Re: Calen marth!

["Raymond A. Brown" <raybrown@clara.co.uk>]

At 3:39 pm -0500 2/3/99, John Cowan wrote:
>Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
>> >Hmm.  So the daffodil is "St. David's flower"?
>>
>> In the sense that it's worn on St David's Day.
>
>Yes, looking up the etymology of "daffodil", the "d" comes from
>the Dutch article, and the rest is Latin "asphodelus" > Fr > Du > Eng.
>
>And I so wanted there to be "Daffyd" in it.
                                 ^ tsk!

David is 'Dafydd' /'davID/, the I being high, central vowel (barred i) in
the north but just [I] in the south.  At least, that is David if your
thinking of the ancient King of Isreal and Psalmist and the Welsh is, of
course, a rendering of the Hebrew just as Latin 'Daui:d' is.  It's also the
more common form of the given name in modern Wales.

The Saint, however, is Dewi.  This is also used as a given name for boys in
modern Wales. The name is of Celtic origin; it was Latinized (&
Christinized) as 'Dauid'.

In Middle English the flower was 'affodille' from Old French 'asphodile'.
The initial d- is unexpected and Chambers simply says "the d is
unexplained".  Personally I think it unlikely that the Dutch article got
itself affixed to the word - When? Why? How?  Middle English readily
borrowed from Old French.

It has been suggested that the English nickname "Taffy" or "Daffy" for
Welshman has something to do with the initial d-.  The nickname apparently
originated from the fondness of the Welsh for the name Dafydd (tho the
river Taff possibly influenced "Taffy" also).  I think this is not
unlikely.

Ray.