From: guto rhys
Message: 14659
Date: 2002-08-28
Yes, I agree - the point being that the name of a king is neither proof of his mother language, nor proof of the language of his subjects. Edward I, being named after Edward the Confessor.
The West Saxon kings having Brythonic names is interesting - what references can we draw from that? I cannot however explain the loss of '-n' in Caedwallla if from an earlier form of Cadwallawn. Is it from Cadwal? The '-a' comes from A-Saxon?
I see it quite logical that druids would have access to a more conservative register of their day to day language. I believe Caesar makes references to many years of training and learning by memory - presumably of ritual material, going back a long time. Later medieval Welsh poets underwent many years of training, learning poetry dating back many centuries. This, and other factors, makes the dating of early Welsh poetry very difficult. Poems being the end result of many centuries of recomposition, addition, mistakes etc.. and consequently are not a reliable reflexion of the spoken language of the time.
Guto
richardwordingham wrote:
--- In cybalist@..., guto rhys <gutorhys@...> wrote:
> To what extent can we assume that the 'tribe' would have spoken the
same language as the hierarchy? I can think of many examples of kings
having, for polital/historical reasons names derived from other
languages, rather than their mother tongues (Alexander in Scotland,
Phillip in Spain, Edward I in England etc.).
'Edward' may not have been French (his mother tongue - well, near
enough), but at least the name was English, the language of the man
in the street in most of the territory where he was king!
Even sameness of language between king and subjects guarantees
nothing. Several West Saxon kings (Cerdic, C�dwalla) had British
names! More germanely, the compound names could have been drawn from
archaic elements. I recall a serious suggestion that the druids
preserved an older form of Celtic in much the same way as Sanskrit
was preserved in India.
Richard.
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