Saint Patrick & Names along the Antonine wall

[MonsGraupius]

This week "well "M" . . .

Does this mean, 'This weak "Welsh" "M" . . .'?

There's evidence for Welsh-like language(s) being present all the way up the west coast of Britain from Cornwall, to Cumbria and Strathclyde.

We are told that Ninian preached to the Southern Picts from Whithorn, which could mean the language was "Pictish", but we have so little solid information about Pictish specifically that it's very difficult to tell the language group let alone whether it was a form of Welsh.

However, there is also later Gaelic overlay, because Medio becomes "Bal-muildy" where "Bal" appears to be Gaelic for "Settlement of". Then you have the possibility of Germanic, from Roman Auxiliaries, Norse invaders, Northumbrians. So the linguistics in this area of complex and there appear to have been several changes any of which could bring about a change in the way place names were pronounced. I wouldn't therefore say "they spoke XXX therefore ....this explains YYY"

What we do know, is that today we have two spellings of the same word: "DuMbarton" in "West DuNbartonshire". Thus even if we can't be sure of the exact linguistic history, we do know that this "M" (or N) isn't strongly fixed to one spelling and indeed it is completely absent in the Roman form of Dobiadon.

Dum- type place names abound in areas where there's evidence for early Welsh-like language, so it's not unreasonable to think that Dumbarton came from a Welsh-like language. The two variant spelling of dauu and dam meaning "related to" show that in Welsh there is also this "weak M" in this element. Thus this "weak M" is a plausible explanation from the dropped "M".