A chàirdean,

If we had a completely free hand at identifying and supplying one of
the sisters with a name that actually indicated the main
characteristic of those strings, what would it be?

Their length would not be equal, their tension would not be uniquely
the similar, neither would their gauge. There would be nothing to
distuingish the strings themselves from other strings unless the
metal used to string the harp changed at that point and only at that
point. We would then require a name that indicated dissimilarity.

Of course, the most striking feature of the strings which makes them
co-identical is their pitch, either that the two pitches are the
same, or that they constitute a hurdle in the scale of the gamut by
not being situated at the top or the bottom of the gamut. So what
would we call one of the sisters to indicate these ideas?

The first word that comes to my mind with regard to two pitches being
the same is 'unison'. For this one would need a word such
as 'comguth' (joint sound/voice), 'coicetal' (joint singing)
or 'comgul' (joint crying).

The tendency for Gaelic to use the prefix comh- can be seen here.
I'll present here the longest shortlist I've ever made of words from
the DIL representing sound. I call it a shortlist because it
excludes a lot of compounds that I don't find very useful at the
moment.

airsaire béicced blà bláed blór blosc brosc broscur bres breisim bró
búirid cada gadán? caí cétal cimbal (voice of bells) clois (dative)
cobordon comairc cuirrinecht deilm díscad díscairnech gíscánach dord
dresacht dresmaidm (see 'maidm toraind') dursan éigme engach faít
fáeid fed fénedach fidrén fogur fogroll fothronn fothromm fúaimm
fúamaige? fuide gáir gairm con-gáir geóin gleo glaedh gloimm glór
glórach glóraige glúaire gní godra grafand gredan griccas grindegur
grith gul guth íacht ilach imthoram lógairecht masladach mol mongar
moth? ór oar rámtéan rannán réim rintach rúamgal rucht ruchtlad
scairt scem scol scréch screit sesilbi sestán sían sitsait súasan
tairbrech tesgal toirm torman torann toirnech toirnéis torann trost
úall núall comnúall donàl uchtach

Ancient Gaelic words for vocal sound which might relate to our word
Kaulai/Cawlee are blá/bláed (shout, cry) and ulach/ilach (shout,
cry), úall/úallach (howling, wailing).

It's easy to imagine a form like coblach deriving from *con-bláedach
(comhbhlaodhach) or *con-ulach (cobhulach). One can see a reduced
form of the word 'bledech' (whale) in 'blaoch' and a reduced form of
the word 'comhlaoch' (comrade) in 'comhlach'.

Beannachdan,



Alasdair














--- In clairseach@..., "sanger_keith"
<sanger_keith@...> wrote:
>
> An interesting discourse Alasdair, what was the earliest date of
the
> manuscript of the text? Toirm is also sometimes used in later verse
> in relation to the bagpipes but it would seem to be applied to the
> drones.
>
> Your mention of the survival of the word 'blaodhach' in Welsh and
> Scots Gaelic is very topical given the current Welsh season on
> Simon's site and the interest in the horsehair strung harp. Whether
> correct or not, a recent new look at the period from 789 to 1070
> published last year, (From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070, by Alex
> Woolf), has a refreshing take on the whole question of the
> relationship of Irish and Scots Gaelic and modern Welsh. Boiled
down
> to its essentials, he advances the case that when early Welsh and
> Gaelic split from their common route, the version spoken in what is
> now Wales underwent faster and wider changes due to its proximity
to
> Roman Latin.
>
> The impact of Larin on the Welsh language is apparently generally
> accepted. But Mr Woolf advances the intriguing suggestion that
other
> early Welsh speaking areas like for example the 'Picts' continued
> with a form that was far closer to the common root with Gaelic and
> that made for an easier assimilation of the languages spoken by the
> Scottish Gaels and the Picts. Staying in context of your
observation
> and the harp it is of course intersting to note how the
word 'Ceard',
> ( in all its linguistic forms), specifically came to be used of a
> harper in Wales while it retained it's older form of just an expert
> craftsman in Gaelic, before settling down into its modern meaning
of
> a 'fine' or precious metal smith and eventually a tinsmith or
tinker.
>
> Staying with a sort of Welsh theme and the possible impact of cross
> fertilisation of harp music between Ireland and Wales, I was
thinking
> about a comment I made at the Irish Harp School at Kilkenny this
> year. It concerned the fact that the name 'Walsh' is currently
about
> the fourth most common name in Ireland today. Sitting dreaming on a
> train, (and I have no end of praise for the trains between Kilkenny
> and Dublin, a very civilised experience), it suddenly occurred to
me
> that no Gaelic speaking inhabitant of Ireland or Scotland would
have
> referred to someone from Wales as 'Walsh'. They would have used the
> Gaelic 'Cuimridh' with the 'nach' end form, or
> alternatively 'Breathnach' or Briton.
>
> So how and where did all those Walsh's come from? Well there does
> seem to be a simple explanation which certainly opens a new avenue
on
> the harping links between the two countries. Firstly, the name
Walsh
> or its modern form Welsh is derived of course from Wales, but that
> was in fact an Anglo Saxon term based on the Germanic word 'Wal'
> meaning 'Foreign' and was used by the incoming Anglo Saxons to
> describe the indigenous inhabitants of Briton. It is the same
element
> that can be seen in the name of the Walnut, (or foreign nut), and
the
> Scottish surname Wallace, presumably given to the native
inhabitants
> of that part of southern Scotland by the Northumbrians as they
> pressed northwards.
>
> Following the Norman conquest of most of England it would seem a
> reasonable speculation that the Normans adopted the Anglo Saxon
name
> for the inhabitants of 'Wales' and that when the by then Norman
Welsh
> lords who had established themselves in Wales, in turn became part
of
> the early Norman incursion into Ireland, it was the indigenous
> followers from their Welsh estates who escribed by their Norman
lords
> as 'Walsh' became the ancestors of their modern Irish namesakes.
>
> I suppose it would be theoretically possible to compute the
relative
> proportions of people named Walsh against the proportion of the
total
> Irish population bearing the names of the original Norman Welsh
lords
> and estimate the relative numbers of the native Welsh followers
> brought with them to Ireland by the Normans, anybody got the time
or
> inclination?
>
> Best wishes
>
> Keith
>