Béarlachas

Present-day Irish has numerous loanwords from English. The native term for these is (), from , the Irish word for the English language. It is a result of language contact and bilingualism within a society where there is a dominant, superstrate language (in this case, English) and a minority substrate language with few or no monolingual speakers and a perceived "lesser" status (in this case, Irish).

Types

Anglicisms exists in many forms, from the direct translation of English phrases to the common form of creating verbal nouns from English words by adding the suffix (this is also used to form verbs from native roots, such as , "cross over", from "across", (Connacht, Ulster) "understanding" (Munster ), from "understand", and so on). ("I'm running towards the shop") is an anglicism, as "runáil" is a verb created from the English word "run" with the Irish suffix attached; the traditional Irish for this would be .

Calquing also occurs; it is called in Irish and describes when an English phrase is literally translated into Irish, even though an equivalent Irish phrase already exists. An example of this is "Moilligh síos" ("slow down" – "delay" + "downwards", calqued from English), instead of the more traditional ("reduce your velocity"), or simply ("Slow down!").

Semantic loaning occurs too with the meaning of some terms being broadened to match English. An example is ''oráiste'', originally meaning the orange fruit but also being used to describe to the colour.

Old borrowings

Many words that are commonly thought by "purists" to be anglicisms have been a part of the Irish language for a long time, and have become "nativised". At the same time, certain words that are sometimes assumed to be from English are actually from Norse or Norman French, and as such are not true anglicisms. For example:

* : "list" ()
* : "aim" (; where is considered by some to be the 'native' Irish word)
* , he - form considered to be uneducated dialect "verse" ( ; the Irish word is )
* : "chair" (both words derive from Latin )
* : "skirt" (both words are from Norse )
* : "coat" (both words are from Anglo-Norman '' cotte'')
*: "fork" (both from Latin )
*: " plate" (both from Old French , from Medieval Latin )
*: "group" (both from French )
* : "chance" (both from Old French )
* : "candle" (both ultimately from Latin )
* : "paper" (; both words derive from Old French )

Other words are 'early anglicisms', having entered the language in the 18th and 19th centuries:
* : "price" (also possibly from Norman French , )
* : "doubt" (the Irish words are: , )

The word may have been borrowed directly from English "paint" or from Old French . The verb ("to paint") appears in some Old Irish works.

Other words are actually Celtic roots that have entered English:
*: "car" (Old Irish , "wagon", from Proto-Celtic *''karros'')
*: "cross" (the Irish word is from Latin ; the English form with -''s'' at the end may be a borrowing directly from Old Irish)
*: "clock" (Old Irish , Latin , possibly of Celtic derivation)
*: "leather" (Old Irish , Old English ; both words derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *''létrom'')
*: " pet (animal)" (entered English from Scottish Gaelic, from Middle Irish ; possibly from French , "small," or Brittonic *''petti''-, "thing, piece")
* : "iron" (both words ultimately derive from Proto-Celtic *''īsarnom'', "iron")

False cognates

* The word ("road, route"), most commonly seen in (iron road, i.e. railway) is actually derived from Old Irish (from , "great path", or , "distance, length") and is not a borrowing of English ''road'', although it may have been influenced by the Old English root ("riding").
* , the Irish word for "oven", is not derived from the English; it comes from Middle Irish ("cooking-vessel, pan"), from Celtic root *''aginâ'' ("vessel"). English ''oven'' is from Old English , from Proto-Germanic .
* (a term used before names of days of the week, as in , "Friday"), is a false cognate: it derives from Latin , which is from Proto-Italic *''djēm'', PIE *''dyḗws'' ("heaven"), while English "day" is from Old English , from Proto-Germanic .
* ("world") is derived from a Celtic root *''dubnos'', meaning "deep"; it is not related to English ''domain'', which is ultimately from Latin , "house".

Modern concepts

Words used for foreign inventions, imports, and so on, where a native Irish word does not exist, are often a macaronic import as well. These are strictly speaking not anglicisms, but examples of loans from foreign languages. In some cases an Irish word has been developed, and in others it has not. This has been a characteristic of word development in the language for as long as written records exist, and is not limited to anglicisms. In some cases the original Irish word is no longer known, or has a different meaning within the same semantic field:

Older forms include words such as:
* (from Norse ), in place of (Irish), meaning "lord, earl"
* (from Old Norse), in place of (Irish), meaning "boat"

Variation

In some cases, the foreign loan has an official pronunciation in Irish, and a colloquial one based on English; the colloquial form is an anglicism, while the official form is a Gaelicisation of the foreign word:

* ( or ) "cent"
* ( or ) "bus"
* ( or , also ) "status"

The most striking forms of anglicisms, however, are the names of the letters of the alphabet—the vast majority of which are normally said in the English way, except for —as well as the use of words such as ("well"), ("no"), ("just"), and ("all right" – for ). Such words are used with their English syntax in Irish:

*
** Well, I'll just wait here, you know, till you come back.
*
** Are you all right there, lad? - No, I'm not all right at all.

Letters that are not traditionally used in Irish orthography occur (such as , as well as at the beginning of words), though in older English loans the foreign sounds have been gaelicised:

* : job (beside from French, from Latin)
* , : zoo (where already exists)
* w > bh / v: , "strolling, walking"

Most words that begin with in the language are also foreign loans, as did not exist in prehistoric or early Old Irish (such as "kiss" (Old Welsh , Latin "peace"), (Latin "sin").

Similar phenomenon in Scottish Gaelic

The same concept also exists within Scottish Gaelic, in which language it is referred to as . Some examples include:
* , "story" (instead of )
* , "game" (instead of )
* , "teacher" (instead of the older )
* , "nurse" (instead of )

References

{{Irish linguistics

Macaronic forms of English
Language contact