Things I learned today (Part 2)

Things
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Bit of word‑nerdery I enjoyed and thought I’d share :slightly_smiling_face:

Modern French: chambre

What’s interesting is how wide the family is. From the same Latin root (camera) we get:

  • English chamber
  • Italian camera
  • Spanish cĂĄmara
  • Portuguese câmara
  • Catalan cambra
  • German Kammer
  • Dutch kamer

So chambre is part of a huge Indo‑European family, all basically meaning room / chamber / enclosed space.

What about Irish (Gaeilge)?

Irish doesn’t usually use a straight Latin‑derived word for “room”, but there is an interesting overlap.

The normal modern Irish word is:

seomra
(pronounced SHUM‑ra)
= room

e.g. seomra leaba/leapa → bedroom

That’s the standard everyday word in Irish today.

Is seomra related to chambre?

Indirectly, probably — though it’s a bit debated.

Most linguists agree that:

  • seomra isn’t native Old Irish
  • it likely came in via Old / Norman French after the Normans arrived in Ireland (12th century)

The rough path seems to be:

Latin camera → French chambre → adapted into Irish → seomra

The sound shift is actually kind of nice — the “sh” in seomra lining up with the “ch” in chambre once Irish phonology gets hold of it.

So while seomra isn’t directly from camera, it’s very likely part of the same long linguistic journey.

Languages really do carry their history around with them.

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6258

*leaba

Where were you got at all?

6259

stop at me

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6260

It’s Seomra Leapa :man_shrugging:

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Shocked GIF

@Raylan in an awks place here

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6262

Gaeilge na Connachta nĂł gaeilge na Mumhain :man_shrugging:t2:

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6263

Middlesborough Kamara

image
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6264

Conas a dearfĂĄ flailing as Gaeilge?

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Ár leithscÊal, níor aimsíodh aon rud.
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Screenshot_2026-03-23-18-25-31-40_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12
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The prataĂ­ nĂł fataĂ­ conundrum

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6267

I mistakenly though I saw uisce beatha there for a fleeting second….

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6268

Does it happen you often?

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Not often enough….
I was going to add a profanity but abstained - Lent and all that.

6270

Do you mean phataĂ­?

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6271

Seomra codhalta (or summat), would be where you’d find your leaba, no?

If I knew enough I’d start throwing around accusations and insults, but probably safer for me to keep it civil for now

6272

The priest with the boring voice in Father Ted is none other than the legendary English voice over artist Sean Barrett who is still going strong at 85 years of age.

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I could be wrong and @kyle is the expert but I don’t think there’s much in common between the Gaelic languages and French, no more than English. Irish is very old, possibly older than Romanic, so most words that sound like French/English are modern assimilations. There’s no doubt though as much as 50% of the English language came from Normandy.

6274

Most European languages share a common ancestor and irish and latin do have a good clatter of similar words…

Mil (Honey) — Mel
Ocht (Eight) — Octo
Rí (King) — Rex
Trí (Three) — Tres

Obviously the early church was latin so a lot of religious words are similar too…

French obv is derived from latin.

6275

Would they lot just have used Latin the bastards

6276

Where it initially came up was in a discussion around a Townland which had the name “Tom” in it. Tuam in Irish which is Tumulus or mound of earth over a grave, which is taken from the word Tomb, which is taken from Tombe in French.

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