The Scottish Celtic review

TJie Laws of Auslaut in Irtish. 317e.g., goba (faber), gen. gobann. Tliat the vn in these stemsis ancient, is shown by the name Gobann itiu, which has beenhanded down to us by Cre.sar (J)e Bello Gall., vii. 4), and whichGllick treats of in his Kelt. Namen, p. 108.Probably the suffix van is contained in some stems in n. Thisis certainly the case in regard to the interesting word broo (millstone,mill), gen. hroon, Cymbr. breuan (molina), which Stokeshas already before me identified with Ski: grdvan, nom. grdvd (cf.Beitr. zur Vergl. Spr. viii. 430). For broo, I do not accept asigmatic nominative-formation—rather is it = Skr. grdvd. Thesecond o in bvoo (contracted into bro) I am inclined to regard in thesame light as. the o in bco, biu (alive), stem hiva : it is therepresentative of the syllable va, the v of which could havebecome vocalised, and cnuld have been changed into o by the influenceof the a.Cu (a dog ; = Skr. pm) was certainly formed without an s inprehistoric time. If the Cymbr. form was not a ci (Z. 293), withi substituted in a regular manner for Ir. u, I should then be ofopinion that the lengthening of the ^^ in this monosyllabic wordhad taken place inorganically. But as it i.s, it must be accountedfor by the vowel u of cvd having become very early obscured, andby its having been contracted with the preceding vowel u. Inlike manner, tu (thou) maj- be traced back to iiui (Stokes inBeitr. i. 460). That the auslaut of cu was vocalic at a very earlyperiod, is shown by its having been followed by asj)iration, as, e.g.,in the ancient name Ci'ichulaiiiv, which is literallj' " the houndof Culann."To the stems in nn belongs bru (womb), gen bronn, a wordwhich offers nothing new in connection with the law of auslaut.The suffix ianii, weak form inn, occurs in Eriu (Ireland), gen.Erenn (for Erinn-as). Cf. the suffix tian, weak for tin, in thenumerous infinitive-like abstract nouns in -tin, gen. -ten, as, e.g.,er-miti'u (reverentia), of which -mithi = Lat. mentio, and -miten(of the gen. ermiten) is for mentin-as.Ernst Windisch.(It gives us pleasure to be able to give our readers the concluding part ofDr. Windisch's remarkable paper on the Irish Laws of Auslaut, a subjectwhich lies at the threshold of the scientific study of Gaelic etymology.)