# Irish Gaelic/Spanish: Conas ta tu? [Conas atá tú?]



## Eiryn

Hola. Acabo de descubrir que en gaélico irlandés, "conas ta tu?" = "cómo estás tú?".
Esto me parece realmente increíble, dado que las dos frases son muy similares.
Yo soy inglés de familia irlandesa y estoy aprendiendo español... bueno, por eso me interesa mucho saber si alguien sabe si hay algún vínculo entre el gaélico y el castellano.
Muchas gracias.

Hi. I've just discovered that "how are you?" in Irish Gaelic is translated as "conas ta tu?", which is "cómo estás tú?" in Spanish.
This seems really amazing to me, given that both phrases are so similar (in Spanish and Gaelic).
Being from a partly Irish family (and as someone who is learning Spanish), I'm really interested to know if anyone knows if there is a link between Gaelic and Spanish.
Thanks a lot.


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## utopia

hi, Eiryn,

There might have been a connection between ancient Celtic languages i.e. European Celtic languages (continental) and other European languages. They might be connected through Galego and there are some theories of northern spain (Basque connections).

There are others who try to connect (quite successfully between the Celtic branch and the Italian languages family).

There are many theories. This "conas a ta tu" and "cómo estás tú" might be connected in the sources : 'Tá' is a little different than 'Is' as a copula. It's got similarities with the spanish Estar and Ser but only similarities, cause its full use must be learnt.

Thus in identification centences you have to use Is, and in location Tá, but with some adjectives and some "adverb-like" adjectives you have to learn the use by heart.

BTW conas ata tu is only one way, of course, of saying how do you do. There is the Northern way: Cad e mar ta tu? which I like, and there is the Western way - Cen chaoi a bhfuil tu (read - ke chwil tu).

Slán


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## jmx

utopia said:
			
		

> There might have been a connection between ancient Celtic languages i.e. European Celtic languages (continental) and other European languages. They might be connected through Galego and there are some theories of northern spain (Basque connections).


This doesn't make much sense to me. _Galego_ (Galician) is a purely romance language, and basque is not even indo-european.

A different thing is that, in some classifications, celtic and romance (or italic) languages are grouped together, as having a common origin in a later date than other indo-european families. In a similar way, the germanic and slavic families are also grouped together.

Anyway, my personal feeling is that that resemblance is just by chance. A language has so many words, it can happen that two words _converge_ by sheer chance, as in spanish "mucho" and english "much".


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## Artrella

I think that they share some common origins, because both peoples were of Celtic origins.  You can see it nowadays... they share customs, music... and think about the similarity of the language names "gaeilge" and "galego"... not just coincidence for me..


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## Artrella

1 a haon >>>> uno>>>>>>>uno
2 a dó  >>>>>>  dous   >>>>>>>>  dos
3 a trí >>>> tres >>>>> tres
4 a ceathair 
5 a cúig 
6 a sé >>>>>>seis>>>>>>seis
7 a seacht >>>sete>>>>>>siete
8 a hocht >>>> oito >>>>>>ocho
9 a naoi   >>>>nove >>>>>>nueve
10 a deich >>>>>>> dez >>>>>>diez

Look at these numbers!! (Gaeilge>>Galego>>Spanish)

_-
........Galiza e Irlanda, duas das cristiandades mais antigas de Europa, teñen grande cantidade de afinidades e paralelismos. Os seus respectivos nomes, Galiza e Gaeilge, semellan ter a mesma raiz celta "Gal". É precisamente unha das lendas celtas, a que conta que Breoghan, o líder dos Gaels, unha das tribos celtas, fundou a cidade de Brigantia, actualmente A Coruña. Desde esta cidade, Itho, fillo de Breogan partiu rumo a unha illa que puido albiscar na lonxanía desde a torre de Breogán e chegou a Irlanda con algunha da sua xente. .....

........No referinte á sua língua, non temos testemuños escritos, pero todo nos indica que debeu ser unha língua céltica; ainda hoxe en dia existen no galego moitas palabras derivadas do antigo idioma goidélico. Estas palabras abundan no léxico rural polo que difícilmente teñen outra orixe que non sexa a dos primitivos habitantes dos castros......._


source


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## utopia

jmartins - I only meant that there were influences, and I don't know how much of influence, between the Basque language and the Celtic languages.

Just like the rest of the interrelations between the celtic languages and other language groups have not been proven though it's almost definite such relations have taken place during the line of history.


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## jmx

utopia said:
			
		

> jmartins - I only meant that there were influences, and I don't know how much of influence, between the Basque language and the Celtic languages.


My point was about that particular sentence : _¿ cómo estás tú ?_. If you analyse it, you'll see that there is nothing in it but corrupted Latin ("quomodo stas tu" or something like that). In fact the equivalent sentence in other romance languages would be very similar. For those reasons, my guess is that, rather than look for a link between Spanish ang Irish, Eyrin could look for a link between Latin and the celtic languages in general.

That's not to say that you couldn't find some obscure word that directly links Spanish and Irish, but I wouldn't consider that to be so meaningful, compared to an everyday sentence as the one mentioned.


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## Travelman

Dear Eyrin,
It is a very interesting point. I have seen more similar words Spanish - Irish. Although Roman presence in Ireland was perhaps more limited than in Spain, every place where Romans arrived, they left a trait... It is for me amazing how "northern" languages keep in some words more latin roots than the Spanish counterpart.
For example look to Latin "Nunc" and words in many northern languages (including English "now") in comparisson with "ahora" in Spanish


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## utopia

"rather than look for a link between Spanish ang Irish, Eyrin could look for a link between Latin and the celtic languages in general."

BUT it's not the same! The time when this contact has allegedly occured is not the time of Latin or Spanish, but in Galego and it should have been in North West of the Iberian peninsula.

If there was an evidence or an assumption that I read about which talked about a contact between Latin or Spanish with Celtic then I'd say I heard something about it, but I didn't.


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## Outsider

Eiryn said:
			
		

> Hi. I've just discovered that "how are you?" in Irish Gaelic is translated as "conas ta tu?", which is "cómo estás tú?" in Spanish.
> This seems really amazing to me, given that both phrases are so similar (in Spanish and Gaelic).
> Being from a partly Irish family (and as someone who is learning Spanish), I'm really interested to know if anyone knows if there is a link between Gaelic and Spanish.
> Thanks a lot.


There definitely is. Almost all European languages belong to a large family called Indo-European. This includes all Romance languages, and all Celtic languages.

The connection is rather thin now, but that particular sentence is composed of very basic words, "how", "are", "you" -- an interrogative adverb, a form of the verb "to be" and a personal pronoun -- , and these tend not to change much over time.


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## Ruaidhrí

Hi Folks. Or should I say conas tá sibh?

Re: Eiryn's discovery: Como estas tu and conas tá tú are linked only in that they are both examples of Indo European languages. Basics like question words, the sunstantive verb (to be) , and personal pronouns have tended not to change to such an extent that they would no longer resemble each other in some albeit distant way.


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## Ruaidhrí

Just to amplify my last posting, the word 'tá' , for example, comes from Old Irish 'attó' (I am) which is cognate with  Latin 'sto,stare,stedi,statum' (and also with 'stand' in English). This is an example of a word that goes right back to Indo European. 

There is no real Irish Spanish link, although ancient Celtic did manage to give Spanish its word for beer! 'cerveza' comes from the Celtic word 'cervesia'. Irish, in later years borrowed a number or Latin words (before Spanish had evolved) - for example 'aifreann' (mass) from Latin 'offerendum'.

However, I did actually hear a native Irish speaker use the phrase "Tá tú loco!" (You are mad) once in Ráth Cairn, Co. Meath. But I think it was idiosyncratic - it didn't catch on!

Hope this has been of help.

Ruaidhrí


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## Donovan Ryan

Celtic migrants about 5000 years ago, over a large period of time, mixed and mingled with the iberian people to form the celtiberos.  If I'm not mistaken, there's even a small celtic cultural district in Granada.  There is without a doubt a significant level of ancient mixing of the two cultures so I don't see why there wouldn't be some remnants of this with regards to language.  I'm surprised there hasn't been much if any research into this by linguists. 
      That being said, I do know that Gallego is actually more of a dialect of portugese than it is of castellano so I'm not sure if it's safe to say that Gallego would be a reference to Gaelige (or any of it's several spellings.)

Hope this is helpful.  I definitely would love to believe that Conas ta tu is a sign of shared linguistic properties between the two languages.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Well, the Irish did come from Northern Spain. Míl Espáine, the Milesians and all that.


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## Aistriúchán

*Conas atá tú ? = How are you ?* (to one person) 

It's "standard" Irish.

Don't forget there's 3 main Irish dialects nowadays: 

Munster Irish (Cork), Conamara Irish (Galway), and Ulster Irish (Donegal). 

Conamara Irish is the closest to "standard".


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## franc 91

Please note that this is only said in the Munster dialect of Irish


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## Ruaidhrí

"I'm not sure if it's safe to say that Gallego would be a reference to Gaelige "

I'm afraid it's not safe Donovan. Gaeilge as a word developed separately from a word like goidelic - which has been translated as an old  Welsh word for the Irish - meaning 'wild' - a possible reference to raiding parties across the Irish sea (one of which took St. Patrick!).


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## Frank06

Eiryn said:


> Being from a partly Irish family (and as someone who is learning Spanish), I'm really interested to know if anyone knows if there is a link between Gaelic and Spanish.


The link has already been explained: they're both Indo-European languages. It's not that weird that short modern phrases sound/look similar in two distantly related IE languages: some parts/words may have evolved in the same way. Nothing weird about that. Neither is there a real reason to come up with dramatic explanations on how Spanish could have influenced Irish / be influenced by Irish, on how Basque played a role (it didn't) and other slightly exaggerated explanations. 

One other similar example comes to mind: If I remember well, Persian has _Ki e?_, while French has _Qui est?_, both pronounced almost the same way, both meaning exactly the same, namely _who is (it)_? I don't think it's going to be difficult to find other examples of similarly looking/sounding phrases from to distant language relatives.

Frank


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