tengae

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *tangʷāss (compare Welsh tafod), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue, speech, language”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtʲeŋɡe/

Noun

tengae f (genitive tengad, nominative plural tengaid)

1. tongue
   • 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. 31^b23

     in bélrai .i. is and atá gním tengad isind huiliu labramar-ni

     of speech, i.e. the action of the tongue is in all that we say

2. language

Inflection

Feminine t-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	tengae	tengaidL, tengae	tengaid
Vocative	tengae	tengaidL, tengae	tengtha
Accusative	tengaidN	tengaidL, tengae	tengtha
Genitive	tengad	tengad	tengadN
Dative	tengaidL, teng(a)	tengthaib	tengthaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Irish: teanga
• Manx: çhengey
• Scottish Gaelic: teanga

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
tengae	thengae	tengae pronounced with /d(ʲ)-/
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

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