[ANSTHRLD] Am Loch or An Loch?
kobrien@texas.net
kobrien at texas.net
Thu Aug 4 10:40:46 PDT 2005
Quoting Maridonna <maridonna at maridonna.com>:
> Hi,
>
> Is it Am Loch or An Loch?
In what context?
1) if you're talking about grammar, in Irish Gaelic 'the' in the singular,
nominative case is <an>, so <an loch> means 'the lake' in Irish Gaelic.
2) if you're talking about the desired name for an incipient group here in
our kingdom, I believe Magnus has been working on the research for that. As
I recall, there were 2 issues at this point: (1) getting the grammar correct
(see note 1 above) and (2) whether something so generic as 'the lake' is
plausible for a formal placename in Gaelic in period. All of the placenames
I found with 'lake' in them in period in Ireland included another word as
well. (My full list is at home, not with me at the moment.) Examples
included <Baile na Locha> literally "town [of/on/by] the lake" or "the lake's
town". Other names had an adjective after <Loch>, but I don't remember the
Gaelic forms offhand.
Mari
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