New Words ? A (new?) idea that might stir up debate! Is this nutso?

[Steaphan]

Have any of you read "Litir do Luchd Ionnsachaidh" on the BBC Alba website? One of the earlier letters talks about new words coming into Gaelic.
He mentions that "telebhisean" comes from Latin and ancient Greek, meaning long vision or something like that. So although it came into Gaelic via English, it's not from English as such.
Anyway he talks about the word "sandwich", which is used in French too. Gaelic has its own word for sandwich which is used by many in the Gaelic-speaking world in both Scotland and Ireland on account of their being such item of food in times gone by. Its "ceapaire".

[jacobitedreamer]

Well, many words we use, in whatever language, are borrowed from Latin, greek or other languages. I think there is no "pure" language at all. But maybe one should try to avoid a too heavy "invasion" of foreign words into Gaelic. This is important to strengthen the feeling of Gaelic as an independant language which has no need of being supported by English.

And always remember: even the English borrowed words from Gaelic. For instance "trousers" comes from Gaelic "triubhais" and their famous "smahing" from "is math sine".

Many scientific words and, by extension, words for new technologies tend to have Latin or Ancient Greek root words, which probably helps explain why very similar words are used in many languages (as shown in the television example). So I don't think it is entirely due to the domination of English as the modern Lingua Franca, but more to do with the domination of Latin and Ancient Greek in the scientific community.