Talk:saining

Derived from the from the Irish and Scottish Gaelic seun and sian and the Old Irish sén. See Black, The Gaelic Otherworld, 2005, p136-7, 211; Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica Volume II, 1900, p26-37; Macbain, Etymological Dictionary of Scottish-Gaelic, 1998, p309. (The preceding was added by CorbieVreccan.)

This seems incompatible with what sain#Etymology says: it asserts derivation from Middle English, from Old English, from Latin. - -sche (discuss) 18:29, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

All the sources I've seen say the Scots word is derived from the Old Irish sén. The Scots language is most heavily influenced by German and English, then Scottish Gaelic and Irish. "Sain," however, is a later word for the same charms that are known as sian or seun in Gaelic. I'm not familiar with how a word with the same spelling may be used in other languages; I'm only familiar with the Scots and Gaelic usage. CorbieVreccan (talk) 19:34, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, in MacBain, it's under sian and seun. He seems to be saying it came into Early Irish (some sources say Old Irish, but going with MacBain here) from Latin, then through the Gaelics into Scots. MacBain p. 309 "seun - a charm, defend by charms, Irish seun, good luck, Early Irish sén, blessing, sign, luck, Old Irish sén, benedic, Welsh swyn, a charm, magic preservative; from Latin signum, a sign, "sign of the cross"." CorbieVreccan (talk) 19:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

The Dictionary of the Scots Language derives Scots saining from sain, and it derives sain from Middle English, from Old English, from Latin. MacBain is a dictionary of Gaelic, not of Scots, and it does not seem to be making any claims about the origin of the Scots word. - -sche (discuss) 19:59, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. I think we have some parallel development going on, in the Gaelics and English. In Scottish works like those of Campbell, Black and Carmichael the Gaelic (Gàidhlig) word sian is often translated into English/Scots as sain. Although these works are based on Gaelic prayers, poetry and prose, the authors also wrote translations and commentary in English. These Scottish authors, writing for a largely Scottish audience at the time, sometimes sprinkled Scots words in among their English. I think we basically have two diverging paths from the Latin - one Irish, one English, later coming together again in the Scots. So we have the Latin coming into Old or Early Irish, and then the question being did it also enter Old English around this same time. Either way, "sain" winds up in Scots as a synonym/translation for "sian" and "seun." Perhaps the answer is to include the Gaelic sian or seun as related terms for the Scots sain? CorbieVreccan (talk) 20:35, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I've added it to the etymology section (of sain) as a cognate (since both words do ultimately derive from Latin). - -sche (discuss) 21:25, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I suspect we'll have to clean this up a bit. The modern Irish dictionaries (Dinneen and on) have Irish séan as the modern for Old Irish sén, which is perfectly regular. seun looks Scottish Gaelic to my eyes, and does not appear in Ó Donaill, Dineen, or any other Irish dictionary. --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 01:35, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

That's possible. I had trouble finding any authoritative statement as to the modern Irish spelling, as the (relatively recently-published) Irish dictionaries I checked had no relevant word "sian", "sean" or "seun" (with or without diacritics). I eventually found "seun" in some much older dictionaries (see google books:Irish dictionary seun charm), hence my adding it but tagging it with {{attention}}. - -sche (discuss) 02:38, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I think I've adequately documented both modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic forms. --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 12:17, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Considering the Old English and associated Germanic forms ( Old Saxon segnon, OHG seganon ) most dictionaries cite a direct borrowing from Latin for both the English as well as the Scots. The others share the same origin. Was the Scots word perhaps reinforced by Irish? Leasnam (talk) 00:06, 11 June 2014 (UTC)