From: tgpedersen
Message: 56020
Date: 2008-03-27
>Catowolcus was leader of the Eburones, thus a Belgan.
> This is what Wikipedia has to say re: etymology of
> Volcae, but I think all of you could come up with
> something better
>
> Traditional etymologies have attributed Volcae to a
> word akin to Welsh golchi "to wash" and Irish folc "to
> bathe" (Proto-Celtic *volkio:), making this tribe
> the "river people" after a rough semantic adjustment.
> A more likely scenario is that this or a cognate in
> Pannonian Illyrian was used to name the river Volcos,
> from which the Volcae took their name. C.W. von
> Glück[19]derived the name from a word related to Old
> Irish folg "agile, energetic".[20]
> Most Celticists today seem to agree that the tribal
> name Uolcae is related to Welsh gwalch "hawk" (and
> they compare the Gaulish personal name Catuuolcus to
> Welsh cadwalch "hero", literally "battle-hawk"),
> though some prefer to translate Gaulish *uolco- as
> "wolf" and, by semantic extension, "errant
> warrior"[21]
> The name Tectosages, literally "possession-seekers",I wondered sometimes if there was lenition after all in some
> meant "claim-stakers", perhaps closer in sense to
> "claim-jumper" or "land grabber", and a direct cognate
> is found in Old Irish techtaigidir "he/she seeks to
> (re)establish a land claim" [22].