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Post by megli on May 20, 2009 11:56:08 GMT -1
LR asked for some etymologies. Here are the ones that are off the top of my head. if you think of any others, ask and I'll stick them up.
Rhiannon (from british *Rigantona, 'divine queen')
Amaethon < *Ambactonos, 'divine ploughman'
Gwydion: not sure---prob. to do with a root *wit- 'to know'
Lleu < Lugus, 'Light?' (probably, or less likely - 'Oath God'?)
Pwyll = an ordinary Welsh noun, 'Sense, Wisdom'
Pryderi = name derived from a noun pryder, meaning 'Worry, Care'
Blodeuedd = 'Flowerses', blodeu, 'flowers' plus an extra plural.
Blodeuwedd = Blodeu + gwedd, 'aspect/appearance/face of flowers'
Gofannon < *Gobannonos, 'Divine Smith'
Ar(i)anrhod: disputed. The second element is probably 'wheel' and the first may be 'silver'.
Manawydan: a literary borrowing of Old Irish Manannan, blended with the Welsh word 'manawyd', 'awl, tool for boring holes in leather'.
Bran: Crow.
Branwen: White Crow (perhaps originally Bronwen, 'white breast')
PS My mother illustrated a rule of British phonology the other day, without realising it. Most of you will know that -g- disappears in Welsh under certain circumstances. This happens for the same reason that it historically disappeared in words like 'Rigantona'. The hard -g- sound first went to a rough, throaty sound like -ch- in 'loch', but further back in the thoat. This was unstable and eventually disappeared.
Now, when old Samira Ahmed on the Channel 4 News says 'Afghanistan', the -gh- sound she makes is EXACTLY the sound that -g- went to in Old Welsh (presumably because the sound exists in Arabic or whatever her familial language is.) My mother was trying to say it as Ahmed does--and it came out as 'Af-anistan.'
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Post by littleraven on May 20, 2009 12:08:34 GMT -1
When you describe that sound, why does it make me think of Achmed the dead terrorist?
"How do you spell that?"
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Post by Heron on May 20, 2009 20:54:45 GMT -1
LR asked for some etymologies. Here are the ones that are off the top of my head. if you think of any others, ask and I'll stick them up. Rhiannon (from british *Rigantona, 'divine queen') Amaethon < *Ambactonons, 'divine ploughman' Gwydion: not sure---prob. to do with a root *wit- 'to know' Lleu < Lugus, 'Light?' (probably, or less likely - 'Oath God'?) Pwyll = an ordinary Welsh noun, 'Sense, Wisdom' Pryderi = name derived from a noun pryder, meaning 'Worry, Care' Blodeuedd = 'Flowerses', blodeu, 'flowers' plus an extra plural. Blodeuwedd = Blodeu + gwedd, 'aspect/appearance/face of flowers' Gofannon < *Gobannonos, 'Divine Smith' Ar(i)anrhod: disputed. The second element is probably 'wheel' and the first may be 'silver'. Manawydan: a literary borrowing of Old Irish Manannan, blended with the Welsh word 'manawyd', 'awl, tool for boring holes in leather'. Bran: Crow. Branwen: White Crow (perhaps originally Bronwen, 'white breast') PS My mother illustrated a rule of British phonology the other day, without realising it. Most of you will know that -g- disappears in Welsh under certain circumstances. This happens for the same reason that it historically disappeared in words like 'Rigantona'. The hard -g- sound first went to a rough, throaty sound like -ch- in 'loch', but further back in the thoat. This was unstable and eventually disappeared. Now, when old Samira Ahmed on the Channel 4 News says 'Afghanistan', the -gh- sound she makes is EXACTLY the sound that -g- went to in Old Welsh (presumably because the sound exists in Arabic or whatever her familial language is.) My mother was trying to say it as Ahmed does--and it came out as 'Af-anistan.' I wonder about the 'awl' bit in Manawydan. I know it makes the connection with his shoemaking activities, but could this merely be coincidence? Then there is the fact that 'Ynys Manaw' is 'The Isle of Man' in Welsh and the mainland area inland from the coast facing the Isle of Man was called 'Manaw Gododdin'. So his links with Manannan are not just literary unless the literary links gave rise to the geographical names. How much can be put on the Manannan/Isle of Man connection in this respect? |
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Post by megli on May 20, 2009 22:01:47 GMT -1
This is a complex issue.
1) It's clear, I think, that Manawydan is a borrowing from Irish, perhaps via the collection of material associated with the monastery of Drumsnat and collected in the lost book called Cin Dromma Snechta. He looks like a borrowing because he has lost his main Irish characteristic--a connection with the sea--but remains associated with a chap called Bran, as in the 7th C Irish tale 'Bran's Voyage'. So the Welsh pinched the name and a bit of the story but not the whole mythos.
2) Manannan means 'Little one of the Isle of Man' or 'Dear one of the Isle of Man': that is the literal meaning.
3) Manann is likely a genitive of a noun Manu (cf danu and danann). An original celtic form Manau-, Manou-, something like that, wd be ancestor of both Welsh Manaw and Irish Manu/Manann, possibly meaning 'hilly', or '(is)land rising out of and above the sea' (cf mona, mynydd) but I'm not sure.
4) so if you want to claim Manawydan as a britonic deity, one has to explan why his name isn't *Manawan or Manawyn.
5) the most likely explaination is that it was borrowed from Irish as 'Manannan' (which Old Welsh speakers should have had no probs saying) and then at some stage--possibly immediately, in the 8th, 9th, or 10th century--garbled because the first part of the name sounded a bit like the 'awl' word, giving 'Manawyd(an)'. (Cf the way that in Branwen the Irish name Milscothach comes out as 'Mallolwch' or 'Matholwch'!)
This had immediate attractions as a folk etymology, and may have suggested the shoemaking episode or even been invented by a storyteller at some stage in order to allow him to work the 'Eustace' legend (the noble who becomes an artisan in order to reclaim his lands) into the story.
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Post by littleraven on May 21, 2009 8:35:29 GMT -1
THis is interesting as just the other day I was pondering the origin of the name 'Mon/Mona' (not researched, just pondering). So basically Mon means 'land rising out of and above the sea', which is intriguing as it has an implication (to me at least) of the nature of Genuis locii and their being regarded as deity. So Mannanan is of/from the Isle of Man, not Isle of Man = Manannans' Isle, if you get what I mean?
Is there a name for Iona before Iona? I'll explain why that's significant later.
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Post by megli on May 21, 2009 9:46:18 GMT -1
Yes, the best suggestion I've heard is that it's to do with the root mon- you get in *monijo-, Welsh mynydd, 'mountain'. (Basically, 'sticky-out bit')
Yes, the name Manannan is dependent on Man, not the other way round.
Iona is a lark. It's a mispelling of Ioua (because in early insular miniscule handwriting, letters lie /i/, /n/, /u/, /m/ etc are all made with downward strokes of the pen called 'minims', that very frequently get confused and misread.)
Ioua is, in turn, a latin adjective describing the word 'insula', 'Island', so insula Ioua, 'the Iovian island'; this comes from the Old Irish name for the place, which was 'Í' or 'hÍ' (the h- is not pronounced), which is of obscure meaning. (Pronounced 'eee' btw).
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Post by megli on May 21, 2009 9:47:58 GMT -1
Can't see what mon- has to do with genii loci myself?!
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Post by megli on May 21, 2009 10:32:43 GMT -1
Incidentally, 'Mona'--> Mon is a lovely, straightforward illustration of the principle that around 450-500AD the British stopped pronouncing the final syllables of words ('apocope' is the technical term). Similarly:
400AD: Rigantona
500AD: Righanton'
600AD: Righannon
1000AD: Riannon (the Middle Welsh form, and in Modern Welsh spelling--Rhiannon.
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Post by Francis on May 21, 2009 17:30:50 GMT -1
So basically Mon means 'land rising out of and above the sea', which is intriguing as it has an implication (to me at least) of the nature of Genuis locii and their being regarded as deity. You'd have guessed this would make me bite! Are you happy to be a bit more explicit with your thinking on this? |
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Post by Heron on May 21, 2009 20:15:19 GMT -1
This is a complex issue. 1) It's clear, I think, that Manawydan is a borrowing from Irish, perhaps via the collection of material associated with the monastery of Drumsnat and collected in the lost book called Cin Dromma Snechta. He looks like a borrowing because he has lost his main Irish characteristic--a connection with the sea--but remains associated with a chap called Bran, as in the 7th C Irish tale 'Bran's Voyage'. So the Welsh pinched the name and a bit of the story but not the whole mythos. 2) Manannan means 'Little one of the Isle of Man' or 'Dear one of the Isle of Man': that is the literal meaning. 3) Manann is likely a genitive of a noun Manu (cf danu and danann). An original celtic form Manau-, Manou-, something like that, wd be ancestor of both Welsh Manaw and Irish Manu/Manann, possibly meaning 'hilly', or '(is)land rising out of and above the sea' (cf mona, mynydd) but I'm not sure. Isn't there s an argument that the diminutive 'an' ending got added to 'Manaw[yd]' (the form that appears in the Book of Taliesin) and 'Mana' and that the two forms come from a possibly common original? Yes the interpolation of the Eustace legend has been used to explain the mildness of Manawydan's character. And I still don't find the 'awl' connection convincing, in spite of the 'Three Golden Shoemakers of the Island of Britain'. Another issue here is the existence of the place names Clackmanann & Slamanann in an area of southern Scotland that would have been Brythonic speaking. Together with 'Manaw Gododdin' in the same general area we get both names recorded in geographical locations. I'd be interested to know more about the suggested etymology of those village names. |
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Post by megli on May 22, 2009 6:38:52 GMT -1
'stone of manau [gododdin]' and 'mountain (sliabh) of manau [gododdin]'
If, as I'm arguing, the original meaning of manau is something like 'hilly place' (perhaps > *manavia?) there's nothing to do with Manannan here. The names belong to a class of southern scottish placeness that are a mixture of Brythonic and gaelic elements, as there was obviously a good deal of linguistic exchange in the area in the post-Roman period.
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Post by megli on May 22, 2009 6:44:15 GMT -1
Personally, I find the 'awl' explanation useful--it makes sense if one imagines that the welsh were getting Manannan from the Irish as a 'new' figure in the medieval period, without associations of their own: as a word, 'Manannan' is not meaningful in welsh (unlike 'Bran') so there would be strong pressure to approximate the name to a welsh lexical item.
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Post by littleraven on May 22, 2009 7:51:10 GMT -1
Personally, I find the 'awl' explanation useful--it makes sense if one imagines that the welsh were getting Manannan from the Irish as a 'new' figure in the medieval period, without associations of their own: as a word, 'Manannan' is not meaningful in welsh (unlike 'Bran') so there would be strong pressure to approximate the name to a welsh lexical item. Another example of acquring a name without knowing it's meaning, much as we do? What interests me here is does it mean that there was nothing equivalent to Manannan prior to the Irish import? TBH I find that highly unlikely. |
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Post by littleraven on May 22, 2009 8:04:26 GMT -1
So basically Mon means 'land rising out of and above the sea', which is intriguing as it has an implication (to me at least) of the nature of Genuis locii and their being regarded as deity. You'd have guessed this would make me bite! Are you happy to be a bit more explicit with your thinking on this? Nothing complicated, simply that we see evidence of genius locii coming to be regarded as deity. We see it with such as Coventina's Well, and here we have Manannan, a spirit born of a specific place coming to be regarded as deity. |
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Post by littleraven on May 22, 2009 8:05:23 GMT -1
Can't see what mon- has to do with genii loci myself?! Not *specifically* Mon, I'm going through some somewhat holistic thinking on this atm. |
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Post by megli on May 22, 2009 9:22:21 GMT -1
Oh I'm sure they had sea gods, we just don't know anything about them. As I've said elsewhere, if you consider the numerous names who appear in welsh literature of the middle ages, what is striking is the number who AREN'T ex-gods, something like 90%. Or to look at it another way, we have numerous Celtic theonyms from roman britain--it's striking how very few of them (indeed, none to my knowledge) show up in the medieval literature. We don't meet *Cochydd, *Iallon, *Belltgadr or *Enaethfor (Co[c]cidius, Ialonus, Belatucadros, Anextiomaros).
It is sobering how very little it is possible to reconstruct using literary sources. (Basically little more than nothing, I think.)
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Post by littleraven on May 22, 2009 11:21:10 GMT -1
Oh I'm sure they had sea gods, we just don't know anything about them. As I've said elsewhere, if you consider the numerous names who appear in welsh literature of the middle ages, what is striking is the number who AREN'T ex-gods, something like 90%. Or to look at it another way, we have numerous Celtic theonyms from roman britain--it's striking how very few of them (indeed, none to my knowledge) show up in the medieval literature. We don't meet *Cochydd, *Ialon, *Belltgadr or *Enaethfor (Co[c]cidius, Ialonus, Belatucadros, Anextiomaros). Of course, knowing they *must* have had those sea gods, yet don't know Their names, doesn't in any way lessen the feeling that I or you have when we stand on the beach or the cliff and feel the spray on our face. We can still easily connect, it's just using something else than words. It is sobering how very little it is possible to reconstruct using literary sources. (Basically little more than nothing, I think.) Oh yes, but how brilliant is it when you can? |
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Post by littleraven on May 22, 2009 12:24:51 GMT -1
So the question I would ask to move this along is, why does Manannan gain such significance?
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Post by megli on May 22, 2009 12:25:44 GMT -1
In what context?
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