LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 23.APR.2001 (05) [E/LS]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 23.APR.2001 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 23.APR.2001 (01) [E]

A chairde,

Sandy wrote:

> It seems possible that the word is the modern Welsh
> "gwydd" or "coed" which
> means anything from a forest to a clump of trees.

It's typical that the one time I could have been of
use linguistically to the list I'm not paying
attention. Typical! *laughs* Sandy is quite right in
his assertion - the whole of the Lowlands,
particularly in the west from Dumbarton southward,
remained Brythonic-speaking for quite some time,
linking up with a remnant Brythonic variant, Cumbric,
in Cumbria. Cumbric is reckoned to have been lost by
the 14th Century and it is surmisable that the
Scottish Brythonic language(s) fell into dormancy long
before that. It is intriguing to note, however, that
William Wallace's name means "Welsh William" - Uilleam
Breatnach in Gaelic - and that he may have had
Brythonic forebears or even retained fragmentary
Brythonic himself.

It is much more likely that "quath" derives from
"coed" (forest, wood) rather than "gwydd". Firstly, as
I understand it, [k] > [kw] is a fairly simple
mutation, particularly in Scots; secondly, and
crucially, [gw] in Brythonic is generally a very
strong sound and remains in placenames. "-keith" comes
from "coed" and shows that [k] generally remained in a
/k/ continuum in Scotland. [gw] is by no means a
difficult sound to articulate in Gaelic - it occurs as
/gu/ in words such as "guaire" and in certain parts of
Ireland (including the standard pronunciation of
Irish) /g/ is regularly assimilated to [gw] as in
[gwe:il'g@] for "Gaeilge" where it actually is a
mistaken affectation of the ghamma phoneme. It is
however seldom that [gw] is ever assimilated to [k] or
[kw]/[kv] in Gaelic. "Gwydd", further, would be
mutated to "wydd" after the definite article, as is
the norm in Celtic languages. It is also an infrequent
actor in placenames when compared with "coed" - which,
incidentally, in Cornish is "cooz" [ku:z].

"Quathside" therefore appears to mean "woodside". As
for the mysterious mutation of /d/ to /th/ ("coed" to
"quath") this too is not that unusual and indeed may
reflect a Gaelicisation of the original Brythonic
before Scottisation. Gaelic uses palatised [t] and [d]
that non-Gaelic speakers find incredibly difficult to
articulate and often mishear/assimilate as/to the
theta or dhelta phonemes we find in English - e.g.
Anglo-Irish "wundher" for "wonder", "bather" for
"batter" (from Irish "bóthar"), "wather" for "water",
and so on. These all represent an inadequacy on the
part of English orthography to represent palatal
varieties of [t] and [d]. "coed" would probably be
Gaelicised to something like *cuaid or *cuait, with
the dipthongised [u:a] being lost in Anglicisation to
[o:] or [ae] - this was a common practice among
English administrators in Ireland: Eoghan Rua [ru:a]
became Owen Roe [ro:] and Tuaim [u:am'] became Toome.
Palatal [t] and [d] in hypothetical *cuaid and *cuait
would simply have been realised to English speakers as
theta and dhelta and the error fossilised on maps etc.

If Quathside does mean "woodside" then it conforms to
Gaelic place-naming conventions - witness Waterside,
Bogside, etc. probably based on Gaelic substrate
topographical element "taobh" meaning side, abundance,
defined by, etc. (The Waterside is separated from the
rest of Derry by the water of the river Foyle; the
Bogside is reclaimed swamp-bog next to what was
Derry's oakwood - "doire".)

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Críostóir.

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