Goidelic substrate hypothesis


The Goidelic substrate hypothesis refers to the hypothesized language or languages spoken in Ireland before the arrival of the Goidelic languages.

Hypothesis of non-Indo-European languages

, like the rest of northern Europe, after the retreat of the ice sheets c. 10,500 BC. Indo-European languages are usually thought to have been a much later arrival. Some scholars hypothesize that the Goidelic languages may have been brought by the Bell Beaker culture circa 2500 BC. This dating is supported by DNA analysis indicating large-scale Indo-European migration to Britain about that time. In contrast, other scholars argue for a much later date of arrival of Goidelic languages to Ireland based on linguistic evidence. Peter Schrijver has suggested that Irish was perhaps preceded by an earlier wave of Celtic-speaking colonists who were displaced by a later wave of proto-Irish speakers only in the 1st century AD, following a migration in the wake of the Roman conquest of Britain, with Irish and British Celtic languages only branching off from a common Insular Celtic language around that time.
Scholars have suggested:
  • that an older language or languages could have been replaced by the Insular Celtic languages; and
  • that words and grammatical constructs from the original language, or languages, may nevertheless persist as a substrate in the Celtic languages, especially in placenames and personal names.

    Suggested non-Indo-European words in Irish

proposes the following words, some of which are found only in Early Irish literature, as deriving from the substrate
  • bréife 'ring, loop'
  • cuifre/''cuipre 'kindness',
  • fafall/fubhal, One of the hazel trees at the well of Segais
  • lufe 'feminine',
  • slife 'broadening'
  • strophais 'straw';
He also puts forward the following place names, also from old Irish literature:
Gerry Smyth, in Space and the Irish Cultural Imagination, suggested that Dothar, the Old Irish name for the River Dodder, could be a substrate word.
Peter Schrijver submits the following words as deriving from the substrate:
  • partán 'crab'
  • Partraige,
  • pattu 'hare'
  • petta 'pet, lap-dog'
  • pell 'horse'
  • pít 'portion of food'
  • pluc ' mass'
  • prapp 'rapid'
  • gliomach 'lobster'
  • faochán 'periwinkle'
  • ciotóg 'left hand'
  • bradán 'salmon'
  • scadán 'herring'
Schrijver noted the numerousness of words relating to fishing. He suggested that the presence of unlenited stops among these fishing words may indicate that these words entered Irish as late as 500AD. In a further study he gives counter-arguments against some criticisms by Graham Isaac.
Ranko Matasović lists the following words
  • lacha 'duck'
  • sinnach 'fox'
  • luis 'rowan'
  • lon 'blackbird'
  • dega 'beetle'
  • ness 'stoat'.
He also points out that there are words of possibly or probably non-Indo-European origin in other Celtic languages as well; therefore, the substrate may not have been in contact with Primitive Irish but rather with Proto-Celtic. Examples of words found in more than one branch of Celtic but with no obvious cognates outside Celtic include:
  • Middle Irish ainder 'young woman', Middle Welsh anneir 'heifer', perhaps Gaulish anderon
  • Old Irish berr 'short', Middle Welsh byrr 'short', Gaulish Birrus ; possibly related to the birrus, a short cloak or hood
  • Old Irish bran 'raven', Middle Welsh bran 'raven', Gaulish Brano-, sometimes translated as 'crow'
  • Middle Irish brocc 'badger', Middle Welsh broch 'badger', Gaulish Broco-
  • Old Irish carpat ' chariot', Welsh cerbyd, Gaulish carpento-, Carbanto-
  • Old Irish eó 'salmon', Middle Welsh ehawc 'salmon', Gaulish *esoks ; has been compared with Basque izokin
  • Old Irish cuit 'piece', Middle Welsh peth 'thing', Gaulish *pettia
  • Old Irish molt 'wether', Middle Welsh mollt 'ram, wether', Gaulish Moltus and *multon-
The Old Irish word for "horn", adarc, is also listed as a potential Basque loanword; in Basque the word is adar''.