Béal Átha na Muille / Bealnamulla

Béal Átha na Muille / Bealnamulla (also Bellanamullia) a small village west of Athlone

Vocabulary:
béal = mouth, lip
áth = ford
muileann (old variant: muille) = mill
béal átha an muilinn (old variant: béal átha na muille) = a mouth of a ford of the mill

Etymology:
The word “muileann” (mill, grinding apparatus, manufactory) comes from the Old Irish word “muilend” (mill, usually grinding corn and driven by stream) which in turn comes from the late latin “molinum” (mill). The word “muilend” had many variants: muiliunn, mulenn, muilund, muillend, muilne, muilend, moileand, moilenn, muillibh and finally “muille” which can be found in “Béal Átha na Muille”.

Cognates of the Irish “muileann” can be found in all Celtic languages:

muileann in Scottish
mwyllin in Manx
melin in Welsh
milin in Breton

And obviously in all Romance languages:

mulino in Italian
moulin in French
molino in Spanish
moinho in Portuguese

And in Germanic languages:

Mühle in German
molen in Dutch
mill in English
mølle in Norwegian & Danish

And Slavic languages:

mlýn in Czech
młyn in Polish
мельница [melnica] in Russian
млин [mlin] in Serbian & Ukrainian

And other languages, even not Indo-European:

μύλος [mylos] in Greek (IE language)
mulli in Albanian (IE language)
mylly in Finnish (non-IE language)
mira in Maori (non-IE language)

All meaning “a mill”.

#language #teanga #roadsigns #roadsign #road #sign #ireland #eire #irish #irishlanguage #gaeilge #anghaeilge #irishwords #focailghaeilge #words #focail #grammar #gramadach #irishgrammar #gramadachgaeilge #learnirishfromroadsigns #foghlaimgaeilgeochomharthaibothair

Leave a comment