The word for sister in Irish is deirfiúr /dʲɾʲəˈfˠuːɾˠ/, and it has always puzzled me why this word is so different from the words for sister in the other Gaelic languages: piuthar /pju.ər/ in Scottish Gaelic and shuyr /ʃuːr/ in Manx.
Yesterday I discovered that deirfiúr is in fact a combination of deirbh /dʲɾʲəv/ (true) and siúr /ʃuːɾˠ/ (sister). The word siúr originally meant sister in Old Irish, but came to mean kinswoman. To distinguish sisters from other female relations, deirb (true) was added to it, so the Old Irish word for sister was derbṡiur, which eventually became the Modern Irish deirfiúr – the s at the beginning of siur became f after mo (my), do (your) and a (his), and this mutation became fixed.
In Scottish Gaelic the word for sister came from Old Irish as fiur, which became piur and eventually piuthar.
The Old Irish word siur (sister) comes from the Proto-Celtic *swesūr, from the Proto-Indo-European *swésōr, which is the root for the word for sister in many European languages.
The Irish word for brother, deartháir /dʲɾʲəˈhaːɾʲ/, has a similar history: it is a combination of deirbh (true) and bráthair (brother) and used to be written dearbh-bhráthair or dearbhráthair. It comes from the Old Irish derbráthair, from the Proto-Celtic *brātīr, from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr. In Modern Irish bráthair means brother as in a male member of a religious community or monk. In Old Irish it meant brother, kinsman or cousin.
Sources: Blas na Gàidhlig: The Practical Guide to Scottish Gaelic Pronunciation, by Michael Bauer
and Wiktionary
What I find interesting is that both the ‘s’ and the ‘w’ of ‘*swesor survive, ‘s’ in the ‘sh’ of Manx shuyr and ‘w’ as the ‘p’ in Gaidhlig piuthar and the ‘f’ of deirfiur – but nowhere do they survive together.
Fascinating! Gura maith ‘ad as so!
@joe mock: I wouldn’t say that the ‘p’ in piuthar descends from ‘w’ in *swesor. Assuming the evolution is described correctly here, it comes from ‘f’ in ‘fiur’, which is a result of mutation of the original ‘s’. On the other hand, the original ‘w’ could have contributed to ‘u’ in both Manx and Scottish versions.
Are there other instances of s leniting to f/p?
Interesting because even today in totally different cultures we refer to those who are ‘with’ us, part of our group or cause, as our “brothers” and “sisters”.
Huh.
Cheers,
Andrew
“Lenition” from s to f seems uncommon and I was unable to find other examples, in Irish nor in other languages. Specifically in “deirfiúr” I could hypothesize that first, siúr underwent the ordinary lenition to *shiúr [hu:r], leading to deirbhshiúr [dervhu:r] and then the consonant cluster [vh] by voicedness assimilation changed to [fh] and ultimately to [f]. Then the word, still considered compound, would be in Scotland reanalysed as “[der] + [f:ur]” which, stripped off the first part and lenition removed, would lead to the supposedly original [pu:r].
But this is, unfortunately, only my speculation.
prase – you’re right about the process of change from s to f – I glossed over some of the details. The lenited form shiúr was re-analyised as being fhiúr, which is also pronounced [hu:r], and de-lenited to become fiúr. In Scottish Gaelic that form was thought to be the lenited form phiúr, which was de-leninted to piúr, and eventually became piuthar.
Plausible, though it depends on ‘fh’ having been pronounced ‘h’ at some point – I suppose ‘fhuair’ would suggest that it was. Still, there must have been some distinction between ‘fh’ and ‘sh’ since the former disappeared and the latter remains. In any event, I’d be interested in seeing how i.e. *sw- developped in other words.
I don’t think that it needs “fh” being pronounced as [h]. My hypothesis is that “bhsh”, pronounced [vh] turns into [fh] (not the Irish digraph “fh” but the sequence of phonemes [f] and [h]), which turns to [f] which is then reanalysed as “ph”, i.e. lenited [p].
Simplification of consonant clusters on morpheme boundaries is not uncommon in Irish, cf. “tiocfaidh” where “cf” is pronounced [k] instead of orthographical [kf]. Unfortunately I can’t think of “bhsh” or “bhth” pronounced as [f] (or pronounced in whatever way, for that matter) – but that’s hardly surprising given my almost zero knowledge of Irish.
I’m glad I found this explanation of the etymology of deirfiùr. It makes much more sense than any other explanation I have seen.
What makes this so clear to me is that it makes sense in the context of this word in other Celtic languages. I take it that, in the case of Irish, it took on the meaning of ANY female relative. Hence, the addition of another syllable to make clear that you’re referring to “my SISTER sister”.
I assume that it’s the same for the word in Irish for “brother”, right? (And that it means “my BROTHER brother”?)
Sorry if my comment has added to any of the confusion. Just see the original explanation, on this website, at the top of this page. And thank you for making it much clearer to me, (even if I don’t put it as well as you have!)
Thanks, again.
Oh, yes…I just reread this, and it answered the question at the end of my previous comment. The spelling—deartháir—is what threw me off.
Thanks, again. I’m keeping this website in mind, should I follow through on learning any more words in Irish. I’m feeling like maybe I should quit while I’m ahead, but I haven’t learned anything outside of English before, except for French, from which I’ve been able to acquaint myself with some of the other Romance languages.
The Celtic languages are another kettle of fish! If I continue with them, then I will start with Irish (and worry about whether it’s a p-or a q-Celtic language later. Language first; etymologies later!)
Please forgive my ignorance of both. And thanks again!