Re: Celtic months (was: Some suggestions)

[Andrew Smith <hobbit@mail.earthlight.co.nz>]

On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> There were quite a few borrowings from Irish taken into Welsh.  In the
> familar refrain of 'Men of Harlech' = "Cymru fo am byth" (May Wales be for
> ever) 'byth' does not mutate to *fyth after 'am' as one would expect
> because the word was borrowed from Irish after the mutation rule had
> developed & was never affected by it.
>
'Am' doesn't cause mutation in Brithenig, but this may be coincidental (we
can always claim it isn't though!)
 
> Another interesting borrowing is the Welsh for 'penny' - "ceiniog".  The
> word is ultimately derived from Old English 'penig' (cf. mod. German
> 'Pfennig').  Old Irish had no initial p- and words borrowed from Latin &
> English beginning with p- were rendered with initial qu- which became c-
> [k].  Hence the Irish changed our initial p- to c- and palatized the medial
> -n- before the Welsh took it into their language, keeping the initial c-
> but de-palatizing the -n- to give  'ceiniog'.
>
Another word for the lexicon *kenig (m).  Would it be vital enough to
knock 'deneir' out of its place as the currency name for the coin, I
wonder?

- andrew.

Andrew Smith, Intheologus 			hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance,
whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain
berry be blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether
it be better to kiss a post or throw it on the fire..., with many more.
				- Jonathan Swift; Gulliver's Travels.