines, English sources are less common. However, they still exist; for example, The Guardian, which records such lexemes as camogie, Gaeltacht and immram; The Times and The Daily Chronicle, although the latter is published in the United States and only occurs once as a source.

In addition to newspapers and magazines, it is necessary to note a large number of works of fiction, in particular, the works of James Joyce (1882-1941), one of the most popular and prominent writers of Irish descent. The lexemes described earlier are found in almost all of his works, but especially in such as Ulysses, The Dubliners, Finnegan's Wake, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

In his works, Joyce illustrates the true Irish, with their sometimes exaggerated, but still living features. This explains the large number of borrowed words that were introduced into English through Joyce's books.

Among the authors of fiction there are also Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916), an Irish poet, playwright and political activist, Charlotte Mary Yonge, an English novelist who mainly wrote children's literature, and George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright and political activist.

Dictionaries and encyclopedias can also be found among the sources, the most common of which are the Imperial Dictionary and the Glaister's Glossary of the Book.The second source contains the majority of the words from the category of literature, and the first source, which is referred to as A Complete Encyclopedic Lexicon, Literary, Scientific, and Technological contains words of different categories.

Multiple academic publications are also among the resources where the lexemes are mentioned. The works are mainly aimed at history, culture and mythology, and include authors of different backgrounds and nationalities.

Among them is J.Valente with his work The Myth of Manliness in Irish National Culture that was written in 2010; C.Vallancey with his Essay on the antiquity of the Irish language that was written in 1772; and Sir H.S.Maine with Lectures on the Early History of Institutions. The later actually defined the lexemes dear-stock, iarfine, geilfineand indfine, which are all related to the history.

Thus, it can be concluded that, in general, lexemes are introduced through fiction, newspapers and magazines, but the influence of encyclopedias, dictionaries and academic publications is also indisputable.



CONCLUSION

The purpose of this study was to identify whether there is a link between English borrowings of Irish origin that appeared between the 1850s and 1920s and political events that occurred in the same time period, the Irish Home Rule movement.

Celtic lexemes penetrated the language throughout the history of English; they became part of phraseological units, proverbs and sayings, as well as developed new meanings.

A historical overview of the early contacts of the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons shows that the contacts of the two peoples were close, but they practically did not affect the vocabulary of the English language or its grammar. The reason for this is the substrate position of the Celts.During the contacts between the British and the Celts after the 11th century, Ireland assumed a subordinate position, which finally gave rise to the Irish Home Rule Movement. However, even to this day Irish has only a substrate influence on the English language.

In the second part of the study, based on the data collected from the Oxford English Dictionary, 56 lexemes that were borrowed from Irish into English between the 1850s and 1920s were classified and analyzed, which made it possible to answer the main question of this study.

As the analysis has shown, the given borrowings are predominantly nouns (51 lexemes), with only 3 interjections, 1 verb and 1 adjective revealed. These figures indicate the need to fill the corresponding nominative lacunae. Moreover, all these lexemes describe specific Irish realia.

In addition, such an abundance of nouns can be explained by the fact that the nouns of any language possess objectivity, which allows to form verbs. Thus, nouns are usually the first words to be borrowed from another language.

Moreover, different languages can have different unique realia or objects, the names of which can be transferred to another culture during language contact. The same, however, cannot be said about unique actions, since in general the actions in all languages are about the same.

It can also be noted that these borrowed words are very rare and are hardly used today. In contrast to the borrowed words of earlier periods, these words were not consolidated in the vocabulary of the English language.

The analysis has shown that a rather low percentage (5.3%) of the lexemes is directly related to the Irish Home Rule movement. However, despite the low result, it can be concluded that historical and political events could have fuelled the general interest in Irish culture and the subsequent borrowing of a number of words denoting the Irish realia.

This study might be useful for further research on the topic of borrowings, thus, it will contribute to an increase in the number of works on lexicology.



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APPENDIX

Graph 1. Parts of speech of the given loanwords.

Graph 2. The number of the lexemes that appeared each year in English from the 1850s to the 1920s.



Graph 3. The frequency of the given loanwords.

Graph 4. The semantic categories of the given loanwords.

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