Talk:bróc

This page has the Gaeilge (Irish) and Gaelic (Scottish) word broc (which can mean "greaves, leggings, (long) hose, breeches" ("O'Mulconry's Glossary", edited by Whitley Stokes, 1898) and uses the short 'o' sound, with bróc (long 'o') that may provide the origin for bróg, meaning boot or shoe.

Pronunciation of Irish is important to grasp when drafting these. — This unsigned comment was added by JPatrickMalone (talk • contribs) at 02:21, 12 Oct 2021 (UTC).

@JPatrickMalone, note that the entry currently on the bróc page is for w:Old Irish, which is broadly regarded as having evolved into w:Middle Irish some time around 900.

For the short-"o" version in the modern language, you may want to view the Irish broc entry.

Also, please remember to sign your posts, by adding ~~~~ at the end. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │⟨sup⟩Tala við mig⟨/sup⟩ 03:56, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

All lovely - does not change the point raised. The entry is not entirely correct because of the fadas used. Stapelton was the one that tried to Latinize the language by moving away from the Gaeilge script, attempting to simplify spellings and rely on the Roman letters in 1639. This approach did not become standard until the 20th century. If you want to claim you are relying on Old Irish, you'll have to switch to using different orthography - Gaeilge, which still made the same use of fadas over the 'o' if relying on modern typography.

So, let's be academic for a moment. Yes?

The challenge with Old Irish (Early Old Irish - 600 CE to the conclusion of Classical Old Irish in 1100 CE) forced the Irish scribes to make due with 18 letters to create 66 phonemes - approximately 22 more than English). The Old Irish vowel system is actually rather typical. There are five vowels, plus schwa, and phonemic length: /i i: e e: a a: o o: u u: ə/. It's likely that there were two varieties of long front mid-vowels, but we'll pass over that detail.

How are our diphthongs looking? It varies by time period, but, try: /ai̯ oi̯ ui̯ au̯ ou̯ a:u̯ o:u̯ eu̯ e:u̯ iu̯ i:u̯ ia̯ ua̯/ on for size (based on Stifter's grammar). Old Irish was very permissive of hiatus. Modern Irish has collapsed this, but it's retained in Gaelic. From Pokorny's grammar, I list the allowed hiatus combinations: /o.a o:.a o:.a: o.a: i.a i:.a i.a: i:.a: i.e i:.e i:.e: i.e: i.o i:.o i:.o: i.o:/ and "e: o: or u: (when from an u diphthong or old Celtic a, a:, o + u) + any vowel". Very permissive. Very very permissive. We're going to use five graphemes and a fada (the acute accent mark). We're also going to mark the palatal quality of a consonant based on the adjacent vowel.

Monographs of Monophthongs:

⟨a e i o u⟩ /a e i o u/

⟨á é í ó ú⟩ /a: e: i: o: u:/

A consonant following a front vowel, /i i: e e:/, was considered as palatalised.

Digraphs of Monophthongs:

The palatal quality of the consonant is indicated by the adjacent vowel. This poses a problem for words like /o:rʲ/ because you want to juxtapose /o:/ and /rʲ/, but need to indicate that the ⟨r⟩ is actually /rʲ/. The solution is to insert 'silent' vowels.

The most common of these was ⟨i⟩. Consider: ⟨ór⟩ /o:r/ and ⟨óir⟩ /o:rʲ/, ⟨ben⟩ /bʲen/ and ⟨bein⟩ /bʲenʲ/. Also note the seemingly superfluous additions like ⟨magen⟩ /maɣʲən/ and ⟨maigen⟩ for /maɣʲən/ which begin to resemble the modern spelling rule caol le caol, leathan le leathan which calls for front vowels to flank palatalised consonants. This insertion of ⟨i⟩ results in the following digraphs for monophthongs and palatalised consonants: /aCʲ eCʲ oCʲ uCʲ a:Cʲ e:Cʲ o:Cʲ u:Cʲ/ ⟨aiCʲ eiCʲ oiCʲ uiCʲ áiCʲ éiCʲ óiCʲ úiCʲ⟩. Remember, these aren't diphthongs. The story of ⟨i⟩ gets more complicated. It doesn't always indicate palatalisation, especially in monosyllables: ⟨mind⟩ is both /mʲiNd/ or /mʲiNʲdʲ/. Modern Irish has inserted an ⟨o⟩ to make things clearer: OIr ⟨mind⟩ is ModIr ⟨mionn⟩. Of course.

What about at the end of a word? Well, there you have your choice. The caol le caol, leathan le leathan flanking rule hasn't taken hold, so a word final ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩ doesn't palatalise it's preceding consonant. Happily, an ⟨a⟩ is sometimes inserted to remind us of this. You don't pronounce the ⟨a⟩. That would be silly. ⟨dalte⟩ ⟨daltae⟩ are both /daLte/. To indicate a final back vowel after a palatalised consonant, ⟨iu ea eo⟩ was used for word final /u a o/.

The Reduced Vowel (ə):

Like in modern Irish, non-stressed vowels reduced to ə. The orthographic choice depended on which of the surrounding consonants you wanted to palatalise:

⟨CaC⟩ /CəC/

⟨CaiC CiC⟩ /CəCʲ/

⟨CeC⟩ /CʲəC/

⟨CiC⟩ /CʲəCʲ/

These guidelines were ignored if etymology was considered to be important. They were also ignored around labial sounds. Instead of reducing to /ə/, /u/ sometimes stayed in a series of complications into which I won't delve at this juncture.

Diphthongs:

Here are the standardised conventions. Which one is used is ... sort of random:

/oi̯/ ⟨oí óe⟩

/ai̯/ ⟨aí áe⟩

/ui̯/ ⟨uí⟩

/o:u̯/ ⟨óu⟩

/a:u̯/ ⟨áu áo⟩

/e:u̯/ ⟨éo éu⟩

/i:u̯/ ⟨íu⟩

/ia̯/ ⟨ía⟩

/ua̯/ ⟨úa⟩

Everything else is in hiatus. Everything. As in Latin, many scholarly transcriptions mark this with a trema.

The promised ⟨h⟩'s:

The short story is that, because of imported typewriters, the ⟨h⟩ version won. Thus, modern Irish (and Gaelic) use Ch to mark the lenited counterpart of a consonant C. Well, most of the time. The vowel-flanking rule is still in effect for indicating palatalisation.

Why ⟨h⟩ at all? Why not ⟨q⟩? A good question without a good answer. Personally, I think it might have something to do with an intuition regarding aspiration and spirantisation.

So, here's a sample text of Old Irish with transcription (copied from Stifter's book and hastily standardised to IPA-ish) of the opening lines of Scéla Mucce Meic Dathó:

Boí rí amrae for Laignib, Mac Dathó a ainm. Boí cú occo. Imdíched in cú Laigniu uili. Ailbe ainm in chon, ocus ba lán Ériu dia airdircus in chon."

/boi̯ rʲi: aṽre for Laɣʲnʲəvʲ, mak daθo: a aNʲmʲ. boi̯ ku: ogo. imʲdi:xʲəð in ku: Laɣʲnʲu hulʲi. alʲvʲe aNʲmʲ iN xon, ogus ba La:n e:rʲu dʲiä arʲðʲəRʲkʲus in xon/

Right now, this page states it focuses on bróc when the attempts at etymology are clearly aligned to broc - both by pronunication and definition. Then, going further down the page, broc is used, and then more bróc. They are not mere synonyms - this is simply either misunderstanding, a failure to pay attention or a typo. Either way, it requires correction if the intention is to present something accurate.

To ensure you follow the attempts you claim, please see the following web site focused on an extremely simplified set of rules for "Old Irish Spelling and Pronunciation". I have already provided the same rules in prior converstaion, but it seems this may be of further benefit:

https://www3.smo.uhi.ac.uk/sengoidelc/donncha/labhairt.html#:~:text=Old%20Irish%20had%20five%20short,%C3%B3e%2C%20o%C3%AD%2C%20%C3%B3i%E2%80%9D.

I provide section #9 for you here in case the page does not open:

9. The Vowels

Old Irish had five short vowels, “a, e, i, o, u” and five long vowels, “á, é, í, ó, ú”, which can be roughly said to have Latin or Continental values. There were two common diphthongs, one spelled variously “aé, áe, aí, ái” and the other “oé, óe, oí, ói”. These two sets ended up falling together, and can be pronounced either /oi/ or /ai/ as you wish. A third diphthong was “uí”, which can be pronounced as it is spelled. The real problem facing a modern reader of Old Irish is the fact that in digraphs such as “ai, ei, éi, ui, ái, ói, úi” the letter “i” may actually only serve to indicate the slender quality of the adjacent consonant. For example, “céle” is commonly written “céile”, with the “i” there simply to reinforce the slender value of the “l”. If in such cases the “i” is pronounced at all, it is only a light glide vowel. JPatrickMalone (talk) 15:24, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure we're looking at the same thing?

You state, "Right now, this page states it focuses on bróc when the attempts at etymology are clearly aligned to broc - both by pronunication and definition. Then, going further down the page, broc is used, and then more bróc."

On the bróc page, I see no instances anywhere of the spelling broc without the fada. The pronunciation is also indicated clearly in the ===Pronunciation=== section as /broːɡ/ with the long "O".

If instead you mean that some of the information on the bróc page, in the Old Irish entry, instead belongs to the Old Irish term broc, then by all means please move that information. I see that the broc page currently lacks an Old Irish section; you are welcome to create one.

FWIW, I see that the eDIL entry for bróc at http://dil.ie/6885 includes the same sense information given here in our Old Irish bróc entry. Meanwhile, their entries for broc (1, 2) focus on senses of anxiety, anxious, and their entry for brocc has the sense badger (the animal), none of which seem like appropriate places to move our shoe; greaves; leggings, etc. senses. Consequently, I am uncertain what it is about our bróc entry that you disagree with?

Pinging also @Mahagaja, Embryomystic as editors who have worked substantially on this entry. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:41, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Old Irish scribes were unreliable in their indication of the long mark; bróc (“shoe”) was spelled broc sometimes, but the vowel was still /oː/, so we use the standardized spelling bróc for our entry. Incidentally, I'm not convinced this word is actually attested in Old Irish; the oldest entries at eDIL seem to be in Middle Irish as far as I can tell. Whichever language it is, we can certainly add an {{alternative spelling of}} entry at broc. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:43, 12 October 2021 (UTC)