Revue celtique - National Library of Scotland

192
Etymological Scraps.
cation as Irish lighim, English lick. The latter is confmed to the spokei
dialects of S. Wales.
1 1 . Cyffelyb, « such, « is résoluble into cyf-helyb, which by its prefi:
reminds one of Lat. con-similis. The latter part of the word stands fo
0. W. 'he-lip =3 *sa-lip to be compared with Goth. sva-leik-s, « so be
schaffen, so, ein solcher.» Similarly the Breton hévélép would seem to stam
for *sama-lip, which reminds one of the Gothic sama-leik-s « gleich
ûbereinstimmend. » Now Schmidt has shown in his Vocalismus, p. 89
that Goth. leiks is identical with Lith. lygus, « like, » and Skr. linga-m:
« kennzeichen, abzeichen, merkmal.» So hère we hâve onlyto suppos
the not uncommon change of original g into b in Welsh and our -lip i
found to stand for *llmb =: ling as in the Sanskrit word.
IV
In a few Welsh words ng has given way to w : without discussin
the physiology of such a change I may mention the following instances
1. Pythewnos for *pymtheng-nos, « a fortnight, » Irish coicthiges, bot
of which literally mean fifleen-night. Pythewnos, pronounced pythefnc
in N. Wales, occurs in the Mabinogion ii. 391, andisa word in constar
use.
2. Ewin, « nail, « for *ingin identical with 0. Irish ingen (gl. unguis)
see Nigra's Reliquie Celtiche i. 36 and compare Latin unguis.
3. Gollewin, more commonly ^or//m/2, « the west, » belongs hère,
we may trust the Liber Landavensis, which reads, p. 231, the forr
gullengin : in the next page we hâve gulleuin, so it would seem that th
forms were optional.
4. Ffrewyll, « a scourge, » from lat, flagellum, whence we hâve als
the more regularly iormeà fflangell, « a whip, scourge »: as to ffrewyll, th
substitution of r for / in Welsh in loan-words where another / followe:
is not very unusual, and we even fmd in an old Latin version of th
Welsh Laws quoted in Haddan and Stubbs' Councils and Ecclesiastia
Documents relating to Great Britain and îreland, i. 13O;, fragillis, foi
flagelUs, to which we may add, as interesting in its vowel i,flagillo, fo
ilagello, i. 1 35. It is from /r^g///- read as/ra^g/'/Z-that our ffrewyll cornes j
compare the Hellenistic form