ómun

Old Irish

Alternative forms

omun, homun (with short vowel)

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *oβnus. The ó is unexpected, since fricative-induced compensatory lengthening did not occur, as no fricative was deleted. Thurneysen explained the long ó as being transferred from the synonym úath (“fear”) before that word underwent diphthongization.^[1] Forms with the expected short vowel like omun are also attested and are completely interchangeable with the long-vowel forms, even within a single Old Irish speaker's writings.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [ˈo(ː)β̃un]

Noun

ómun m

fear
- c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 59^a18
  .i. ómun epertae nad·rabae remdéicsiu Dǽ dim-so intan do·rata form inna fochaidi.
  i.e. fear of saying that there was no providence of God for me, when the tribulations were inflicted upon me.
- c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 128^d7
  .i. ermitiu feid homno Dǽ
  i.e. reverence of the fear of God (explaining Latin reverentia (“reverence”))

Inflection

Masculine u-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ómun	ómun^L	ómnae
Vocative	ómun	ómun^L	ómnu
Accusative	ómun^N	ómun^L	ómnu
Genitive	ómno^H, ómna^H	ómno, ómna	ómnae^N
Dative	ómun^L	ómnaib	ómnaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: ^H = triggers aspiration ^L = triggers lenition ^N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

Middle Irish: úaman, oman
- Irish: uamhan
- Scottish Gaelic: uabhann

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
ómun	unchanged	n-ómun
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

^ Thurneysen, Rudolf (1940, reprinted 2017) D. A. Binchy and Osborn Bergin, transl., A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, →ISBN, § 61