Goidelic substrate hypothesis

Ireland was settled, like the rest of northern Europe, after the retreat of the ice sheets c. 10,500 BC.{{Cite news|last=McDonagh|first=Marese|date=21 March 2016|title=Bear bone opens new chapter in Ireland's archaeology|newspaper=The Irish Times|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/bear-bone-opens-new-chapter-in-ireland-s-archaeology-1.2581144|access-date=10 February 2021}} Indo-European languages are usually thought to have been a much later arrival. Some scholars hypothesize that the Goidelic languages may have been brought by the Bell Beaker culture circa 2500 BC. This dating is supported by DNA analysis indicating large-scale Indo-European migration to Britain about that time.{{Cite journal |last=Patterson |first=Nick |title= Large-Scale Migration into Britain During the Middle to Late Bronze Age |year=2022 |journal=Nature |volume=601 |issue=7894 |pages=588–594 |doi=10.1038/s41586-021-04287-4 |pmid=34937049 |pmc=8889665 |bibcode=2022Natur.601..588P }} In contrast, other scholars argue for a much later date of arrival of Goidelic languages to Ireland based on linguistic evidence. Peter Schrijver has suggested that Irish was perhaps preceded by an earlier wave of Celtic-speaking colonists (based on population names attested in Ptolemy's Geography) who were displaced by a later wave of proto-Irish speakers only in the 1st century AD, following a migration in the wake of the Roman conquest of Britain, with Irish and British Celtic languages only branching off from a common Insular Celtic language around that time.{{Cite book|last=Schrijver|first=Peter|title=Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages|publisher=Routledge|year=2014|isbn=978-0-415-35548-3|location=New York, London|pages=79–85}}

Scholars have suggested:

• that an older language or languages could have been replaced by the Insular Celtic languages; and
• that words and grammatical constructs from the original language, or languages, may nevertheless persist as a substrate in the Celtic languages, especially in placenames and personal names.Indo-European and non-Indo-European aspects to the languages and place-names in Britain and Ireland: the state of the art, by George Broderick, in 'From the Russian rivers to the North Atlantic' (2010), pp. 29–63.{{Cite journal |last=Adams |first=G.B. |date=1980 |title=Place-names from pre-Celtic languages in Ireland and Britain |url=http://www.snsbi.org.uk/Nomina_articles/Nomina_04_Adams.pdf |journal=Nomina |volume=4 |pages=46–63}}

Gearóid Mac Eoin proposes the following words, some of which are found only in Early Irish literature, as deriving from the substrate

• bréife 'ring, loop'
• cuifre/cuipre 'kindness',
• fafall/fubhal, One of the hazel trees at the well of Segais
• lufe 'feminine',
• slife 'broadening'
• strophais 'straw';

He also puts forward the following place names, also from old Irish literature:

• Bréifne
• Crufait
• Dún Gaifi
• Faffand
• Grafand, an old name for Knockgraffon
• Grafrenn
• Life/Mag Liphi
• Máfat.{{cite journal|title=The Celtic Languages in Contact|date=26–27 July 2007|url=http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2007/1568/pdf/celtic_languages_in_contact.pdf|access-date=10 December 2012|editor1-first=Hildegard L. C.|editor1-last=Tristram|publisher=Potsdam University Press}}

Gerry Smyth, in Space and the Irish Cultural Imagination, suggested that Dothar, the Old Irish name for the River Dodder, could be a substrate word.{{Cite book |last=Smyth |first=Gerry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=khZaCwAAQBAJ&q=dothar+dodder&pg=PA101 |title=Space and the Irish Cultural Imagination |date=18 July 2001 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781403913678 |via=Google Books}}

Peter Schrijver submits the following words as deriving from the substrate:

• partán 'crab'
• Partraige (ethnonym), (note that partaing "crimson (Parthian) red" is a loanword from Lat. parthicus)
• pattu 'hare'
• petta 'pet, lap-dog'
• pell 'horse'
• pít 'portion of food'
• pluc '(round) mass'
• prapp 'rapid'
• gliomach 'lobster'
• faochán 'periwinkle'
• ciotóg 'left hand'
• bradán 'salmon'
• scadán 'herring'{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/38390118|title=Non-Indo-European surviving in Ireland in the first millennium AD|journal=Ériu |volume=51|last1=Schrijver|first1=Peter|date=January 2000 }}

Schrijver noted the numerousness of words relating to fishing. He suggested that the presence of unlenited stops among these fishing words may indicate that these words entered Irish as late as 500AD.{{Cite journal |last=Schrijver |first=Peter |date=2000 |title=Varia V. Non-Indo-European Surviving in Ireland in the First Millennium AD |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30008378 |journal=Ériu |volume=51 |pages=195–199 |jstor=30008378 |issn=0332-0758}} In a further study he gives counter-arguments against some criticisms by Graham Isaac.{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/38390147|title = More on Non-Indo-European surviving in Ireland in the first millennium AD|journal = Ériu |volume=55|last1 = Schrijver|first1 = Peter| date=January 2005 | doi=10.1353/eri.2005.0004 | s2cid=245853096 }}

Ranko Matasović lists the following words

• lacha 'duck'
• sinnach 'fox'
• luis 'rowan'
• lon 'blackbird'
• dega 'beetle'
• ness 'stoat'.{{Cite book |last=Matasović |first=Ranko |title=Journal of Language Relationship |chapter-url=https://www.jolr.ru/files/(101)jlr2012-8(160-164).pdf |chapter=The substratum in Insular Celtic |date=2019-04-15 |pages=153–160 |publisher=Gorgias Press |isbn=978-1-4632-3540-6 |language=en |doi=10.31826/9781463235406-010}}

He also points out that there are words of possibly or probably non-Indo-European origin in other Celtic languages as well; therefore, the substrate may not have been in contact with Primitive Irish but rather with Proto-Celtic.{{cite book|last=Matasović |first=Ranko |author-link=Ranko Matasović |title=Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |year=2009 |isbn=978-90-04-17336-1 |page=441}} Examples of words found in more than one branch of Celtic but with no obvious cognates outside Celtic include:

• Middle Irish {{lang|mga|ainder}} 'young woman', Middle Welsh {{lang|wlm|anneir}} 'heifer', perhaps Gaulish anderon (possibly connected with Basque {{lang|eu|andere}} 'lady, woman')
• Old Irish {{lang|sga|berr}} 'short', Middle Welsh {{lang|wlm|byrr}} 'short', Gaulish Birrus (name); possibly related to the birrus, a short cloak or hood
• Old Irish {{lang|sga|bran}} 'raven', Middle Welsh {{lang|wlm|bran}} 'raven', Gaulish Brano-, sometimes translated as 'crow' (name element, such as Bran Ardchenn, Bran Becc mac Murchado, and Bran the Blessed)
• Middle Irish {{lang|mga|brocc}} 'badger', Middle Welsh {{lang|wlm|broch}} 'badger', Gaulish Broco- (name element) (borrowed into English as brock)
• Old Irish {{lang|sga|carpat}} '(war) chariot', Welsh {{lang|cy|cerbyd}}, Gaulish carpento-, Carbanto-
• Old Irish {{lang|sga|eó}} 'salmon', Middle Welsh {{lang|wlm|ehawc}} 'salmon', Gaulish *esoks (borrowed into Latin as {{lang|la|esox}}); has been compared with Basque izokin{{citation|author-last=Trask|author-first=R. Larry|title=Etymological Dictionary of Basque|year=2008|publisher=University of Sussex|location=Falmer, UK|url=http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/lxwp23-08_edb.pdf|editor-last=Wheeler|editor-first=Max W.|page=236|access-date=17 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607202936/http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/lxwp23-08_edb.pdf|archive-date=7 June 2011}}
• Old Irish {{lang|sga|cuit}} 'piece', Middle Welsh {{lang|wlm|peth}} 'thing', Gaulish *pettia (borrowed into Latin as {{lang|la|petia}} and French as {{lang|fr|pièce}})
• Old Irish {{lang|sga|molt}} 'wether', Middle Welsh {{lang|wlm|mollt}} 'ram, wether', Gaulish Moltus (name) and *multon- (borrowed into French as {{lang|fr|mouton}}, from which to English as mutton)

The Old Irish word for "horn", adarc, is also listed as a potential Basque loanword; in Basque the word is adar.

• Atlantic Bronze Age
• Pre-Greek substrate
• Pre-Indo-European languages
• Prehistoric Ireland
• Mythological Cycle
• Germanic substrate hypothesis
• Atlantic (Semitic) languages
• Irish syntax

{{reflist|25em}}

{{Celtic languages}}

{{Eurasian languages}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goidelic Substrate Hypothesis}}

Category:Languages of Ireland

Category:Prehistoric Ireland

Category:Indo-European linguistics

Category:Celtic studies

Category:Pre-Indo-European languages

Category:Linguistic strata