Daughter ~ Maiden ~ Maidservant: Dynamics of Semantic Shift from Continental Celtic to Insular Celtic Vocabulary
Tatyana Mikhailova
Russian Academy of Sciences
Abstract
The old Indo-European word for ‘daughter’ (*dhugH [Szemerenyi 1977: 21] or *dhuĝ(h₂)-tḗr [Mallory, Adams 2006: 472]) survives in all major branches of daughter-languages except Albanian, Italian (but cf. Osc. futír?) and Insular Celtic. OI der ‘daughter, girl’ and der- in compound names represents a reduced form of old I.-E. word [O’Brien 1956: 178], “an allegro-form” [Matasović 2009: 110]. Continental Celtic has a well-known Gaulish duxtir (Larzac tablet) and Celtiberian TuaTe[r]es/TuaTeros (Bottorita inscription II) supposed to have the same old I.-E. meaning ‘daughter’ (?, cf. ‘jeune fille initiée’ [Lejeune 1985: 133], cf. also [Sims-Williams 2007: 3]). At the same time, another I.-E. term for ‘girl, woman’ is also attested and even widely used in Gaulish: *ġenh₁ ‘bear, generate’ [IEW: 373 ff.] > Gaul. geneta, genata, gneta, nata [Delamarre 2003: 177, 181] with supposed meaning ‘young girl, young woman, servant (?)’. Cf. also Osc. genetaí ‘daughter’. Insular Celtic conserved this I.-E. root in W. geneth ‘girl’ (with merch ‘daughter’), OI gen ‘woman, girl’ (a rare word of glossaries, see DIL: gen-2) and OI ingen ‘1.girl; 2.daughter’ (ousted in MI by cailín in this first meaning)
The loss of I.-E. word of ‘daughter’ both in British and Goidelic could be explained by the special institute of fosterage existing in Early Ireland and Wales (cf. OI aite and muimme ‘foster-father’ and ‘foster-mother’, “intimate forms have been transferred to the fosterparents” [Kelly 1988: 86] and the use of dalta ‘foster-child’ with the meaning ‘daughter’ in Modern Irish dialects). But we suppose, this loss of I.-E. kinship term represents a part of so called “linguistic revolution” of Insular Celtic languages in early centuries AD, a “revolution” provoked by some social changes. The semantic shift ‘girl’ — ‘daughter’ — ‘servant’ (as well as ‘boy’ — ‘son’ — ‘servant’) represents a universalia (or frequentalia), attested in many languages (cf. [Zalizniak 2008]). Cf. Czech dĕvice, Paul. dziewa ‘girl’, but Luj. dźowka ‘daughter’ and Czech naše holka ‘our girl = daughter’; Russ. devochka ‘girl’ used in the meaning ‘daughter’ and, at the same time, dochka ‘daughter’ used in the meaning ‘girl’ in popular speech. The semantic development in this case is not ‘evolutional’ but of two-way one, or bilateral, that is: ‘girl’ ↔ ‘daughter’ (and ↔ ‘servant’). Cf. the etymology of I.-E. *dhuĝ(h₂)-tḗr proposed (with some doubt) by J.Mallory: from *dhug- ‘meal’, ‘the person who prepares the meals’ [Mallory and Adams 1997: 148]. Servant again! Cf. also Russ. rab ‘slave’ and rebenok ‘child’.