Errrr, is this a statement of fact, or an assertion? Even if the two words have related etymological roots, everything seems to point to ‘craic’ coming from Irish usage, including a presence in the Irish language.
As is any other language.
Actually, everything seems to point to “craic” coming from English or Scots. “Crack” meaning “chat, news, boasting” dates back to the 1400s, while “craic” doesn’t show up in wide usage until the 1980s, and wasn’t in Dineen’s 1927 Irish-English dictionary. As for the word being found in modern Irish, borrowings can go the other way, too.
Damn straight, don’t ask the old guy with the missing teeth and the border collie directions to your Great Aunt’s house when you are in Rosmuck. That’s one of the many lessons I’ve learned in my life.
Beg pardon? Isn’t the government of Ireland using the term Gaelic?
At that point, you’ve already threatened to breach the boundary between dialect and language. If anyone had a good etymology for ‘craic’, I’d like to see it.
In the English language, it’s called Irish…in the Irish language, it’s called mumble mumble…In any case, the comment was about Irish people, who most certainly call the language Irish.
Er, huh?
There’s a perfectly good etymology for “craic”. It comes from the Scots and English word “crack”.
Irish Gaelic == Gaeilge.
Scots Gaelic == Gàidhlig
Manx Gaelic == Gaelg or Gailck.
Do tell. I posted on the strength of Pookah’s statement
I’ll let you two settle it between yourselves.
I thought the government was composed of people, but I could be wrong. 
Just kidding, of course.
And they most certainly call it Gaelic too, IIRC from my short tenure on that beautiful isle. So to assert that Irish people actually don’t refer to the language as Gaelic is a positive assertion, one for which I would like to see a cite. That’s pretty much what I was asking.
I noticed a semantic parallel between Irish craic ‘chat’ etc. and Uzbek gap, which originally meant speech, talk, chat, but has become an all-purpose word meaning ‘issue’, ‘item’, ‘problem’, ‘what’s happening’, ‘thing’, etc. A common Uzbek greeting: nima gaplar ‘what’s up?’ (literally “what are the talks?”) I usually translate gap as “issue.”
The mixing of populations might have been more thorough, but there are actually few words of celt origin in the french language (I googled but was unable to find any precise info or figure. Maybe I should have bought this etymology book the other day). So these words imported into english must have been an exception amongst exceptions.
Words of non-Goidelic Celtic origin in English
I took these from etymologies in the American Heritage Dictionary. A lot of the words are simply listed as “Celtic” with no further identification. These would be either Insular Celtic like Brythonic or Gaelic, or Continental Celtic that got into Latin. Many of those words may date from the period when Northern Italy was Celtic-speaking (Cisalpine Gaul). How many of the Gaulish words can you recognize in modern French, clairobscur?
“Celtic”
back, bile, billet, billon, bray, brocade, broccoli, broché, brochet, brochure, brock, brocket, carpenter, crag, currach, drab, frown, gob, goblet, gouge, gravel, hog, javelin, lees, limber, mine, mineral, pot, sapsago, scourge, socket, swage, talus, ton, trap, trappings, tun, valet, varlet, vassal, vavasor, walnut.
Gaulish
alewife, andiron, arpent, beak, bitumen, bran, briar, brusque, budget, bulge, bushel, cade, car, career, cargo, caricature, carry, carriage, cay, charge, chariot, druid, garter, imbroglio, league, lozenge, omasum, quay, rhodora, ruche, tan, tawny, tench, truant.
Welsh
bard, bogie, bogle, boogyman, bugbear, cist, coracle, corgi, cromlech, crowd, eisteddfod, flannel, flummery, gull, kibe, pendragon, penguin, tor.
Breton
bijou, coble, darn, dolmen, mavis, menhir.
Cornish
brill, bugaboo, porbeagle, vug, wrasse.
Welsh, Breton, and Cornish are the three Brythonic languages descended from ancient British. Gaulish was also P-Celtic like Brythonic, while the Goidelic languages are Q-Celtic, e.g. Irish cúig vs. Welsh pump ‘5’.
I believe English dialectal brock ‘badger’ is one of the rare words borrowed into English directly from ancient British. “Crag” could be from either Scots Gaelic or Welsh.
We will traveling to northern Georgia soon and my siter loves all things Irish. Can you tell me what and were this is?
Thanks
clairobscur writes:
> The mixing of populations might have been more thorough, but there are
> actually few words of celt origin in the french language (I googled but was
> unable to find any precise info or figure. Maybe I should have bought this
> etymology book the other day). So these words imported into english must
> have been an exception amongst exceptions.
Well, no, actually. The lists I’ve seen of English words of (ultimately) Celtic origin showed that there are a lot of words in English derived from Gaulish via French. These words tended to be noticeably more commonly used in English than the words that came into English directly from Irish, Welsh, etc. Indeed, a lot of the words that came into English directly from Irish, Welsh, etc. are words for things that are obviously “Celtic” things: brogue, claymore, leprechaun, shamrock, plaid, whiskey, corgi, tor, etc. and are not really words for “common” objects. The English words of Celtic origin that came via Franch tend to be much more common words. I think you underestimate the number of French words of Celtic origin.
Is “back” really from Gaelic? All the sources I can find indicate it’s from Anglo-Saxon (see here, for example.)
Is it really the “great majority”? I thought it was about 50-50 Anglo-Saxon or Germanic vs. French and/or Latin.
Shrug.
Max power probably has it right and correct. I’m just a blow-in here anyway.
Mind you. I think “wata” and “baha” are pretty close, I just kind of “transliterated” what I thought I heard and I’m not sure it’s that exact a science. Perhaps the person I spoke to had a lisp. The amount of times I have had to deal with German tourist wanted to know the correct* way to pronounce bodhran because they have heard conflicting information.
*It’s correctly pronounced “drum”. If we’re being nice.
Sort of on the original topic. Seosamh mentions the Irish diminuitive “-een” or “-in”. At least in this part of Ireland that will also tend to get tacked after English words to make English-Irish hybrids. Examples are a “drapeen”, a small drop (usually of the aforementioned whiskey. And usually not so small) or lovin (“lovey” , a term of endearment). But it can be stuck after just about anything. Recently I heard two seventy-plus ladies refer to themselves as “girleens”.
From wiki :
The language is sometimes referred to in English as Gaelic (IPA: /ˈgeɪlɪk/), or Irish Gaelic. or Erse. This has generally been the common name for the language in the Irish diaspora. Within Ireland proper, it has inevitably acquired political significance. Referring to the language as “Gaelic” suggests that the language is as distant and unrelated to modern Irish life as the civilization of the ancient Gaels.
Calling it Irish, on the hand, indicates that it is and should be the proper national language of the Irish people, and this is the generally accepted term among scholars and in the Irish Constitution.
I went to school in Ireland for 14 years and I learned ‘Irish’ not Gaelic. The only place I see it called ‘Gaelic’ is on the SDMB.
It was at the Chateau Elan by Braselton.
Irish peasant cooking at investment banker prices.