Re: About Ivernian

All that is known about Ivernian is in a book called `Glossary'
written by Cormac mac Cuilenna'in (king-bishop of Cashel (capital of
the kingdom of Munster in Ireland)), who died in 908 AD (not 1908). In
his time Ivernian had recently died out. He quotes 2 Ivernian words:
`fern' = "anything good", and `ond' = "stone". He calls Ivernian `the
Iron-speech' "because it is dense and difficult", but the real reason
is that by his time Irish `Iwern-' = "Ivernian" and `isern-' = "iron"
had fallen together as `iarn'. He says also that `clach' [Irish for
"stone"] has 3 names ... [including] `onn' from the Iron-speech". The
modern source that quoted the above also guessed that the `Iver-' <
I.E. `pi-wer-' = "fat" = "fertile land", but I suspect that that may
be a coincidence with an old non-I.E. native name.

Perhaps some Irish Gaelic words and placenames and placename elements
were taken from Ivernian. If only parchment had been invented 1000
years earlier! and liberated literary man from dependency on long
trade routes with Egypt to import blank papyrus, or on the climate
being hot and dry enough for clay tablets. Then we would now know many
languages and thousands of old words which are now utterly forgotten.
With the word `Ivernian' compare {E'ire} < *{Iwerind-} = "Ireland",
and Greek "Ierne" in the Argonauts story for an island somewhere in
the area of Britain. The Roman-period author Ptolemy records some
Irish placenames, e.g. {Buvinda} for the River Boyne.