LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 24.APR.2001 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Stefan Israel <stefansfeder at yahoo.com>
Subject: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 23.APR.2001

Criostoir wrote

> 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.

I'm venturing into speculation here (which is often all we have
for names without a long history of attestation).  If there were
a Celtic place name starting with [gw], how would the Germanic
Old Scots speakers have pronounced it?  If they adopted the name
early enough on, they'd have still had only spirant g (like
Flemish <g> word-initially.  They wouldn't have had [gw]
word-initially, and would likely have substituted [kw].  The
same thing happened when the word _Greek_ was borrowed into
Germanic, which rendered it as <krek>.  Of course, this only
works up until the time that word-initial g hardened to hard g
(1200's? 1300's?)

> 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.

I was just about to comment on the oddness of a half-Celtic,
half-Germanic name-  not unheard of, but iffy.  But might there
be a Brythonic word that sounds like <side> or its earlier
pronunciation [si:d] etc.?  I can't think of an example of false
translation of Celtic to English right off, but putative Slavic
*berl-in "Swampy place" gave rise to Low Saxon Berlin "wee
bear".

Stefan Israel

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Place names

Stefan wrote:

> I can't think of an example of false
> translation of Celtic to English right off, but putative Slavic
> *berl-in "Swampy place" gave rise to Low Saxon Berlin "wee
> bear".

Good one!  Apparently it comes from Slavic *_brlo_ 'bog', 'swampy place'.
I've been told that it is not uncommon to propose similarly false German
"etymologies" with regard to a number of other Slavic-based place names in
Germany.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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