What language was spoken in Ireland before Irish?
- Extract: That the Celtic languages were of the Indo-European family was first recognised by Rasmus Christian Rask (*1787), a young Danish linguist, in 1818. However, the fact that he wrote in Danish meant that his discovery was not noted by the linguistic establishment until long after his untimely death in 1832. The same conclusion was arrived at independently of Rask and, apparently, of each other, by Adolphe Pictet (1836) and Franz Bopp (1837). This agreement between the foremost scholars made possible the completion of the picture of the spread of the Indo-European languages in the extreme west of the European continent. However, in the Middle Ages the speakers of Irish had no awareness of any special relationship between Irish and the other Celtic languages, and a scholar as linguistically competent as Cormac mac Cuillennáin (†908), or whoever compiled Sanas Chormaic, treated Welsh on the same basis as Greek, Latin, and the lingua northmannorum in the elucidation of the meaning and history of Irish words. [...]
Author details: | Gearóid Mac Eoin |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19238 |
Publication type: | Part of a Book |
Language: | English |
Publication year: | 2007 |
Publishing institution: | Universität Potsdam |
Release date: | 2008/07/16 |
RVK - Regensburg classification: | EY 100 |
Organizational units: | Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 49 Andere Sprachen / 490 Andere Sprachen |
Collection(s): | Universität Potsdam / Sammelwerke (nicht fortlaufend) / The Celtic Languages in Contact |
License (German): | Keine öffentliche Lizenz: Unter Urheberrechtsschutz |
External remark: | erschienen in: The Celtic languages in contact : Papers from the workshop within the framework of the XIII International Congress of Celtic Studies, Bonn, 26-27 July 2007 / Hildegard L. C. Tristram (e.d.). - Potsdam : Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2007. - II, 335 S. : graph. Darst., Kt. ISBN 978-3-940793-07-2 URN: urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-15682 --> bestellen |