Re[2]: [tied] Welsh Don's children: etymology

At 11:04:23 PM on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, stlatos wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Christopher Gwinn"
> <sonno3@...> wrote:

His post is ten years old, and I believe that Chris left
Cybalist a while back.

[...]

>> Gilfathwy or Gilfaethwy. Once again, an uncertain name -
>> Gilfaethwy looks like the preferrable form. The -f- can
>> stand for a -b-, -m-, or -u-, the -aethwy from -axteios
>> (-axt from PIE -ag-t-, -ap-t- or -abh-t) and the -i- from
>> an original Brittonic -u-, so we may have
>> *Gul[o]baxteios, *Gul[o]maxteios or *Gul[o]uaxteios.
>> Perhaps the first element is related to Gaulish Gulba
>> "peak/beak" and -aethwy from -axt (PIE -ag-t-)
>> "works/does/leads." The -wy suffix comes from a Celtic
>> -ei-os which is found sometimes as a patronymic.

I'm not sure that PCelt. *gulbV- 'beak' will work here: I
may be missing something, but it seems to me that it should
yield <Gylf...> as in Welsh <gylf> 'beak, bill'.

> This is definitely 'child/servant of [Math]'.

What have you for such a <Gil-> element in British?

[...]

>> Gofannon comes from *Gobantonos "the divine smith." I am
>> unaware at the moment of the PIE root which gives Celtic
>> gobant-o "smith."

Why *gobant- rather than *goban(n)- or the like?

> No, this once again ignores historic evidence. None of
> the ancient names related to this support such a form.

The basic shape of the PCelt. etymon is pretty clear, so the
obvious conclusion is that you're wielding your shoehorn too
vigorously again.

> *gYón.u+ 'bend, curve, curved horn'

The 'knee' word?! The gloss doesn't really fit the cognates
that I know, ...

> *gYón.u+mYHó+ 'little curved horn, nail'

... a better gloss would make it a bit hard to justify
'nail', even if that were a plausible route to 'smith'.

[...]

> This last word underwent many opt. changes, including
> metathesis, to known Celtic forms, including Gebrinius, as
> well as to Lith. Gabjaukuras \ Gabjauge: \ Gabjauja \
> Gabjaugis \ Gabjàujis, Jagaubis.

Trying to squeeze <Gebrinius> into this soup makes no sense
at all, either formally or semantically: he's identified
with Mercury (<Mercurius Gebrinius>). If there were any
evidence that he was a horned god, one might look to PCelt.
*gabro- 'he-goat' (OIr. <gabor>, Welsh <gafr>, Gaul. toponym
<Gabromagus> 'Goatfield'), but it seems that he's often
depicted as an animal whose head resembles a lion and whose
body is rather reminiscent of a fat sheep. As I understand
it, Gabiáuja is a goddess of wealth; like Václav Blažek, I
find the semantics a bit problematic. As he points out,
Lith. <gabe.> ~ <gube.> (<gabija> ~ <gubija> 'goddess of
fire'; 'fire' in elevated speech) is a better fit.

The article is Václav Blažek, 'Celtic "Smith" and His
Colleagues', in Alexander Lubotsky, Jos Schaeken, & Jeroen
Wiedenhof, eds. (2008). Evidence and Counter-Evidence.
Essays in Honour of Frederik Kortlandt. Vol. 1:
Balto-Slavic and Indo-European Linguistics. His suggestion
that Lat. <faber> and PCelt. *gob-ens/ns-(n-) might have a
common PIE root is interesting.

Brian