rámae

Old Irish

FWOTD – 7 January 2023

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *rāmyos (“oar”), (compare Welsh rhaw, Cornish rêv, Middle Breton reuf (“shovel”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁- (“to row”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈr͈aːṽɘ]

Noun

rámae m (genitive rámai)

1. oar
   • c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 36^a7

     cét rámae fuiri

     a hundred oars in it

2. spade
   • c. 700, Críth Gablach, published in Críth Gablach (1941, Dublin: Stationery Office), edited by Daniel Anthony Binchy, §40, line 532

     lorg rám(m)ai

     shaft of a spade

Inflection

Masculine io-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	rámae	rámaeL	rámaiL
Vocative	rámai	rámaeL	rámu
Accusative	rámaeN	rámaeL	rámuH
Genitive	rámaiL	rámaeL	rámaeN
Dative	rámuL	rámaib	rámaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: ráma
  • Irish: rámh, rámha

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
rámae also rrámae after a proclitic	rámae pronounced with /r(ʲ)-/	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 ráma, rám”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language