Keith, a charaid,

Longes mac nUsnig is from the book of Leinster so this written form
of the quotation might be datable to around 1160, which is relatively
early.

Here's something I find curious: the three Gaelic words which first
spring to mind as referring to the Celtic-speaking people of Britain
around this time are Bretnach, Cruithnech and Albanach, corresponding
to the Latin words Bretanus, Pretanus (ie Pictus) and Scottus.
Gaelic, being a Q-Celtic tongue, originally had no P.

There are actually more entries in the DIL under 'Bretnach' than
there are under 'Combrec'. What's more, it is 'Combrec',
not 'Bretnach' which is given as the loanword in the DIL; 'cuimrec'
is a verbal noun meaning 'binding, imprisoning', and that's another
discussion.

The Gaelic word 'Brethnach' could refer to any P-Celtic speaker from
the west or north of Britain or from Brittany; thus we have the
Dumbarton (the fort of the Britons) in the north of Britain. Working
on the hypothesis that people called Walsh arrive in Ireland already
called so in English, it is noteable that the Walsh name derives not
just from families in Wales but also from Cornwall, the West Country
and areas of England adjoining to Wales, therefore it is
understandable that 'bretnac', being a more general word referring to
much more than a person from Wales, was adopted as the Gaelic
equivalent of Walsh rather than 'Combrec'.

Working on the hypothesis that people from the west of Britain were
called Breathnach by Irish-speakers because that was easier than
using another more original appellation, Walsh would probably follow
as the best English language equivalent because the English
surname 'Britton' referred to someone from Brittany and,
unlike 'Walsh', is said to date only after the Norman conquest of
England.

I'm hoping to post my transcriptions of ap Huw into staff fairly soon
on my website. I did them mainly to facilitate harmonic analysis as
I find the strong hexatonic influence on the music very interesting
in relation to Gaelic scales. I'll let the group know once I
commence putting the transcriptions up on the site. Hopefully
they'll be useful to others in conjunction with the original.

Beannachdan,


Alasdair


--- In clairseach@..., "sanger_keith"
<sanger_keith@...> wrote:
>
> An interesting discourse Alasdair, what was the earliest date of
the
> manuscript of the text? Toirm is also sometimes used in later verse
> in relation to the bagpipes but it would seem to be applied to the
> drones.
>
> Your mention of the survival of the word 'blaodhach' in Welsh and
> Scots Gaelic is very topical given the current Welsh season on
> Simon's site and the interest in the horsehair strung harp. Whether
> correct or not, a recent new look at the period from 789 to 1070
> published last year, (From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070, by Alex
> Woolf), has a refreshing take on the whole question of the
> relationship of Irish and Scots Gaelic and modern Welsh. Boiled
down
> to its essentials, he advances the case that when early Welsh and
> Gaelic split from their common route, the version spoken in what is
> now Wales underwent faster and wider changes due to its proximity
to
> Roman Latin.
>
> The impact of Larin on the Welsh language is apparently generally
> accepted. But Mr Woolf advances the intriguing suggestion that
other
> early Welsh speaking areas like for example the 'Picts' continued
> with a form that was far closer to the common root with Gaelic and
> that made for an easier assimilation of the languages spoken by the
> Scottish Gaels and the Picts. Staying in context of your
observation
> and the harp it is of course intersting to note how the
word 'Ceard',
> ( in all its linguistic forms), specifically came to be used of a
> harper in Wales while it retained it's older form of just an expert
> craftsman in Gaelic, before settling down into its modern meaning
of
> a 'fine' or precious metal smith and eventually a tinsmith or
tinker.
>
> Staying with a sort of Welsh theme and the possible impact of cross
> fertilisation of harp music between Ireland and Wales, I was
thinking
> about a comment I made at the Irish Harp School at Kilkenny this
> year. It concerned the fact that the name 'Walsh' is currently
about
> the fourth most common name in Ireland today. Sitting dreaming on a
> train, (and I have no end of praise for the trains between Kilkenny
> and Dublin, a very civilised experience), it suddenly occurred to
me
> that no Gaelic speaking inhabitant of Ireland or Scotland would
have
> referred to someone from Wales as 'Walsh'. They would have used the
> Gaelic 'Cuimridh' with the 'nach' end form, or
> alternatively 'Breathnach' or Briton.
>
> So how and where did all those Walsh's come from? Well there does
> seem to be a simple explanation which certainly opens a new avenue
on
> the harping links between the two countries. Firstly, the name
Walsh
> or its modern form Welsh is derived of course from Wales, but that
> was in fact an Anglo Saxon term based on the Germanic word 'Wal'
> meaning 'Foreign' and was used by the incoming Anglo Saxons to
> describe the indigenous inhabitants of Briton. It is the same
element
> that can be seen in the name of the Walnut, (or foreign nut), and
the
> Scottish surname Wallace, presumably given to the native
inhabitants
> of that part of southern Scotland by the Northumbrians as they
> pressed northwards.
>
> Following the Norman conquest of most of England it would seem a
> reasonable speculation that the Normans adopted the Anglo Saxon
name
> for the inhabitants of 'Wales' and that when the by then Norman
Welsh
> lords who had established themselves in Wales, in turn became part
of
> the early Norman incursion into Ireland, it was the indigenous
> followers from their Welsh estates who escribed by their Norman
lords
> as 'Walsh' became the ancestors of their modern Irish namesakes.
>
> I suppose it would be theoretically possible to compute the
relative
> proportions of people named Walsh against the proportion of the
total
> Irish population bearing the names of the original Norman Welsh
lords
> and estimate the relative numbers of the native Welsh followers
> brought with them to Ireland by the Normans, anybody got the time
or
> inclination?
>
> Best wishes
>
> Keith
>