Multilingual Practices and Linguistic Contacts in Pre-Patrician Ireland and Late Roman Britain

Abstract

What kind of contact and exchange was known to exist between the Roman world and the island of Ireland in the pre-Patrician period? This necessarily short contribution will try to answer this and the following questions that emerge as a result of this inquiry. Do we have any evidence of archaeological, toponymic and palaeographic nature that argues in favour of the contact? Can one find any evidence of the linguistic contact? What kind of words entered Early Irish from Latin in this period? How do we address and interpret the instances, variations and patterns of Irish/Latin code-mixing and diglossia in the earliest documents, such as the Leinster genealogies, the early sections of the glossaries and of the annals (c. 440–470 AD)? Various scholars (Mohrmann 1962: 217; Ó Cróinín 2004: 8; Harvey 2011: 66) have argued that Latin, introduced as “an artificial, bookish language, distant from the dimension of everyday communication” (cit. in Bisagni 2014: 53), was alien to the Irish in its form and essence so that it was used purely for monastic purposes. I will argue against this, proposing a contrary argument: the Irish were at home with Latin, and gained their knowledge of the language through their communication with the Roman world through warfare and trade.