Cellach

See also: cellach

Old Irish

Etymology

From Primitive Irish ᚊᚓᚅᚔᚂᚑᚉᚔ (qeniloci); the first element of this being usually identified as *kʷennom (“head”). The ᚔ (i) in the ogam spelling cannot represent /i/ (otherwise *Cillech would have resulted) nor a palatalizing schwa (otherwise one would expect *Ceillech). It must instead represent a non-palatal schwa. The second element is ancestral to Middle Irish loch (“dark”).^[1]

Proper noun

Cellach m (genitive Cellaig)

a male given name

Inflection

Masculine o-stem
	singular	dual	plural
nominative	Cellach	—	—
vocative	Cellaig	—	—
accusative	Cellach^N	—	—
genitive	Cellaig^L	—	—
dative	*Celluch^L	—	—

Initial mutations of a following adjective:

^H = triggers aspiration
^L = triggers lenition
^N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

Middle Irish: Cellach
- Irish: Ceallach
  - → English: Kelly, Kelley (from the genitive singular)

Mutation

Mutation of *Cellach*
radical	lenition	nasalization
Cellach	Chellach	Cellach pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

References

^ Ziegler, Sabine (1994) “QENILOCI”, in Alfred Bammesberger and Günter Neumann, editors, Die Sprache der altirischen Ogam-Inschriften [The language of the Old Irish Ogham inscriptions] (Historische Sprachforschung; Ergänzungsheft 36) (in German), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, →ISBN, page 220f.

[1] Ziegler, Sabine (1994) “QENILOCI”, in Alfred Bammesberger and Günter Neumann, editors, Die Sprache der altirischen Ogam-Inschriften [The language of the Old Irish Ogham inscriptions] (Historische Sprachforschung; Ergänzungsheft 36) (in German), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, →ISBN, page 220f.

[1]