Brigantia... one for the linguists

[Adam]

Reading round the ubiquitous wikipedia I note (which I already knew) that Brigantia is understood as having the meaning "the high one", high as in high, lofty or elevated. I've always assumed that this was a title referring to elevated status as in "the great or powerful one", but read that the Brigantes being cognate with Brigantia, the settlements of the Brigantes called Brigantium could either have meant "the noble or elevated ones" in terms of status, or alternatively "the highlanders" or those who lived in the hills.

So I'm wondering, is it possible that Brigantia, the goddess, is actually a title that means Goddess of/from the High Places or some equivalent, rather than, as I have always assumed, The High One? I don't know anything about the linguistics... I don't even know (though I'm assuming from the above) whether the root berg'h "high, lofty, elevated" would have been used in the same way High is today for both status and physical elevation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigantia_%28goddess%29

[megli]

Oh bollocks, I wrote a long answer to this and lost it!!

The basic word was *brig-, lofty. This gives *briga, which is the ancestor of W. bre, 'hill'.

Briganti is an augmented and personal form, literally meaning 'lofty [feminine personage]'

There's no reason to think it wouldn't have both literal and metaphorical meanings--- 'lofty lady', 'noble/exalted', 'lady of the heights' but the first two are obviously primary.

The name of the people derives from the goddess, 'people of the lofty lady', because it derives from the augmented, personalised form. 'high ones' would probably be *Uxelli.

[Adam]

ta megli