XPost: alt.usage.english, soc.cuture.irish

Thu, 6 Jun 2024 13:47:13 -0700: HenHanna <[email protected]>
scribeva:

On 6/3/2024 10:55 PM, Ruud Harmsen wrote:

Tue, 4 Jun 2024 10:55:20 +1000: Peter Moylan

In my own study of Irish I'm occasionally struck by a familiar-sounding
word. One of the first Irish words I learnt was cailín=girl, which
sounds just like English colleen.

Colleen was borrowed from the Irish:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colleen

cailín=girl, ---- is there a word [Cail] which means "Woman" ?

You can see it by clicking through in Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colleen#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cailín#Irish
From caile (“maid”) +? -ín (diminutive suffix).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caile#Irish
Unconfirmed but may be from Old Irish caile (“girl, serving-girl,
maid”). A 1768 Irish-English dictionary explains caile as Old Irish a
country woman, a marriageable girl, a young woman. The same and later dictionaries mention this as analogous to the Greek pulchra/pulcher
cal? (?a??), and the Hebrew word calla sponsa nurus which appears to
mean prospective daughter in law.

By 1780 the word caile is showing as meaning either Old Irish
strumpet, harlot or Old Irish young girl, queen and then appears far
more frequently alongside the neural connotions.

If the origin of the word is caile meaning girl, it survives within
the word gearrchaile
--
Ruud Harmsen, https://rudhar.com

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