LEPRECHAUN

Wild Word Friday!

You probably already know that our English word LEPRECHAUN was borrowed from the Irish, actually from the Irish Gaelic – Luprachan.  In even older Gaelic form (also known as Middle Irish) this word comes from two separate words – lu, which means small, and corpan, which means little body. 

Now if you put these two Middle Irish words together you might notice that the resulting word is Lucorpan not Luprachan or our version, LEPRECHAUN. Notice that compared to the old pronunciaton, our modern form switches the places of the c and the p. As languages change through years of usage, it’s fairly common for words to experience a transposition of sound. The fancy word for that sound-transposition is metathesis.

If you say both words – Lucorpan and Luprachan – you might notice that it’s easier to say Luprachan, and that is almost always the reason for a sound-transposition – ease of pronunciation.

One of the most cited examples of metathesis is the word bird, which comes to us from the Old English word brid. Bird is easier to say than brid, just like it’s easier for us to say LEPRECHAUN  (or Luprachan) than Lucorpan.  So three cheers for metathesis! (And for St. Patrick’s Day!)

Blessings,

Sue