Analysis: Irish freely adopted Latin vocabulary during the Christianisation of the country, especially to describe religion, education and daily life
By Pádraic Moran, University of Galway
Latin was the language of the Romans, but it became much more than that. Latin served as the common language of elites and, later, ordinary people across the western Roman Empire and remained the official language of the western Church long after the western Empire’s collapse in the fifth century AD. Its influence extended into religion, education, scholarship and science throughout Europe down to the nineteenth century.
The Latin for Gaeilge
Naturally, Latin had a significant impact on the Irish language too. Both belong to the Indo-European family of languages, a vast group stretching from Ireland to India. This shared ancestry explains certain similarities in vocabulary. For example, Irish aon, dó, trí, ceathair 'one, two, three, four’ corresponds to Latin unus, duo, tres, quattuor, Russian odin, dva, tri, chetyre, Persian yek, do, se, chahār, and Sanskrit éka, dvá, trí, catúr. Since the early 19th century, linguists have understood that such parallels reflect shared ancestral relationships rather than direct language contacts.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Miscellany, Tom Ryan on learning Latin and rediscovering a classical education by way of the law
By contrast, loanwords are taken by one language directly from another. We refer to this process as ‘borrowing’, even though loanwords are never given back! Languages borrow words for various reasons—to name new concepts, reflect cultural prestige, or adapt to societal changes. For example, English has borrowed very extensively from French and Latin in particular. Similarly, Irish adopted much Latin vocabulary during the Christianisation of Ireland around the fifth century, especially for terms related to religion, education and the organisation of daily life.
Christian concepts and associations
It should come as no surprise that many Irish borrowings from Latin reflect core Christian concepts:
- aifreann ‘Mass’ from offerenda ‘offerings’.
- beannacht ‘blessing’ from benedictio.
- aingeal ‘angel’ from angelus.
- aspal (Old Irish apstal) ‘apostle’ from apostolus.
- diabhal ‘devil’ from diabolus.
- ifreann ‘hell’ from infernus.
Titles and locations within the Church also retained their Latin origins:
- sagart ‘priest’ from sacerdos.
- easpag ‘bishop’ from episcopus.
- manach ‘monk’ from monachus.
- eaglais ‘church’ from ecclesia.
- teampall ‘churchyard’ from templum.
- díseart ‘retreat, hermitage’ from desertum (inspired by stories of the desert monks of Egypt).
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, what's behind Irish language's religious roots?
Christian associations influenced broader vocabulary as well:
- pobal ‘people’ from populus.
- obair ‘work’ from opera.
- saol (older saoghal) ‘life’ from saeculum ‘lifetime’.
- pian ‘pain’ from poena ‘punishment’.
- trioblóid ‘trouble’ from tribulatio.
- reilig ‘graveyard’ from reliquiae ‘remains’.
Many of these terms originated in Greek, since Christianity first established itself in the eastern Mediterranean region, where Greek was the international language. For the earliest Roman Christians, therefore, they may have sounded as exotic as they later did when brought to Ireland.
Literacy and education
Given that books were first introduced to Ireland with Christianity, most of the terminology of literacy is Latin in origin:
- leabhar ‘book’ from liber.
- litir ‘letter’ from littera.
- léann (older léigheann) ‘learning’ from legendum ‘reading’.
- scríobh ‘write’ from scribo.
- scoil ‘school’ from schola.
- ceacht ‘lesson’ from acceptum ‘something received’.
From Classical Association Northern Ireland, Dr Paul Tempan on Latin and Romance loanwords in Early Irish
Organisation of time
Monastic life involved a highly rigorous organisation of time. Terms like uair ‘hour’ from hora, maidin ‘morning’ from matutinus, and tráthnóna ‘evening’ from Irish tráth ‘time’ and Latin nona ‘ninth hour’ (after dawn) reflect the rhythms of daily prayer.
Aoine ‘Friday’ derives from ieiunium ‘fast’, since Friday the main Christian day of fasting. Based on the same word, Céadaoin ‘Wednesday’ meant ‘first fast’ and Déardaoin ‘Thursday’ was a day idir dá aoin ‘between two fasts’.
Transformations and influences
Latin loanwords sometimes changed in meaning or form during their adoption. Some terms were shortened or reinterpreted:
- Paidir ‘prayer’ is a clipped form of pater noster ‘Our Father’.
- Similarly, long ‘ship’ is a shortening of navis longa ‘long ship’, where navis was originally the key word. (The derived term loingeas ‘fleet’ inspired the name of our national airline.)
- Póg ‘kiss’ comes from pax ‘peace’, referring to the osculum pacis ‘kiss of peace’ shared by early Christians.
Phonetic changes also occurred. Since early Irish lacked the sound p, Latin Pascha ‘Easter’ became Cáisc, and similarly planta ‘sprout’ came to be pronounced as clann ‘family’.
From RobWords, here are the Latin words you don't know you're using
We can detect clear influence from British Celtic in many early borrowings. For example, Nollaig ‘Christmas’ stems from natalicia ‘birthday festivities’, but in Old Irish Notlaic was pronounced very similar to Nadolig in modern Welsh, a language descended from ancient British Celtic. Similar traces in words such as pobal, póg and sagart indicate that not only Patrick but also many of his countrymen came from Britain to Ireland as missionaries, and taught Latin with a distinctive accent that persisted long after Christianity took root here.
What's the legacy of Latin in Irish today?
The 35 or so Irish words derived from Latin mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg. The Wiktionary category ‘Irish terms derived from Latin’ currently lists 971 words in total, and each word has its own story to tell.
A learner of Irish today might easily assume that most familiar-sounding words are recent borrowings from English, but this is far from true. The Irish words listed here are already attested in manuscripts of the eighth or ninth century, and were probably in use much earlier. They reflect cultural influences that are very ancient indeed. For more about early Christian Ireland, see Blindboy: The Land of Slaves and Scholars.
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Dr Pádraic Moran is a Senior Lecturer in Classics in the University of Galway. He is a Research Ireland awardee.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
