Irish Translation Forum

oisin718 wrote:"Ruarc" is the original given name.

According to your research, the first person to take the family name "Ó Ruairc" did so because he was Ruarc's grandson. "Ó" meant "grandon."

The addition of the "i" marks the palatization of the final consonant cluster, a remnant of an ancient case ending in -i that is now lost. This is how the genitive case is formed in the majority of masculine nouns, male given names included in them.

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Oisin, can you elaborate on the sentence where you say "The addition of the "i" marks the palatization of the final consonant cluster, a remnant of an ancient case ending in -i that is now lost."

thanks

Not really . . . you've got something about "friend from us" (cara dúinn) in there.

David

Stiofan951 wrote:
Oisin, can you elaborate on the sentence where you say "The addition of the "i" marks the palatization of the final consonant cluster, a remnant of an ancient case ending in -i that is now lost."

Consonants in Irish are either broad or slender. Consonants are broad if they are articulated together with back vowels (a, o, u) and slender if they are articulated with front vowels (i, e).

At an early stage in its history, the ancestor of Irish fixed word-stress on the primary root syllable, which meant that over time case endings -- like you find in Latin and Russian -- became indistinct and were eventually lost. But the effect that these endings had on the rest of the word remained.

The genitive of the masculine singular must have ended in -i, kind of like in Latin. Even though the ending was lost, its presence was still felt in the fact that the final consonant in the genitive singular became slender.

Interesting stuff, Oisín!