[Ads-l] "Say Uncle" - slight antedating

Peter Reitan pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM
Wed Jun 14 20:26:44 UTC 2017


It's not clear whether anacol (or anacal) is related to "Uncle," but several texts, dictionaries, and an Irish grammar book between 1835 and 1915 spell it anacol.


This comment from A Concise Old Irish Grammar and Reader, Julius Pokorny, Dublin, Hodges, Figgis and Co., 1914 (HathiTrust) may explain the confusion:


"Enclitic vowels in open or closed syllables appear . . . between o coloured and neutral consonants or vice versa regularly as o, but sometimes as a.  e.g. feronn or ferann 'land' (fr. verono-), anacol 'protection.'"


Page 21.


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 9:48 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Say Uncle" - slight antedating

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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Subject:      Re: "Say Uncle" - slight antedating
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On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 1:12 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> the Irish word "anacol," which apparently means mercy or quarter.


This isn't true. There is no such "word" as _anacol_ in Irish. There is,
however, the word, _anacal_. Cf.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anacal
Irish[edit]
Noun[edit]
anacal m (genitive singular anacail)
1 verbal noun of _ainic_
2 _protection; deliverance, quarter_

whose sources are

http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/anacal
Focl=C3=B3ir Gaelige-B=C3=A9arla, =C3=93 D=C3=B3naill, 1977
English-Irish Dictionary. De Bhadhraithe, 1959

Pron. approx. "AH.n at kl" or "UH.n at kl"

That's close enough for government work, IMO.
--=20
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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