Etymology of Wales

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article describes the etymology of Wales, a country of the United Kingdom.

Origins

The English words "

Britons in particular; the plural form Wēalas evolved into the name for their territory, Wales.[2] The modern names for various Romance-speaking people in Continental Europe (e.g. Wallonia, Wallachia, Valais, Vlachs, the German Welsch, and Włochy, the Polish name for Italy) have a similar etymology.[2][3][4][5]

Historically in Britain, the words were not restricted to modern Wales or to the Welsh but were used to refer to anything that the Anglo-Saxons associated with the Britons, including other non-Germanic territories in Britain (e.g. Cornwall) and places in Anglo-Saxon territory associated with Britons (e.g. Walworth in County Durham and Walton in West Yorkshire).[6]

Other names

See also: Cymru and Cambria

The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and

Britonnic peoples (including the Welsh) and was the more common literary term until c. 1200. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh. Until c. 1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland.[7] There have been discussions on whether Cymru should be used instead of Wales to refer to the country in English.[8]

The

Cumbric language, which is thought to have been closely related to Welsh, was spoken in this area until becoming extinct around the 12th century.[10]

References

  1. ^ Miller, Katherine L. (2014). "The Semantic Field of Slavery in Old English: Wealh, Esne, Þræl" (PDF) (Doctoral dissertation). University of Leeds. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
  2. ^ a b Davies 1994, p. 71.
  3. ^ (in French) Albert Henry, Histoire des mots Wallons et Wallonie, Institut Jules Destrée, Coll. "Notre histoire", Mont-sur-Marchienne, 1990, 3rd ed. (1st ed. 1965), footnote 13 p. 86. Henry wrote the same about Wallachia.
  4. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1963). Angles and Britons: O'Donnell Lectures. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. English and Welsh, an O'Donnell Lecture delivered at Oxford on 21 October 1955.
  5. ^ Gilleland, Michael (12 December 2007). "Laudator Temporis Acti: More on the Etymology of Walden". Laudator Temporis Acti website. Retrieved 29 October 2008.
  6. ISBN 978-0-521-04102-7
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  7. ^ a b Davies 1994, p. 69.
  8. ^ "Should Wales be known only as Cymru?". BBC News. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  9. ISBN 978-81-8424-329-1
    .
  10. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cambria" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

ISBN 978-0-14-014581-6
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