rámae

Old Irish

FWOTD – 7 January 2023

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *rāmyos (“oar”), (compare Welsh rhaw, Cornish rêv, Middle Breton reuf (“shovel”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁- (“to row”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈr͈aːβ̃e/, [ˈr͈aːβ̃ɘ]

Noun

rámae m (genitive rámai)

1. oar
   • c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 36^a7

     cét rámae fuiri

     a hundred oars in it

2. spade
   • c. 700, Críth Gablach, published in Críth Gablach (1941, Dublin: Stationery Office), edited by Daniel Anthony Binchy, §40, line 532

     lorg rám(m)ai

     shaft of a spade

Inflection

Masculine io-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	rámae	rámaeL	rámaiL
Vocative	rámai	rámaeL	rámu
Accusative	rámaeN	rámaeL	rámuH
Genitive	rámaiL	rámaeL	rámaeN
Dative	rámuL	rámaib	rámaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: ráma
  • Irish: rámh, rámha
  • Manx: raue
  • Scottish Gaelic: ràmh

Mutation

Mutation of rámae

radical	lenition	nasalization
rámae also rrámae after a proclitic ending in a vowel	rámae pronounced with /r(ʲ)-/	unchanged

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 ráma, rám”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language