Comment

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:41pm

THE CELTIC TOPOGRAPHY OF SCOTLAND, AND THE DIALECTIC DIFFERENCES INDICATED BY IT.

THE etymology of the names of places in a country is either a very important element in fixing the ethnology of its inhabitants, or it is a snare and a delusion, just according as the subject is treated. When such names are analysed according to fixed laws, based upon sound philological principles and a comprehensive observation of facts, they afford results both important and trustworthy; but if treated empirically, and founded upon resemblance of sounds alone, they become a mere field for wild conjectures and fanciful etymologies, leading to no certain results. The latter is the ordinary process to which they are subjected. The natural tendency of the. human mind is to a mere phonetic etymology of names, both of persons and of places, in which the sounds of the name of the place appear to resemble the sounds in certain words of a certain language, the language from which the etymology is derived being selected upon no sound philological grounds, but from arbitrary considerations merely.

Unhappily, an etymology founded upon mere resemblance of sounds has hitherto characterised all

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systematic attempts to analyse the topography of Scotland, and to deduce ethnologic results from it. Prior to the publication of the Statistical Account of Scotland in 1792, it may be said, that no general attempt had been made to explain the meaning of the names of places in Scotland, or to indicate the language from which they were derived. We find occasionally, in old lives of the saints and in charters connected with church lands, that names of places occurring in them are explained; and these interpretations are very valuable, as indicating what may be termed the common tradition of their meaning and derivation at an early period. Of very different value are a few similar derivations in the fabulous histories of Boece, Buchanan, and John Major, which are usually mere fanciful conjectures of pedantry.

The first impetus to anything like a general etymologising of Scottish topography was given when Sir John Sinclair projected the Statistical Account of Scotland. In the schedule of questions which he issued in 1790 to the clergy of the Church of Scotland, the first two questions were as, follows:--

1. What is the ancient and modern. name of the parish?

2. What is the origin and etymology of the name?

This set every minister thinking what was the meaning of the name of his parish. The publication of the Poems of Ossian; and the controversy which followed, had tended greatly to identify national feeling and the history of the country with

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:39pm

literature and language, and, with few exceptions, the etymology was sought for in that language. The usual formula of reply was, "The name of this parish is derived from the Gaelic," and then followed a Gaelic sentence resembling in sound the name of the parish, and supposed admirably to express its characteristics, though the unfortunate minister is often obliged to confess that the parish is remarkably free from the characteristics expressed by the Gaelic derivation of its name. These etymologies are usually suggested irrespective entirely of any known facts as to the history or population of the parish, and are purely phonetic.

After the publication of the Statistical Account, Gaelic was in the ascendant as the source of all Scottish etymologies, till the publication of Chalmers' Caledonia in 1807. John Pinkerton had indeed tried to direct the current of popular etymology into a Teutonic channel, but his attempts to find a meaning in Gothic dialects for words plainly Celtic were so unsuccessful that he failed even to gain a hearing. Chalmers was more fortunate. His theory was that a large proportion of the names of places in Scotland are to be derived from the Welsh, and indicate an original Cymric population. And this he has worked out with much labour and pains. In doing so, he was the first to attempt to show evidence of the dialectic difference between Welsh and Gaelic pervading the names of places, and to discriminate between them; but for almost all the names of places in the Lowlands of

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[paragraph continues] Scotland he furnishes a Welsh etymology, which, like his predecessors the Scottish clergy, he supposes to be expressive of the characteristics of the locality. His theory has, in the main, commanded the assent of subsequent writers, and is usually assumed to be, on the whole, a correct representation of the state of the fact. Yet his system was as purely one of a phonetic etymology, founded upon mere resemblance of sounds, is those of his predecessors. The MSS. left by George Chalmers show how he set about preparing his etymologies, and we now know the process he went through. He had himself no knowledge of either branch of the Celtic language, but he sent his list of names to Dr. Owen Pughe; and that most ingenious of all Welsh lexicographers, who was capable of reducing every word in every known language in the world to a Welsh original, sent him a list of Welsh renderings of each word, varying from twelve to eighteen in number, out of which Chalmers selected the one which seemed to him most promising. His other etymologies, are equally founded on a mere resemblance of sounds between the modern form of the word and the modern Welsh, as those of the clergy in the Statistical Account were between the modern form of the word and the modern Gaelic.

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:38pm

That system of interpreting the names of places, which I have called phonetic etymology, is, however, utterly unsound. It can lead only to fanciful renderings, and is incapable of yielding any results that are either certain or important. Names of places are, in

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fact, sentences or combinations of words originally expressive of the characteristics of the place named, and applied to it by the people who then occupied the country, in the language spoken by them at the time, and are necessarily subject to the same philological laws which governed that spoken language. The same rules must be applied in interpreting a local name as in rendering a sentence of the language. That system, therefore, of phonetic etymology which seeks for the interpretation of a name in mere resemblance of sound to words in an existing language, overlooks entirely the fact that such names were fixed to certain localities at a much earlier period, when the language spoken by those who applied the name must have differed greatly from any spoken language of the present day.

Since the local names were deposited in the country, the language itself from which they were derived has gone through a process of change, corruption, and decay. Words have altered their forms--sounds have varied--forms have become obsolete, and new forms have arisen, and the language in its present state no longer represents that form of it which existed when the local nomenclature was formed. The topographical expressions, too, go through a process of change and corruption, till they diverge still further from the spoken form of the language as it now exists. This process of change and corruption in the local names varies according to the change in the population. When the population has remained unchanged, and

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the language in which the names were applied is still the spoken language of the district, the names either remain in their original shape, in which case they represent an older form of the same language, or else they undergo a change analogous to that of the spoken language. Obsolete names disappear as obsolete words drop out of the language, and are replaced by more modern vocables. Where there has been a change in the population, and the older race are replaced by a people speaking a kindred dialect, the names of places are subjected to the dialectic change which characterises the language. There are some striking instances of this where a British form has been superseded by a Gaelic form, as, for instance, Kirkintulloch, the old name of which, Nennius informs us, was Caerpentalloch, kin being the Gaelic equivalent of the Welsh pen; Penicuik, the old name of which was Peniacop; Kincaid, the old name of which was Pencoed.

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:37pm

When, however, the new language introduced by the change of population is one of a different family entirely, then the old name is stereotyped in the shape in which it was when the one language superseded the other, becomes unintelligible to the people, and undergoes a process of change and corruption of a purely phonetic character, which often entirely alters the aspect of the name. In the former cases it is chiefly necessary to apply the philologic laws of the language to its analysis. In the latter, which is the case with the Celtic topology of the low country, it is necessary,

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before attempting to analyse the name, to ascertain its most ancient form, which often differs greatly from its more modern aspect.

It is with this class of names we have mainly to do, as presenting the phenomena I am anxious to investigate.

When the topography of a country is examined, its local names will be found, as a general rule, to consist of what may be called generic terms and specific terms. What I mean by generic terms are those parts of the name which are common to a large number of them, and are descriptive of the general character of the place named; and by specific terms, those other parts of the name which have been added to distinguish one place from another. The generic terms are usually general words for river, mountain, valley, plain, etc.; the specific terms, those words added to distinguish one river or mountain from another. Thus, in the Gaelic name Glenmore, glen is the generic term, and is found in a numerous class of words; more, great, the specific, a distinguished term, to distinguish it from another called Glenbeg. In the Saxon term Oakfield, field is the generic term, and oak the specific, to distinguish it from Broomfield, etc.

When the names of places are applied to purely natural objects, such as rivers, mountains, etc., which remain unchanged by the hand of man, the names applied by the original inhabitants are usually adopted by their successors, though speaking a different language;

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but the generic term frequently undergoes a phonetic corruption, as in the Lowlands, where Aber has in many cases become Ar, as in Arbroath, Arbuthnot; Ballin has become Ban, as in Bandoch; Pettin has become Pen, as in Pendriech; Pol has become Pow; and Traver has become Tar and Tra, as in Tranent.

On the other hand, where the districts have been occupied by different branches of the same race, speaking different dialects, the generic terms exhibit the dialectic differences when the sounds of the word are such as to require the dialectic change; thus in Welsh and Gaelic:--

Pen and Ceann--a head,

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:34pm

The comparison of the generic terms which pervade the topography of a country affords a very important means of indicating the race of its early inhabitants, and discriminating between the different branches of the race, to which the respective portions of it belong. It was early observed that there existed in the Celtic generic terms a difference which seemed to indicate dialectic distinction. Even in the Old Statistical Account, the minister of the parish of Kirkcaldy remarks--

"To the Gaelic language, a great proportion of the names of places in the neighbourhood, and indeed through the whole, of Fife, may unquestionably be traced. All names of places beginning with Bal, Col or Cul, Dal, Drum, Dun, Inch, Inver, Auchter, Kil, Kin, Glen, Mon, and Strath, are of Gaelic origin. Those beginning with Aber and Pit are supposed to be Pictish,

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names, and do not occur beyond the territory which the Picts are thought to have inhabited,"

Chalmers states it still more broadly and minutely. He says--

"Of those words which form the chief compounds in many of the Celtic names of places in the Lowlands, some are exclusively British, as Aber, Llan, Caer, Pen, Cors, and others; some are common to both British and Irish, as Carn, Craig, Crom, Bre, Dal, Eaglis, Glas, Inis, Rinn, Ros, Strath, Tor, Tom, Glen; and many more are significant only in the Scoto-Irish or Gaelic, as Ach, Ald, Ard, Aird, Auchter, Bar, Blair, Ben, Bog, Clach, Corry, Cul, Dun, Drum, Fin, Glac, Inver, Kin, Kil, Knoc, Larg, Lurg, Lag, Logie, Lead, Letter, Lon, Loch, Meal, Pit, Pol, Stron, Tullach, Tullie, and others."

This attempt at classification is, however, exceedingly inaccurate. Two of the words in the first class, Llan and Caer, are common to both British and Irish; and a large, portion of the third class are significant in pure Irish, as well as in the Scoto-Irish or Gaelic. No attempt is made to show, by the geographical distribution of these words, in what parts of the country the respective elements prevail.

The most popular view of the subject, and that which has recently been most insisted. in, is the line of demarcation between a Cymric and a Gaelic population, supposed to be indicated by the occurrence of the words Aber and Inver. This view has been urged with great force by Kemble, in his Anglo-Saxons; but I may quote the recent work of Mr. Isaac Taylor, on words and places, as containing a fair statement of the popular view of the subject:--

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:33pm

"To establish the point that the Picts, or the nation, whatever was its name, that held central Scotland, was Cymric, not Gaelic, we may refer to the distinction already mentioned between Ben and Pen. Ben is confined to the west and north; Pen to the east and south. Inver and Aber are also useful test-words in discriminating between the two branches of the Celts. The difference between the two words is dialectic only; the etymology and the meaning is the same--a confluence of waters, either of two rivers or of a river with the sea. Aber occurs repeatedly in Brittany, and is found in about fifty Welsh names, as Aberdare, Abergavenny, Abergele, Aberystwith, and Barmouth, a corruption of Abermaw. In England we find Aberford in Yorkshire, and Berwick in Northumberland and Sussex; and it has been thought that the name of the Humber is a corruption of the same root. Inver, the Erse and Gaelic forms, is common in Ireland, where Aber is unknown. Thus, we find places called Inver in Antrim, Donegal, Mayo, and Invermore in Galway and in Mayo. In Scotland the Invers and Abers are distributed in a curious and instructive manner. If we draw a line across the map from a point a little south of Inveraray to one a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that (with very few exceptions) the Inverslie to the north of the line and the Abers to the south of it. This line nearly coincides with the present southern limit of the Gaelic tongue, and probably also with the ancient division between the Picts and the Scots."

Nothing can be more inaccurate than this statement. Ben is by no means confined to the west and north; and as examples of Pen he refers, among others, to the Pentland Hills, Pentland being a Saxon word, and corrupted from Pectland; and to Pendriech in Perthshire, which is a corruption from Pittendriech. So far from Inver being common in Ireland, it is very rare. The Index locorum of the Annals of the Four Masters shows only six instances. On the other hand, Aber is not unknown in Ireland. It certainly

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existed formerly to some extent in the north of Ireland; and Dr. Reeves produces four instances near Ballyshannon.

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:32pm

The statement with regard to the distribution of Aber and Inver in Scotland here is, that there is a line of demarcation which separates the two words--that, with few exceptions, there is nothing but Invers on one side of this line, nothing but Abers on the other; and that this line extends from a point a little south of Inveraray to a point a little north of Aberdeen. This is the mode in which the distribution of these two words is usually represented, but nothing can be more perfectly at variance with the real state of the case. South of this line there are as many Invers as Abers. In Perthshire, south of the Highland line, there are nine Abers and eight Invers; in Fifeshire, four Abers and nine Invers; in Forfar, eight Abers and eight Invers; in Aberdeenshire, thirteen Abers and twenty six Invers. Again, on the north side of this supposed line of demarcation, where it is said that Invers alone should be found, there are twelve Abers, extending across to the west coast, till they terminate with Abercrossan, now Applecross, in Ross-shire. In Argyllshire alone there are no Abers. The true picture of the distribution of these two words is--in. Argyllshire, Invers alone; in Inverness and Ross shires, Invers and Abers in the proportion of three to one and two to one; and on the south side of this supposed line, Abers and Invers in about equal proportions.

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:31pm

Again he, says, quoting Chalmers, "The process of

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change is shown by an old charter, in which King David grants to the monks of May 'Inverin qui fuit Aberin.' So Abernethy became Invernethy, although the old name is now restored." In order to produce the antithesis of Inverin and Aberin, one letter in this charter has been altered. The charter is a grant of "Petneweme et Inverin quæ fuit Averin;" and I have the authority of the first charter antiquary in Scotland for saying that this construction is impossible: "quæ fuit" does not, in charter Latin, mean "which was," but "which belonged to," and Averin was the name of the previous proprietor of the lands. Abernethy and Invernethy are not the same place, and the former never lost its name. Invernethy is at the junction of the Nethy with the Earn, and Abernethy is a mile further up the river.

When we examine these Abers and Invers more closely, we find, 1st, that in some parts of the country they appear to alternate, is in Fife--Inverkeithing, Aberdour, Inveryne, Inverlevin, and so forth; 2d, That some of the Invers and Abers have the same specific terms attached to them, as Abernethy and Invernethy, Aberuchill and Inveruchill, Abercrumbye and Invercrumbye, Abergeldie and Invergeldie; and 3d, That the Invers are always at the mouth of the river, close to its junction with another river, or with the sea; and the Abers usually a little distance up the river where there is a ford. Thus Invernethy is at the mouth of the Nethy; Abernethy a mile or two above. These and other facts lead to the conclusion that they

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are part of the same nomenclature, and belong to the same period and to the same people.

When we look to the south of the Forth, however, we find this remarkable circumstance that in Ayrshire, Renfrew, and Lanarkshire, which formed the possessions of the Strathclyde Britons, and were occupied by a British people till as late a period as the more northern districts were occupied by the Picts, there are no Abers at all. What we have, therefore, is the Scots of Argyll with nothing but Invers, the Picts with Abers and Invers together, and the Strathclyde Britons with no Abers.

Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:30pm

As a mark of discrimination between races this criterion plainly breaks down, and the words themselves contain no sounds which, from the different phonetic laws of the languages, could afford an indication of a dialectic difference. The truth is, that there were three words expressive of the junction of one stream with another, and all formed from an old Celtic word, Ber, signifying water. These were Aber, Inver, and Conber (pronounced in Welsh cummer, in Gaelic cumber). These three words were originally common to both branches of the Celtic as derivations from one common word. In old Welsh poems we find not only Aber as a living word in Welsh, but Ynver likewise. 1 and Dr. Reeves notices an Irish document in which Applecross or Appurcrossan is called Conber Crossan. Ynver, however, became obsolete in Welsh, just as Cummer or Cumber and Aber became obsolete in Irish

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but we have no reason to know that it did so in Pictish. In the Pictish districts, therefore, the Abers and Invers were deposited when both were living words in the language. When the Scots settled in Argyll, Aber had become obsolete in their language, and Inver was alone deposited, and in Strathclyde both words seem to have gone into desuetude.

In the same manner Dwfr or Dwr, is quoted as a word for water, peculiar to the Welsh form of Celtic, and an invariable mark of the presence of a British people, but, the old form of this word in Scotland was Doboir, as appears from the Book of Deer, where Aberdour is written Abber-doboir, and in Cormac's Glossary of the old Irish, Doboir is given as an old Irish word for water. In another old Irish glossary we have this couplet:--

"Bior and An and Dobar,
The three names of the water of the world."

These words, therefore, form no criterion of difference of race, and to judge by them is to fall into the mistake of the phonetic etymologists--viz. to apply to old names, as the key, the present spoken language, which does not contain words which yet existed in it in its older form.

In order to make generic terms a test of dialect, they must be words which contain sounds affected differently by the different phonetic laws of such dialects--such as Pen, Gwynn, Gwern, and Gwydd which all enter copiously into Welsh topography, and the equivalents of which in the Gaelic dialects

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Comment by Ghillie Dhu on June 6, 2019 at 5:29pm

Ceann, Fionn, Fearn, and Fiodh. Such generic terms afford a test by which we can at once determine whether the Celtic topography of a country partakes most of the Cymric or the Gaelic character. The earliest collection of names in North Britain is to be found in Ptolemy's Geography in the second century, but we know too little of the origin of his names, whether they were native terms, or names applied by the invaders, to obtain from them any certain result. After Ptolemy, the largest collection of names in Great Britain is in the work of the anonymous geographer of Ravenna, a work of the seventh century. The exact localities are not given, but the names are grouped according to the part of Britain to which they belong. Those which commence the topography of Scotland are placed under this title: "Iterum sunt civitates in ipsa Britannia quæ recto tramite de una parte in alia, id est, de oceano in oceano existunt, ac dividunt in tertia portione ipsam Britanniam." They commence with the stations on the Roman wall between the Tyne and the, Solway, and then proceed northwards. Among these we find two names together, Tadoriton and Maporiton, and as Tad and Mapare Cymric forms for father and son, we have no doubt that here we are on the traces of a Cymric population. The next group is arranged under this head:--"Iterum sunt civitates in ipsa Britannia recto tramite una alteri conexæ, ubi et ipsa Britannia plus angustissima, de oceano in oceano esse dinoscitur." This part of Britain, which is plus angustissima, is the

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isthmus between the Forth and the Clyde, and in proceeding with the names northwards we come to one called Cindocellum. The Ocelli Montes were the Ochills, and here the Gaelic form of Kin is equally unmistakable. When we apply to the present topography the testing words Pen, Gwynn, Gwern, and Gwydd, the Gaelic equivalents of which are Kin, Fionn, Fearn, and Fiodh, we find that, with one exception, Pen, though frequent south of the Forth, where there was a British population, does not occur north of the Forth, while it is full of Kins, and Gwynn, Gwern, and Gwydd occur only in their Gaelic equivalents.

Such then being the aspect in which the question really presents itself, it becomes important, with a view to ethnological results, to ascertain more closely the geographical distribution of the generic terms over Scotland, and in order to show this I have prepared a table of such distribution. The generic terms are taken from the index to the Scottish Record of Retours; and as this record relates to properties, and not to mere natural objects, the generic terms they contain are to a great extent confined to names of places connected with their possession by man, and more readily affected by changes in the population. For the purposes of comparison, I have framed a list of generic terms contained in Irish topography from the index to the Annals of the Four Masters, and of those in Welsh topography from a list in the Cambrian Register. I have divided Scotland into thirteen districts, so as to show the local character of the topography of each

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