Old Irish

edit

Etymology

edit

From ess- +‎ lenaid (to stick, cling), the idea being that filth sticks to whatever it is making dirty.[1]

Pronunciation

edit

Verb

edit

as·lena (verbal noun éillned)

  1. to pollute, defile
    • 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. 74c3
      .i. lasse no·llochtaigtis .i. no·lochtaigtis ⁊ nu·pectaigtis ⁊ as·lentis a menma[e] fadesin tri a[dé]itched ⁊ ingabail inna mbriathar ṅdiut nu·radin-se.
      when they used to commit offences; i.e. they used to commit offences, commit sins, and defile their own minds through the detesting and reproach of the simple words I used to say.
    • c. 900, Sanas Cormaic, from the Yellow Book of Lecan, Corm. Y 1082
      It hé a chúis [aicsin, La.] ara·nglanaiter .i. arná·héilnet a cairpthiu oc dal [dul, La.] for caí ⁊ arná·huilled echradæ [huallnet echraide, La.] oc techt do oenach [oenuch, La.].
      These are the causes due to which they are cleaned, i.e. for chariots to not dirty themselves while going on a visit, and for horses to not dirty themselves while traveling to a fair.

Inflection

edit

Descendants

edit
  • Middle Irish: éilnigid

Mutation

edit
Old Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Nasalization
as·lena unchanged unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

edit
  1. ^ Pedersen, Holger (1913) Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen (in German), volume II, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, →ISBN, page 566

Further reading

edit