Re: Mobile Welsh (was: Mormonides)

[Padraic Brown <agricola@wam.umd.edu>]

On Thu, 29 Jan 1998, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> >
> >I've never heard this legend.  Yet another Discovery Myth.  Anyway, I
> >can't find anything here on the Mandans, except that they are Siouans who
> >now live in chilly North Dakota.
> 
> Now you remind me, there must still be Mandans about - I saw some on the TV

Yes, indeed.  We didn't kill our Indians off; we simply sent them packing,
which explains why they aren't where expected.

> so long ago. Some Welsh speakers actually went over to N.Dakota to look
> them out.  Apparently there are a few words which are the same or similar
> in both languages!  But I strongly suspect this is mere coincident & if one
> looks hard it's likely you can find two or three "common words" among the
> most unlikely pairs of languages.

Such post crop up on sci.lang about once a month.  You don't even have to
look too awful hard to find one or two such coincidences; especially if
you overlook the histories of the two concerned languages and the sound
histories of the two languages.  This is the usual fatal flaw each of the
sci.lang posts contains.  Even so, some of the coincidences are
spectacular indeed.

> 
> >If his highness had made it to the
> >Mississippi, he would have found any number of rather high civilisations
> >in the area at this time, especially further north.  I can't guarantee
> >that the Mandans were in the area at that time, though.  Can you give a
> >reference for Madog's story?
> 
> The story first appears in a 15th century Welsh poem - I don't recall its
> title, I'm afraid.  I'll try to find out more.

That date might make a skeptic, well, rather skeptical.  If it's any
earlier than 1493 or so, then there is something of interest there.  As
Peter (I think) said, there's no reason it couldn't have happened.  The
Icelanders did it after all, and quite successfully for a while.

> 
> The legend is also told by Southy in his poem 'Madoc' (medieval Welsh
> spelling where intervocalic & final {c} = /g/, and {g} = /N/).  The legend
> of Madog is still widely known among the modern Welsh, and actually
> believed to be historic by some.

Many legends have roots buried in the truth.

> 
> Ray.
> 
Padraic.