mruig

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *mrogis (compare Welsh bro), from Proto-Indo-European *morǵ- (“frontier, border”). Cognate with Latin margo (“border, edge”), Proto-Germanic *markō (“border, region”), Avestan 𐬨𐬀𐬭𐬆𐬰𐬀 (mar^əza, “frontier”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mruɣʲ/

Noun

mruig m

1. march, borderland
   • c. 750, Aed oll fri andud nane, verse 2:

     In chlí comras cond credail · ollmas fu thocaid tugaib
     du farclu sech cach ndíne · di Moisten míne mrugaib.

     The mighty balk … great (and) good under roofs of fortune,
     to be chosen beyond any generation of the marches of smooth Moistiu.

2. country, territory
   • c. 850, Book of Armagh, folio 10^b1, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, vol. 2, p. 263:

     i mmruig tuaithe

     in the territory of the people

Declension

Masculine i-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	mruig	mruigL	mrugaiH
Vocative	mruig	mruigL	mrugaiH
Accusative	mruigN	mruigL	mrugaiH
Genitive	mrogoH, mrogaH	mrogoH, mrogaH	mrugaeN
Dative	mruigL	mrugaib	mrugaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: bruig, brug
  • Irish: brugh

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
mruig also mmruig after a proclitic ending in a vowel	mruig pronounced with /β̃(ʲ)-/	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “mruig”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language