At 7:44:26 PM on Wednesday, April 2, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>> the Scottish Clan Chattan is associated with the cat any
>> chance it could just be a folk etymology and have
>> something to do with Chatti? Or conversely, that the
>> Chatti are a "Cat Clan"?
> Now that's interesting.
> The geminated -tt- indicates something other that IE, if
> it doesn't come from some later morpheme collision. The
> Celtic is Cassi, but also -castini, with -ss- and -st-.
According to George F. Black, The Surnames of Scotland s.n.
<Chattan>, Clan Chattan (Sc.Gael. Clann Chatain) is the
collective name of a number of clans that united into a
confederation in 1609: Cattanach, Clark, Crerar, Davidson,
Farquharson, Gillespie, Gillies, Gow, Macbain, Macbean,
Macgillivray, Macintosh, Macphail, Macpherson, Macqueen,
Noble, and Shaw. 'Some ultra-patriotic clan historians
derive the name from the Catti or Chatti (who had their seat
in the region of modern Hesse), a tribe of Germany described
by Tacitus (_Germania_, xxx, 1).' Clearly Black takes this
with more than a few grains of salt.
S.n. <Cattanach> he identifies this clan with the <Clann
Catan> of the 1467 MS., <Clann Catain> in modern Sc.Gael.,
which claims descent from one <Gillacatain> 'servant of (St)
Catan'.
S.n. <Gillechattan> he says that St Catan gave his name to
Clan Chattan.
The name is properly <Catán>, a diminutive in <-án>. St
Catán was the preceptor of St Bláán; the place-name <Cill
Chatáin> (Eng. <Kilchattan>) occurs in Bute, Colonsay,
Islay, Gigha, Luing, and Kintyre, and there are several
other place-names commemorating him in the west of Scotland.
He's also the saint of Aberruthven -- 'ecclesia Sancti
Catani de Aberruadeuien' 1198. The name is distinct from
the more familiar <Cathán>, from <cath> 'a battle'; Anders
may know better, but so far as I can see, it's simply EIr
<catán> 'a kitten', a diminutive of OIr <cat(t)> 'a cat',
from PCelt. *katto-. Celtic may have got it from Latin
<cattus>, but the word is ultimately non-IE.
Brian