The word in Irish or in

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

means "health." As a drinking toast it is commonly in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

and the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

, though also increasingly in other countries within the whisky community.

Variations

is the basic form in Irish. Variations of this toast include "good health" in Irish ( being the lenited form of "good"). In Irish, the response to is , which translates "to your health as well". The basic

equivalent is , with the same meaning, to which the normal response is "your good health". There are other variations such as: * "on your health!" with the response "health at yourself!" * "great health" which is also used as a Jacobite toast with the alternative meaning of "health to Marion", Marion () being a Jacobite code name for Prince Charles Edward Stuart. The Manx Gaelic form is or . Alternatively, "healthy body" is also used in Manx.

Etymology

The word is an

abstract noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example ...

derived from the

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The ...

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

"whole, healthy" plus the Old Irish suffix , resulting in "health" and eventually Middle Irish . The root is derived from the Indo-European root ''*slā-'' "advantageous" and linked to words like German "blessed" and the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

"health". Pokorny, J. Online Editio
Indo-european.nl
retrieved 8 January 2010 In some modern

Romance language The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

s, words descended from the Latin word (such as in Italian, in Catalan and Romanian, in Spanish) are similarly used as a toast. (However, in Romanian, in Occitan and in French are from Latin "health.")

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slainte Irish words and phrases Scottish Gaelic language Drinking culture Etiquette

Variations

Etymology

See also

References