Eroica: typo

2020-05-17T12:25:33Z

typo

Eroica: quotation

2006-07-06T15:50:47Z

quotation

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<blockquote>
The P/K Split is a way of describing an important phenomenon in the development
of the Irish language, or rather of the Celtic languages, from primitive
Indo-European. It is also a widespread Indo-European event, characterized
by the contrast in separate daughter languages of p-initial and k-(q-, c-)initial
words derived from a single common ancestor, as Greek ''pente, pempe'', "five,"
and Latin ''quinque'' both developed from Indo-Europeam ''penqe''. Nonetheless the
Split has marked Irish with particular emphasis: where from Indo-European
''pod'', "foot," for instance, Latin has derived ''pes'' and Greek ''paus''—avoiding
contrast—Irish has ''cos''. (Notice that in both ''five'' and ''foot'' English
has the characteristic Germanic f-alternative to both p and k.) 
 
Neither Irish nor Welsh in becoming distinct languages retained from Indo-European
any occurrences whatsoever of the sound p, but Welsh fairly early began a reverse process of developing p-initials from the Celtic q, so partly nullifying the primitive movement which had lost the original p. Irish, on the other hand, developed c-(k-)initials out of the general
Celtic q, and so gave rise to a P/K split in the Celtic languages, exemplified by Welsh ''pen'', Irish ''ceann'', "head." This split remains typical of the differences between so-called Brythonic or P-Celtic and Goidelic or C-Celtic. Although Modern Irish has added to its vocabulary a considerable number of p-initial words, none are p-initials retained from Indo-European through Old Irish. Some have developed out of native Irish b- and f-initials, most are borrowed from other languages—Latin, Welsh, English. 
 
A time of particularly heavy borrowing from Latin into Irish was, naturally, the time of the christianization of Ireland, but at first Irish resisted the initial p even of loan words, and assimilated such words to the native k-initial pattern. Thus Latin ''pascha'' became ''Cáisc'', still the Irish name for Easter, ''purpura'' became ''corcra'', which remains the word for "purple," and so on. Among the very earliest Latin p-words Irish was called upon to absorb was ''Patricius''—the name of the apostle, St. Patrick himself. That name, in Irish ''Pádraig'', may have been one of the very first p-words successfully naturalized, but even it went through a quarantine period as ''Catraige'' or ''Cotraige''. Later, when the form ''Pádraig'' had become fully established, the recorded evidence that the saint had once been called ''Cotraige'' was misunderstood, and efforts were made to rationalize the apparent anomaly. Therefore one further name was added to the list of those St. Patrick was supposed to have answered to at one time or another, and the name ''Cotraige'' was assigned in legend to the period of his youthful bondage in Ireland. The name itself was ingeniously derived from ''ceithre'', ''ceathair'', "four," or ''ceathrar'', "four persons," and in the forms ''Cothraige'' and ''Cathraige'' was interpreted to mean
"belonging to four." This etymology then led to the thesis that the young British slave had been conjointly owned by four masters, in order to account for the name. 
 
The P/K Split is exploited in every possible way in ''Finnegans Wake'', and both the correct and the fanciful explanations of ''Cotraige'' are equally accepted. Therefore while the "Cottenicks' donkey" (024.22) presumably belongs ''chiefly'' to The Four, the "roman pathoricks" (027.02) can convert or be converted into Irish Catholics. Additionally, since the K-side of the split is also represented by q, in ''Finnegans Wake'' the operations of the split often entail watching p's and q's, those mirror twins in print. Most of the important instances of the P/K Split in ''Finnegans Wake'' are perhaps recorded in this Lexicon, but the reader is advised to try on his own at any time the substitution of initial p for initial c, k, or q in ''Finnegans Wake'', and of c, k, or q for any initial p.
</blockquote>

* [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/JoyceColl/JoyceColl-idx?type=turn&entity=JoyceColl000900090420&q1=P/K%20Split A Gaelic Lexicon for Finnegans Wake]

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 "belonging to four." This etymology then led to the thesis that the young British slave had been conjointly owned by four masters, in order to account for the name.<br>
 <br>
-The P/K Split is exploited in every possible way in ''Finnegans Wake'', and both the correct and the fanciful explanations of ''Cotraige'' are equally accepted. Therefore while the "Cottenicks' donkey" (024.22) presumably belongs ''chiefly'' to The Four, the "roman pathoricks" (027.02) can convert or be converted into Irish Catholics. Additionally, since the K-side of the split is also represented by q, in ''Finnegans Wake'' the operations of the split often entail watching p's and q's, those mirror twins in print. Most of the important instances of the P/K Split in ''Finnegans Wake'' are perhaps recorded in this Lexicon, but the reader is advised to try on his own at any time the substitution of initial p for initial c, k, or q in ''Finnegans Wake'', and of c, k, or q for any initial p.
+The P/K Split is exploited in every possible way in ''Finnegans Wake'', and both the correct and the fanciful explanations of ''Cotraige'' are equally accepted. Therefore while the "Cottericks' donkey" (024.22) presumably belongs ''chiefly'' to The Four, the "roman pathoricks" (027.02) can convert or be converted into Irish Catholics. Additionally, since the K-side of the split is also represented by q, in ''Finnegans Wake'' the operations of the split often entail watching p's and q's, those mirror twins in print. Most of the important instances of the P/K Split in ''Finnegans Wake'' are perhaps recorded in this Lexicon, but the reader is advised to try on his own at any time the substitution of initial p for initial c, k, or q in ''Finnegans Wake'', and of c, k, or q for any initial p.
 </blockquote>
 * [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/JoyceColl/JoyceColl-idx?type=turn&entity=JoyceColl000900090420&q1=P/K%20Split A Gaelic Lexicon for Finnegans Wake]

P/K split - Revision history

Eroica: typo

Eroica: quotation