Re: NATLANG: Irish greeting

On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 04:44:23 +0100, Stephen Mulraney
<ataltanie@...> wrote:

>Stephen Mulraney wrote:
>> Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
>>
>>>> Spot on John! O means from
>>>>
>>>> -Duke
>>>
>>> The same o as in O Connell?
>>
>> It's always seemed like they might be the same thing to me.
>> I've seen 'Ó' in surnames (Or "O'" in anglicised forms) described
>> as "ancestor of", but it does look like a thinly-disguised preposition.
>>
>> OTOH, there is a bit of a twist: 'Ó' has a genitive form 'Ui', so that
>> you'd say "O'Connell" as "Ó Connall" (have I spelt that right? I'm not
>> sure - having a head cold always makes me rather dyslexic (!)), and
>> "O'Connell's dog" as "madra Ui Chonnaill". So perhaps they have different
>> sources.
>
>
>OK, I've just consulted Thurneysen (God love it), and they're different.
>The 'Ó' in surnames, meaning "grandson of" seems to be the same as Latin
>'avus', meaning 'grandfather' or 'ancestor'. I guess you could easily say
>the Irish 'Ó' means "whose grandfather/ancestor is" rather than "grandson
>of".
>
>The 'ó' meaning 'from' is cognate to the prefix in Latin 'auferre' 'to
>carry away' (and apparantly Old Prussian 'au-mu:snan', 'washing off').
>Surely it has some more obvious cognate though. What am I missing?
>
>s.
>
In Latin, "au" is a variant of "ab" when prefixed to "f", which can also
be "a:" or "abs". I believe this is related to Greek "apo", Sanskrit "apa",
German "ab", English "off" and "of", and probably others.

JSJ

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