ON GAULISH NAMES. 97 VI1I.-ON GAULISH NAMES. By D. W. NASH,Esq. F.S.A. THE Gauls, as described by the classical writers, were tall in stature, athletic and vigorous, of fair or ruddy complexion, light-haired, either yellow or reddish, endowed with a lym- phatic temperament, ill capable of supporting the hot c%ates of the south, and exhibiting generally the characters of a northern race, men of the north. In the artistic represen- tations of the Gauls which have come down to us, they are characterized by a shape of head long from the forehead to the occiput, as opposed to another type distinguished by a round-shaped head, who were dark complexioned, having brown or black hair and eyes, and a nervous temperament, indicative of a southern origin.’ This tall, fair-complexioned race of Gauls approached closely to the Germanic type, a fact which admits of natural explanation in their common Indo-European origin. This race, whose degeneration had already commenced in the time of Cssar, has been almost entirely absorbed by the darker race, and must always have formed a minority as well in Gaul as in the British isles, of which countries they were not the earliest inhabitants ; but, as their own traditions, con- firmed by many historical facts, indicate, a conquering people whose race finally lost itself, with some local exceptions, in the far more numerous population of the conquered. The almost total disappearance of the classical type of the Gaul in France, and its replacement by a different type, is so marked, 1 M, Roget de Belloguet in Ethnogenie Gauloise. Paris, 1861. 7 98 ON GAULISH NAMES, that Niebuhr was inclined to believe that the ancients had confounded the Gauls with the Germans. The phenomenon receives a reasonable explanation on the assumption of a con- quering race absorbed into the mass of the conquered. The ethnological affinities of the ancient Gauls can, however, only be ascertained by aid of philological evidence. Zeuss, the founder of Celtic philology, has given the weight of his authority to the opinion that the languages of ancient Gaul and Britain were so nearly related, that the speech of the people on both sides of the Channel was mutually intel- ligible. The Celtic language he has divided, in common with other philologers, into two great branches: to one of which he gives the name of Hibernic, including the modern Irish and the Scottish Gaelic; to the other the name of Britannic, in which division he has placed the Gaulish along with the Cambric, the Cornish, and the Armorican. Most writers give to the two principal divisions of the Celtic the names of Gadhelic and Cymric, to which it is perhaps better to adhere. The Gaulish inscriptions which haw but recently, and since the date of the Grammatica Celtica, been subjected to cfitical examination,’ reveal words which not only do not yield in antiquity of form to those of classic Latin, but even attain in many respects that of the archaic language of the Romans. They also show beyond a doubt that the inflexions which the Irish has rctained are older than the absence of inflexions in Welsh, and that the wonderful phonetic pecu- liarities of the modern Celtic, the umlaut, the aspirations, and the nasals, are foreign to the Old Celtic.2 The gram- matical forms of the Gaulish, so far as they are exhibited in the scanty materials afforded by the inscriptions, approach closely to the oldest Irish forms ; and, indeed, the very forms whioh the sagacity of Ebel had anticipated, from a con- 1 Pictet, Esaai aur quelques Inscriptions en langue Gauloise, GenBve, 1859. Roget de Belloguet, Ethnogenie Gauloise. Monin, Monuments des Anciennes Idiornes Gauloises. Paria, 1861. Mr. Whitley Stokes and Professor Becker in Beitrsege Iur Vergleich. Sprachforschung, 1862-3-4. * Dr. Sullivan in preface to Ebei’a Celtic Studies, p. XY. BY D. W. NASH, ESQ., F.S.A. 99 sideration of the phonetic laws of the later Celtic.’ The entire loss of the case-endings in the Welsh prevents any comparisons on this head ; while the greater amount of the ancient language preserved by the Irish than by the Welsh, gives a perhaps undue prominence to the interpretations of the elements of Gaulish names obtained by aid of the Irish vocabularies. If, as Zeuss pointed out, the Gaulish agrees with the Cymric rather than with the Gadhelic in certain vowel- sounds, as 8.g. in the Gaulish names Lifnuic~.~,Litana, Cym- ric Zitan, Zitau, but Gadhelic Zethan, on the other hand the Gaulish dunum is nearer Gadh. dun than Cymric din ; Gaul. Div, Gadh. Din, Gym. Dezo. The chief points of difference in the sounds of the Gadhe- lic and the Cymric are- 1. The preference by the Gadhelic of the guttural tenuis c (k) in words where the Cymric has preferred the labial tenuis p ; 2. The substitution by the Cymric of the spirant h for the sibilant s of the Gadhelic ; 3. The abhorrence of the Cymric for the initial combina- tions of s with other consonants, a peculiarity not shared by the Gadhelic. Names of places and persons with an initial p are rare in Gaul. The tribes Parisii, Petrocorii and Pictones ; Pleu- moxii and Poemani both of doubtful, perhaps German, origin ;3 places-Pennolucos, Tab. Peut., called in the Anto- nine Itin. Penile-Zocus, and the strange personal name Peizno- cennius. In Britain, Parisii, Peiano-crucium =modern Welsh Pencerrig, “the head of the rock,” Pctcarh, a town of the Parisii mentioned by Ptolemy, and the name of the chief of the Iceni, Pmsutagus. Among the one hundred and twenty five words collected from the Gaulish inscriptions by Becker? Dr. Sullivan in preface to Ebel’s Celtic Studies, p. xv. 2 Gr. Celt. prefat. p. v. 3 Vide Cssar de Bell, G. 4 The only words commencing with this letter in the list published by Becker in the Beitraege z. Vergleich Sprachf. iii. 172 are the three Latin words pewit, posiercmt, prbJiw. 100 ON GAULISH NAMES, not one commences with the letter p, while thirteen, or nearly ten per cent., commence with the guttural c (k). Caleti, Earnitu, Cernunnos, Canecosedlon, Catalases, Eo i s i s , Canima, Ceanalabis, Contextos, Cantabon, Celicnon, Crispos. Car adit onu, This agrees with the great number of Gaulish names from other sources beginning with c, especially personal names with the syllables Cun-, Con-, Cat-, etc. The Gaulish epos = Emroq in tyo?naizdiuoduncnz, eporerlorix, epomuhs, as compared with the Latin equus, Irish each, Welsh ebozvl, ‘I a foal, a colt,” shows together with r~etorriticmand mpm8ovha the presence of a Cymric element in Gaul. On the other hand, in the personal names before-mentioned, the guttural universally takes the place of the labial. The name Cuno-belinus is represented in Welsh by Cyizuelyn, and Lib. Land. Ciqjdiw. That the Gaulish Ctitz- is = Cymric Pen is proved by the occurrence in the Welsh vocabulary of a number of names of identical meaning compounded with both these elements. Cenarth, head stone, Penarth. Cynwas, head servant, Penwas. Cynaber, head stream, Penaber. Cyncad, battle head, Pencad. Priffard. Cynfardd, head bard, IPencerdd. Cynbryd, prototype, model, Penpryd. Cyngrwn, round head, Pengrwn. Cynllwyd, grey head, Penllwyd. Cynnod, a head mark, Pennod. Cynfelyn, yellow head, Penfelyn. Cynlas, grey head, Penlas. Cynghylla, the top of the stomach, Pengula. cynllyn, chief leader, Penllyn. to which we may add the curious Gaulish (double) name Cuno-pennius.’ There can be no doubt that in these words Beitrmge a. Vergl. Sprachf. iii. 364. BY D. W. NASH, ESQ., FAA. 101 cyn- for cun- is the Gaulish cun- = Irish ceann, and Welsh pen.' In the Liber Landavensis are a number of names corn- pounded with this syllable : Cynfran, Conhail, Confur, Cinmarch, Conblais, Convoet, Conlec, Conocan, Conbuit, etc. Con gual, as well as with Cat- Catgual, Catleu, Catgurcan, Catgualatyr, etc. which are certainly the direct descendants of Gaulish names as old as the time of Caesar. In the same Register we have the p only in the Cymricized Latin names Padarn, Pedyr, Pawl hen (Paulinus), and a few Welsh names, Pepiauc and Penbargawd.2 In the same col- lection the names of places contrast with the names of indi- viduals, in the use of the Cymric Pen-, as Pencreig, Penally, Penrhos, Penarth, Penychen, Penbre, etc. all which it is to be observed occur within a recognized Cymric area. When we come down to the tenth century we find in the Laws of Rowel Dha, the names of oacers of state and titles of dignity, exclusively composed with the Cymric Pen- Peuteulu, chief of a household. Pencerdd, chief of song. Pengwastrawd, chief groom. Pensmydd, chief oacer. Pensaer, chief architect. Penraith, chief jurat. 1 Zeuss, Gr. Cclt. pref. p, vii. derives the Cun- in Cunobelinus, Cunotamus, etc. in the name of the IIer-cyn-ia Silva, and in that of the Hercuniates, a people of Pan- nonia, from the Welsh CIW, ezcn, ' a height,' with its derivations cwnwg, ' ? top; and erchpiad, 'an elevation.' Gluck, Die Celtische Namen, p. 11, agrees in thls for Cundbelinus, Cunotamus, Cunomarcus, etc., bnt for the particle Con- in Con- neto-dumnus, p. 68, refers to the Irish conn, con, ' reason, intellect ;' in Convicta- litavis, p. 91, he seems to consider the same particle = Welsh cy, Latin cum. See Gr. Celt. pp. 109 and 872. A nickname from the shape of his head. 102 ON GAULISH NAMES, Pennadur, chief leader. Penhebogydd, chief falconer. Penkynnyd, chief huntsman, etc. terms which may be contrasted with the Gaulish forms Cyn- was, Conguul, Cynmarch, Cynneta of the Liber Landavensis. So in Geoffrey of Monmouth we have Pendragon, a term which clearly shows the Cymric origin, and to some extent the date, of the history which he translated.