Reference on Numbers of Saxons

[Jim Rader]

The record in question from which the name <Coit Maur> is drawn
is Asser's Latin life of King Alfred, composed in the late 9th
century.  Asser was a Welshman and most likely substituted
traditional Welsh names for the places he mentions in Wessex and
elsewhere in Lloegr, so he is not a reliable source for Brythonic
outside of Wales.  This point was made a long time ago by
Jackson in _Language and History in Early Britain_.

Also, the vocalism of the Common Celtic word for "big" is not
necessarily <mo:r->, though the pre-Celtic etymon has been
reconstructed as such (by Lambert and others).  The attested word
has <a> in all early forms, e.g., Gaulish <-maros> in proper
names,  Old Irish <ma:r>, Welsh <mawr>.  Old Irish also has
<mo:r>, the only form retained in later Irish and Scottish Gaelic (I
think), but this may be due to the influence of the comparative
<mo:>.  At any rate, conventional wisdom is that I-E <a:> and <o:>
fell together in Common Celtic in non-final syllables.

Jim Rader

> Or, Brythonic in what is now England managed to go through all or some of
> the same changes as in Wales (consonant lenition, vowel shifts) as in Wales
> before its speakers forgot their language and learned Anglo-Saxon. E.g. an
> Anglo-Saxon record says that the Selwood forest in Wessex was called Silva
> Magna in Latin and Coitmaur in "British", whereas the old Common Celtic
> word for "big" was "mo:r-" (and in Gaelic still is).
>[Anthony Appleyard]