America’s Celtic Legacy

By C. A. Asbrey

I’m sure it’s not a surprise to anyone that Scottish and Irish immigrants to the USA have left an indelible mark on the country. As a Scot, it’s a joy for me to see something straight out of my own culture writ large and proudly used a a part of America. It makes me feel included and that there’s something in there for me. The way the USA has assimilated so many cultures and traditions is not only fascinating, it’s a tangible link with the past still playing out in the present. In music there are so many obvious examples such as Alison Krauss singing this song which was so American it was featured in O Brother Where Art Thou. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbgfQ48hWuY And then there’s the original version in Scottish Gaelic, Sios Dhan An Abhainn – which also means Down to the River.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2toIQxHxiM

My ancestors, both Scottish and Irish, also left a linguistic mark on American English in a way which is distinctly different to the English spoken by the English. Both Caledonian English and Hiberno English are recognized as dialects in which the Gaelic grammar and syntax leaks over to change the way sentences are built. It particularly impacts on descriptions, superlatives, and the use of gerunds. Over and above that, Scotland has another language called Lallans or Scots which mixes a Germanic language with old French and Gaelic. That also seeps over to the English spoken by Scottish people and was taken to the USA in the form of some very colourful expressions which we’ll look at in this post.

There were also many famous American figures who may not immediately be associated with Gaelic. Henry McCarty, aka Billy the Kid, spoke fluent Gaelic. In fact, the poorer the immigrant the more likely they were to be Irish speakers as the rich were beginning to turn away from their native tongues in both Scotland and Ireland. Gaelic was as the first language of most Irish Americans who immigrated in the big flood of Irish after the famine. A recording of Clark Hust, a cowboy who reportedly worked on a ranch with the infamous gunslinger, tells us that Billy the Kid helped translate Irish for his employer. In the recording, Hust tells that while he and Billy the Kid were working at the ranch, the owner, Pat Coghlan, had a niece, Mary, who came from Ireland to stay with the family. The girl could only speak Irish and Coghlan spoke only English, so they used the Kid who spoke both English and Irish as a translator. Newspapers from the period were checked. Coghlan’s niece really did visit, which meant that Hust was not lying about her existence. 

Academics steeped in the classics and linguistic training based only on the English taught in the haughty circles of academia often dismissed some word origins as unknown or slang. It took a proper academic examination of the language by scholars who understood the linguistic roots of the Goidelic branch of Indo European tongues to pull apart words and phrases which were previously dismissed as Americanisms to find that they were, in fact, a form of Gaelic which melted into the lexicon of 19th century America. 

Of course there are many in use in the English language in general like brogue (bròg) trousers (triubhas), slogan (sluagh-ghairm meaning battle cry) and even glamour (Lallans meaning magic, enchantment).   

Daniel Cassidy’s book, “How the Irish Invented Slang”, and Niall Ó Donaill’s “Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla” has helped to unravel the origins of words now thought of as American. I’ve added a few of my own too.   

Poker

Surely the most iconic of card games played by cowboys? Scottish – pòca Irish – póca. Both mean pocket. The eagle-eyed of you might note that the word is the same but the direction of the accent changes. Irish and Scottish Gaelic are related  but they are not the same. There are many differences, but some words are, indeed, very similar.  

Sap/saphead This one is Scottish and comes from the Lallans word for bread soaked in milk to be given to invalids and infants. It literally means soft-headed.
Shindig 

From sìnteag (Scottish) to skip, or jump around. 
Whiskey or Whisky – Scottish spelling is without the ‘e’. I’m sure everyone knows that it comes from the Gaelic and means the water of life in both Scottish and Irish.

Yeah, right  – That typical cynical response may not seem very Celtic, but it does seem typically American and defies the norm in English on double negatives and the apocryphal double positives. It does, however,  translate directly from the Irish phrase commonly expressed by many people challenging authority, “Mar dhea“. It also perfectly displays the way superlatives are built in Gaelic by adding words together. Another example of this is the way the Scottish term for boss translates literally as ‘the high head one.’ Another example of this syntax came over to English as out and out. That is a direct lift from Scottish ‘amach is amach’ to add intensity to the words coming next.

Shanty – Irish and Scottish Gaelic sean taigh meaning an old house

Gee is the approximate pronunciation of Dia, or the word for God in both Scottish and Irish Gaelic 

Holy cow – is Holy Cathú or Holy Cahoo or Holy Grief. 

Darn it is another Gaelic exclamation. In Irish you say daithairne ort, which means, “misfortune on you.” 

Gee whiz comes from Dia Uas pronounced Geeuh Woous which means “noble god.”

Hillbilly – The pejorative term for people living in rural areas of the United States, particularly around the Ozark Mountains (Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas) and Appalachia, initially related to the 18th-century Ulster Protestant settlers in the Appalachian Mountains. Some think the term comes from supporters of King William III, Billy’s Boys; others point to a Scottish word for companion, “billie”, combining both the Ulster and Scottish terms. It should be noted that the protestant followers of William of Orange were natural enemies to the Catholic Irish, hence the unflattering connotations. 

Swell  – the word sóúil or “luxurious”

Ballyhoo – Is basically the phonetic pronunciation of bailliú, which means exactly the same thing. 

Swanky –  the Irish word somhaoineach or “valuable”.

Buddy is another Irish Gaelic word, which comes from the Irish expression, a bhodaigh, which means something like “pal.” The root of the word bhodaigh is strangely, bod, which is the Irish word for penis, and pronounced like bud. 

Can – If you kick a guy in the can, you’re kicking him in his ceann which is the “extremity” of a thing, and also “head,” which is at the other end from the tail end.

Skedaddle in a jiffy – you are sciord ar dólámh (make an all out slip) in a deifir (in a hurry). Trust me. They sound alike when I say them. Gaelic isn’t very phonetic. 

‘Messing with’  and other gerunds – this gerund meaning, to trifle with was first seen in print in mainstream English in 1903, but like most colloquial terms was in full use long before it transmitted to the world of English academia. It’s quoted in the Dictionary of Scots Language as far back as 1340 and is a direct transposition of the way the Scots words ‘footer’ or ‘bauderin’ are used. Gaelic doesn’t have Gerunds, it has verbal nouns instead. Gaelic expresses habitual aspect in present tense. It also borrows from Gaelic syntax with the use of the durative tense, which means the translation of mess has to turn into ‘messing’. Passive tenses in Gaelic speech patterns also show that things are at, or with, a person. Both Scots and Irish are more likely to say things like, “He is after eating his dinner” versus, “He has eaten his dinner” They are also likely to use the the dative as in, “The fire went out on me” (very American) or “The soup boiled over on me”. Therefore someone teasing or annoying someone is likely to be told they are ‘messing with’ them, using the verbs in a previously unEnglish way which is now very American.

Verb nouns didn’t exist in Old English, but did persist in the Celtic fringes in a way which differentiated the way people actually spoke to the written form. John McWhorter stresses again and again in Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue how unique English is, how odd these constructions are, and how therefore they must have come from the Celtic languages. It also explains why English is the only Germanic language to develop them. 

The syntax leaks over in other areas too. Where British people would say, “She resigned on Thursday”, Americans often say, “She resigned Thursday.” US English will also drop the word ‘on’ before stating a date in a sentence. 

I know many Americans are very proud of their ancestry. I hope this post helps you feel part of something else they left behind – their language – and it is still recognisable back in the old country to the present day.