Correct form of Iron Age British names

[authun]

:roll: OMG - can you not see that you have just confirmed what I have been saying all along about the etymology of Penegent??!!! Or maybe you don't understand what it is you are quoting?

I did write at an early stage "I have seen this proposed etymology although it was referred to 'Hill of the Foreigners'" and I have stated that it is my preferred explantion. You however have rejected this. Those posts are there for all to see.

I have seen this proposed etymology although it was referred to 'Hill of the Foreigners'. But other etymologies are proposed too, eg Hill of the Winds, Head of the Hill or Hill of the Border.

I trust my source for this example (John Koch's "Celtic Culture" encyclopedia) because it generally offers the most up-to-date and widely-accepted etymologies - none of the other ones that you mention seem very likely to me.

However, you should note that Breeze does not offer this as a proof and rates it as no more than a reasonable explanation, allowing for the possiblity of other explantions.

As I stated at the outset, we cannot be sure.

If you are able to furnish us with any proof, Koch's or otherwise, please do so.

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authun

[authun]

I think my suspicions about your status as a Troll have just been confirmed.

You need to be reminded of the forum rules:

What's not allowed:
1. No dismissive, hostile, abusive or aggressive negative responses. Malicious behavior (personal insults, "mobbing" or just being a sarcastic thug) is abuse, and moderators will intervene at the first sign of nastiness.


Readers will draw their own conclusions about your age and claim to expertise from your emotional responses to direct challenges which have largely been content free. Evasiveness does nothing to inspire confidence and petulance demeans the quality of the forum.

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authun

[M. Demetrius]

Maybe if the agitated parties of the argument, stopped posting, took a deep breath, and returned to the topic in a couple of days, the conversations about those things we can't really know for sure anyway (since not much of the ancient "Celtic" languages were written down in the first place) the conversation would be more friendly-sounding. This is not a moderator intervention, it's just a suggestion to relax the tension.

It's fine to disagree, even staunchly, but this seems to be about to start heading in a wrong direction, is all I'm saying.

[authun]

Maybe if the agitated parties of the argument, stopped posting, took a deep breath, and returned to the topic in a couple of days, the conversations about those things we can't really know for sure anyway (since not much of the ancient "Celtic" languages were written down in the first place) the conversation would be more friendly-sounding. This is not a moderator intervention, it's just a suggestion to relax the tension.

It's fine to disagree, even staunchly, but this seems to be about to start heading in a wrong direction, is all I'm saying.

It hardly matters. I am not attempting to argue any particular case.

As long as the Oxford Dictionary says one thing and the Cambridge Dictionary says another thing and people like Higham and Breeze argue yet more things in papers, it is obvious that there is no concensus.

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authun

[Rumo]

Toponymastics however is more than just linguistics, one has to decide from the many early spellings what the elements are. [...] A toponymist will look at all the examples of early spellings and make judgements on what the elements are supposed to be.

This applies not only to toponomastics or onomastics in general. Words under scrutiny are often analyzed in several occurrences and sometimes several etymological solutions are suggested. However etymologies shouldn't be restricted to some blunt neo-grammarian inferences, especially in situations of inter-linguistic contact. Unfortunately the distinction between hypothesis and fact gets blurred too often.

However, since it was a about a toponym, take this example of what a name may hide:

In ancient times, not far from the mouth of Danube there was a city named Axiupolis/Axiopolis. It was recorded as ?????????? by Ptolemy in Geographia, III.8.1, 8.2, 10.1, 10.5 and by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in De Thematibus, II (p.47,15 in Bonn edition). It shows as Axiupoli in Itinerarium Antonini, 224.2 and in Notitia Dignitatum, in partibus Orientis, 39 and as Axiopolis in Tabula Peutingeriana, VII.3. Probably there are some other similar mentions as well. In contrast with all these in Procopius', De Aedificiis, IV.11.15 (towards the end of that long list, 149.9 in Haury's edition) we find ??????, a fortification in Scythia (obviously Scythia Minor as other names from the list prove: ?????????? for Noviodunum, ????????, ?????, ???????, etc.).
Understandably several scholars assumed this to be the same Axiopolis, and they hurried to explain Axiopa as an authentic local (Thracian, Thraco-Scythian) name. D. De?ev (see Die Thrakischen sprachreste, 1957, p. 18 and bibliography) read in Axiopa "schwarzes Wasser" suggesting Axiopolis to be a Graecization of a Thracian name, reinterpreted as axios (würdig) + polis (Stadt). Axiopa (after D. De?ev, Vl. Georgiev et al ) was explained through an Indo-European etymology: axi- = "dark" < *n-ks(e)y and -opa, -upa- = "water" < *upa related to Lithuanian upe (Georgiev also imagined a diminutive *axiupula, which was the actual name reinterpreted by the Graeco-Roman writers). This etymology was also confirmed by the later toponymy of the region, because the Slavic ?ernavoda (today the Romanian town Cernavod?) and Turkic Karasu mean the same thing, "black/dark water". Case closed.
Or not. Some other modern scholars (I. I. Russu, S. Olteanu) doubted for good reasons this apparently strong case. Why would we have an authentic local name in the writings of Procopius (mid 6th century, when few if any were still speaking the indigenous languages of Scythia Minor) but absent in all the other sources? Being an educated imperial rhetor and scholar, we'd expect of Procopius to use a name like the ones we find in Ptolemy, IA, ND and the other earlier Roman works.
The actual counter-argument is hidden in the manuscripts of De Aedificiis. This work was heavily corrupted by successive copying (see V. Beševliev, Zur Deutung der Kastellnamen in Prokops Werk "De Aedificiis", 1970 and for a more recent and concise overview see also B. Flusin, "Remarques sur la tradition manuscrite du De Aedificiis" in Antiquité Tardive 8/2000, p. 9-17). There are long lists of names (in book IV there are two such lists) which probably made little if any sense to the copyists. Scriptio continua, abbreviations and marginal notes were ingredients which added even more "noise". If we examine the abbreviations from the manuscripts we can still find ??? for ????? and ???? for ??????? (the abbreviations actually use superscript, but "sup" tag doesn't seem to work so I chose to use underlines). And indeed we should note about our name that in the manuscript Leidensis Vulcanianus 56, on folio 71, verso, the name is actually written ??????. Considering ?? is one of the expected abbreviations for ????? (the two consonants of the root) and that there's a well-known paleographic confusion between lambda and alpha in some Greek manuscripts, Russu and Olteanu concluded the original text held ??????. The substitution likely happened also because ? and not ? is the expected desinence (if the abbreviation was missed) in our case.

This verbose excursus is my way to show I know something of linguistics, but also of toponomastics in particular, and that some postulated equations (especially when the languages are only scarcely attested) are far from being persuasive, at least for readers like me.



Back to topic. Here are some papers on Celtic languages. Some time ago A. Falileyev's dictionary of continental Celtic place names was online (I still have the PDF files), now the only available resource I could find is this map. And there's this interesting read on ancient Britons.

[authun]

This verbose excursus is my way to show I know something of linguistics, but also of toponomastics in particular, and that some postulated equations (especially when the languages are only scarcely attested) are far from being persuasive, at least for readers like me.

Back to topic. Here are some papers on Celtic languages. Some time ago A. Falileyev's dictionary of continental Celtic place names was online (I still have the PDF files), now the only available resource I could find is this map. And there's this interesting read on ancient Britons.

It wasn't my intention to over simplify the subject, it's just that posts should be made understandable for all readers.

If you are interested in Celtic Studies, have you seen John Koch's 'An Atlas for Celtic Studies: Archaeology and Names in Ancient Europe and Early Medieval Ireland, Britain and Brittany'? [url:3ddw6kiz]http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/82503//Location/Oxbow[/url] It contains 630 Insular Celtic inscriptions.

You supply a link to Coate's paper: Invisible Britons: The View from Linguistics. This is from Higham, Britons in Anglo-Saxon England , [url:3ddw6kiz]http://www.boydell.co.uk/43833123.HTM[/url]. Alex Woolf's contribution to this book, Apartheid and Economics in Anglo-Saxon England, is also available online, [url:3ddw6kiz]http://www.wepapers.com/Papers/75386/Apartheid_And_Economics_In_Anglo-Saxon_England.pdf[/url]

An interesting interactive map of place names in the south east of Scotland and the north east of England is available at: http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/ ... frames.htm

The paper which goes with this map is entitled The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland and is available at [url:3ddw6kiz]http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/10/fox.html[/url]

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authun

[Robert Vermaat]

Although in France, it is not from Gaulish but from Germanic burg, meaning, in France but not in Germany, a walled town. Germanic burg comes from germanic berg and both are cognate with celtic briga and ultimately go back to PIE for hill. The word remains recognisable, but its meaning and usage changes.

It's not that simple. The word 'burg' certainly has the meaning of walled town in German, and there are plenty of examples to prove this.
In Old English, the words for 'fortification/walled settlement' is 'burh', with a dative singular form 'byrig' (plural 'burga'), but this word is very similar to 'beorg', the word for hill. Especially when you're describing a hillfort, this can be confusing at times.
(A similar confusion occurs with linear earthworks, where the word 'dic' evolved into 'ditch' as well as 'dyke', referring to the same thing (the earthwork), but with opposite meanings!)

[authun]

It's not that simple. The word 'burg' certainly has the meaning of walled town in German, and there are plenty of examples to prove this.
In Old English, the words for 'fortification/walled settlement' is 'burh', with a dative singular form 'byrig' (plural 'burga'), but this word is very similar to 'beorg', the word for hill. Especially when you're describing a hillfort, this can be confusing at times.
(A similar confusion occurs with linear earthworks, where the word 'dic' evolved into 'ditch' as well as 'dyke', referring to the same thing (the earthwork), but with opposite meanings!)

Yes, I could have worded it better and perhaps used the word exclusively. In Germany burg can be used for any fortification, in later times a castle, in earlier times a fortified settlement and of course when they started building them, towns.

At the time the germanic speakers entered roman Gaul, the walled towns they encountered reminded them of their 'burgs', hence the use of this germanic suffix.

At least I think the use of germanic burg in France is exclusive to walled towns, correct me if I am wrong, but I can't think of any small fortified settlements which were given this suffix and I'm not aware of a castle being described as a burg.

The expanding range of usage, hill => high place => fortified hill => fortified settlement => important settlement mirrors celtic 'briga'. A lot of etymological arguments occur around the name of the tribe Brigantes. Does it mean a collection of tribes who live in the [northern] hills or simply those who worship the goddess 'Brigantia', herself a goddess of the sky or high places.

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authun

[Rumo]

Harry, thank you for your bibliography. I do have Britons in Anglo-Saxon England and actually the entire section of "Linguistic Perspectives" is a nice read, perhaps especially Peter Schrijver's "What Britons Spoke around 400 AD" arguing for a Lowland British Celtic and a Highland British Celtic, the former more influenced by Latin (and its speakers were mostly Latin-Celtic bilinguals) and having stronger connections with the contemporary Celtic dialects from northern Gaul.

It wasn't my intention to over simplify the subject, it's just that posts should be made understandable for all readers.

IMHO a serious linguistic debate must have a technical side.

My example above, however, was also to prove that even a etymology looks solid, it still may be not. Careless etymologies and speculative analogies have a lot of pitfalls. Coincidences are persuasive, but at the same time so unreliable (à propos of briga/burg). Just imagine a 41st century linguist asserting the word 'tomahawk' is of Germanic origin

[M. Demetrius]

even a etymology looks solid, it still may be not

And homonyms from one language to another may have no connection whatsoever. There are only so many sounds, and just because two sound, or look, similar, doesn't mean they have the same sources. English is full of words that would be very confusing to decipher should the language fall into disuse.

Lead, the verb, and lead, the metal look alike, for example, but really have no connection, nor are they pronounced the same way. Sorry to point out the obvious, but it's just my gift to society.

[Rumo]

Sorry to point out the obvious, but it's just my gift to society.

As a member of it, I gratefully accept your gift

[Robert Vermaat]

Just imagine a 41st century linguist asserting the word 'tomahawk' is of Germanic origin

I already have problems with 21st-c. linguists asserting that 'Badon' must be of Germanic origin because now we have no Celtic word resembling it. As if we, like the linguists living centuries after us, will ever be able to claim that we know all the words of a distant past..