Re: OT: Anthroponymics

On Wed, 2005-10-19 at 08:54, Elliott Lash wrote:
> Carsten Becker wrote:
>
> > BTW, how were Irish and Scottish women called
> > if "O'" and "Mac" mean "son of"?
>
>  First of all "o" means "grandson of" and is almost
> exclusively for Irish names (from what I've seen). The
> equivalent for women is "ni". (Both of which have long
> vowels). Mac means "son of" and the equivalent for
> females is "nic".   "Ni" is a short form of "Inion Ui"
> "daughter of the grandson of", and "nic" is a short
> form of "inion mhic" "daughter of the son of"
Pardon my pedanticism, but per the _Foclo'ir Gaeilge-Be'arla_ ((c)
Rialtas na hE'ireann, 1977), "mac" (etc.) just means "son" (etc).  The
"of" in the English translation comes from the genetive case of the
following name.


cian@cox-internet.com
http://crlh.tzo.org/~cian/CR/conlang/

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