early forms (fwd)

[Andrew Carnie]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1998 10:14:00 -0800
From: christine whittemore <cmwhit at noln.com>
To: celtling at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: early forms


Hello, I'm new to the list and wonder if someone would be kind enough to
help me with some questions I have about early forms of some words.
I've discovered the existence of the historical Dicionary of the Welsh
Language, still under construction, but don't have access to it.

I'm writing a book about the first century AD.  I want to find words that
are as close as possible to the form they might have had in the Brythonic
(correct term?) of that time.  Not Latinized of course, like
eg Cartimandua, Caractacus.

Using Strachan, Intro. to early Welsh, and a book of medieval Cornish
texts, I have found some words and word elements common to and similar in
both.  I'm hoping these are therefore authentic Brythonic words and not
later borrowings.

I know of course that our knowledge of the language/s spoken in Britain
in the first century is hypothetical and extrapolated from early medieval
and medieval texts. place names, Latin writers' versions,  and what we
know about the development of Breton, Cornish and Welsh.  So I know
no-one can be SURE of the early forms of words.  But I also know (did
English Language and Medieval Literature at Univ. of Durham, UK) that
philologists can make an educated guess.

Might I prevail upon some kind soul reading this to tell me the closest
likely first century AD form of:

casseg, early w; cassec, early cornish=mare
eiry, early w., snow
gwenith, early w. =wheat
llyn, early w., lin, old cornish=pool. lake
melys=sweet, early w
mor, early w, ?cornish=sea
teg=pretty, fair
tegan
tan=fire, early w & cornish
tanawl=fiery early w
tes=heat, fervor, early w & cornish
?tesni, warmth, mod. w., earlier form?

Thanks for any help.  I hope this kind of question, from a
non-specialist, is not out of order on this list.

Christine Whittemore.