> I am tempted to enter the conversation at this point to mention an
> idea I have seen that the Cimmerians, after having been expelled from
> the North Pontic regions and relegated to Anatolia, might later have
> formed part of the p-Celtic invasion; thus possibly Cimmerian = Cymru?
> (Which would make the Cimmerians proto-p-Celts, I suppose).
This is one of those questions that never seems to go away - I must have
addressed this very issue a hundred times on various different mailing lists
and newsgroups.
There is _absolutely_ no relation between the Modern Welsh word Cymru and
the ancient ethnic name Cimmerioi or Cimbri.
Welsh Cymru "Wales" comes from Late Brittonic *Combrogia, that is to say
Com- "co-/together" + Brogia "country". Cymry "Welshmen" comes from the
plural form Com-broges (which was modeled on Celtic forms like the Gaulish
Allobroges "foreigners" and Nitiobroges "Natives"). The important thing to
remember is that *Combrogia and *Combroges are late formations - they do not
even stem from the Common Brittonic period, but actually were coined after
the breakup of the various Brittonic dialects - so they are not genuinely
ancient ethnic terms (unlike Pretani and Albiones which are the earliest
recorded names for Britons).
I don't accept at the moment that Cimbri and Cimmerioi are related - it
seems more likely to me that Cimbri is a Celtic name (Cimmerioi is generally
taken as Scythian, if I am not mistaken - though I don't think I have seen a
good etymology for it). Cimbri may be related to the Irish verb cimbid
"captured person/victim" perhaps making Cimbri "The Slavers".
-Chris Gwinn