Review of: Xavier Delamarre, Les noms de Gaulois, Paris: Les Cent Chemins 2017, in: Journal of Celtic Linguistics 20 (2019), 208‒215. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Naming practices among the Irish secular nobility in the high middle ages
Journal of Medieval History, 2006
The Anglo-Norman ‘invasion’ had a profound impact on the names used by Irish families. New names such as Seán and Uilliam, introduced in the thirteenth, became widespread by the fourteenth century. In a number of cases a link can be established between the first occurrence of an Anglo-Norman name in an Irish family and an Anglo-Norman magnate with the same first name in the same region. This may have been the case for women also. Women's names were possibly more open to change, but in this field in particular more research needs to be done. The societies of both the Irish and the Anglo-Normans were patriarchal and as a consequence the naming pattern of the paternal family was usually followed. There are many similarities between the practices in Ireland and those in the rest of Western Europe, but it seems that Ireland differed in that here the eldest son rarely received the name of his paternal grandfather. Within the upper classes, the high nobility seems to have had a different attitude towards imitating Anglo-Norman names then did the lower nobility.
Naming and History: Personal Names in the First Part of the Angevin Age
The topic and the objective of the dissertation 1. The dissertation deals with the personal names of the historical period specified in the title, a period on which linguists have not done thorough research so far. Hungarian historians and linguists have long aspired to collect and process the historical personal names.
Isbn, 2013
Vinte(lius?) do(navit) v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito). 20. &) 5&&& =ĥ 9 i(n) h(onorem) ĩd(omus) d(ivinae)-9 ĩ-d9is Matrĩibus(?). 21. CIL XIII 2498: in honorem ĩdomus divinae-9 deabus ĩ-9 Matr<i=A>bus. 22. /& ĥ ĩDea9bus Maĩtribus9 ĩpro s9alute M(arci) ĩAur(eli) ĩĩĩAlexa9ndri99 ĩP(ii) F(elicis99 ĩAug(usti) et Iu9liae Mĩĩam9 ĩeae matr(is) d(omini9 n(ostri) et cĩastr(orum9 ĩet senatus et po9puĩli Rom(ani9 ĩ-. 23. RIB 919: Deabus Matribus Tra(ns)marinis et N(umini) Imp(eratoris) Alexandri Aug(usti) et Iul(iae) Mammeae matr(i) Aug(usti) n(ostri) et castrorum toĩtique eorum9 domui divin(a)e aeĩdem ruina dilapsam vexil9latio Mĩa9rĩsacorum?-9 =J@ /& ĥ Deabus Matribus Tra(ns)mari(nis) vex(illatio) Germaĩno9r(um) Vĩo9 rĩe9d(ensium) pro salute R() F() v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito). 24. RIB 1988: ĩDeabu9s ĩMat9ribuĩs9 omnium gentium templum olim vetustate conlabsum G(aius) Iul(ius) Cupitianus (centurio) p(rae)p(ositus) restituit.
England offers one of the richest sources of information for study of trends in names and naming. First, and most relevant to the themes of this book, it was the subject of three waves of migration in the medieval period which affected both language and naming. Secondly, an unusually rich survival of documentation from the late eleventh-century onward allows us to trace this process in some detail. The Anglo-Saxon immigrants of the fifth and sixth century so well established themselves that their language completely replaced the British language previously spoken, confining it to the western extremities of Wales, Cornwall in southwest England and Galloway in southwest Scotland. English place-names preserve the evidence of this language change: very few British elements survive (exceptions include the names of the River Thames and the port of Dover). Detailed studies of place-names, still in progress, have yielded some insights into the process of the early Germanic invasions, for example, indicating some of the preoccupations of the settlers with topographical features such as water, and even preserve some of their personal names; for example, Brightwell «bright spring», and Mackney, «Macca's island» in Berkshire 1. The invasion of Danish Vikings in the eighth century affected place-names in the Midlands and the east in the area known as the Danelaw, and introduced Scan-dinavian names into the English personal name pool (reinforced by the Danish conquest of 1016). The Norman Conquest of 1066, by an army predominantly of Normans, but also including Bretons and Picards, introduced a completely new set of personal names which eventually almost completely replaced native English names. It did so at a time when naming systems elsewhere in Europe were moving towards a two-name system. What this essay primarily aims to do is to document the changes after 1066 by means of a corpus of name records collected in my Continental Origins of English Landholders (1066-1166) [COEL] Database, supplemented by analysis of some contrasting texts, both contemporary and later.
Anglia, 2019
This handbook, consisting of 47 chapters organized in seven parts, which are preceded by a list of contributors (xvii-xxiii) and a useful introduction by the editor (1-13), is a collective work with contributions by some 43 authors. It is opened by a theoretical section, "Onomastic Theory", consisting of three papers, namely, those of Willy Van Langendonck and Mark Van De Velde on names and grammar (17-38), Staffan Nyström on names and meaning (39-51), and Elwys De Stefani on names and discourse (52-66). Nyström is rightly critical of the thesis that names are 'meaninglessʼ. According to this view, when lexical items become names, their semantic content, even if it is readily transparent, is lost and the resulting name is merely referential. For Nyström, meaning cannot be ignored in name formation, though there are degrees of meaningfulness. He examines the concepts of denotation and connotation. The latter is especially important. For example, V VERDUN ERDUN has not only the referential function of denoting the place in eastern France, but also has the connotation of the battle which took place there in 1916. Nyström distinguishes the proprial meaning (i. e. the mental onomasticon) from the lexical meaning, but shows that the two interact. As he indicates, however, there is a difference between names like B BLACKBURN LACKBURN (Lancashire) 'dark bourne, stream' < OE blaec + OE burna, which are formally and semantically transparent, and those like C CHOLMONDELEY HOLMONDELEY /tʃʌmlɪ/ in Cheshire, 'Ceolmund's forest clearing', which are not, though in the former case we should not ignore the effects of dissociation. The second part, on "Toponomastics", consists of eight articles and is opened by Simon Taylor on the methodologies of place-name research (69-86). Taylor's observations reflect his experience in the recently established Survey of Scottish Place-Names and are based on material from the Scottish counties of Fife, Kinross-shire and Clackmannanshire. Most appositely, Taylor illustrates his discussion with sample names. Particularly important is his account of the complex nature of written and oral sources which has a general methodological relevance extending far beyond the immediate Scottish context.
‘ Cover Names ’ and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul The Evidence of the Bordelaise Poet Ausonius
2003
With contributions by Jürgen Zeidler 1 0. Résumé (en franc ais) 'Cover Names' and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul 2 © 2003 Altay Cos kun & Jürgen Zeidler. The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. fulgurante qui culmina avec l'obtention du consulat ordinaire en 379. Pendant ces années, il profita énormément de sa position à la cour pour favoriser l'avancement de plusieurs de ses parents dans l'aristocratie impériale. Grâce à ses oeuvres littéraires, Ausone n'est pas seulement le plus fameux poète gallo-romain, mais il est aussi une des personnes les mieux connues de cette époque. Les divers obituaires qu'il a composés pour ses parents (Epicedion in patrem, Parentalia, Commemoratio professorum Burdigalensium) invite à suivre l'histoire de sa famille du milieu du III e siècle jusqu'à la fin du IV e siècle; histoire que d'autres sources permettent de poursuivre jusqu'au VI e siècle. A l'inverse des questions littéraires et prosopographiques, on n'a pas encore consacré une étude systématique au matériel onomastique, alors que beaucoup de noms propres (PNs) rares méritent une explication linguistique. En combinaison avec les riches informations prosopographiques, il est possible d'appréhender la préhistoire des branches familiales à l'aide des méthodes généalogiques et linguistiques: par exemple, pour les familles de Caecilius Argicius Arborius (grand-père d'Ausone) et de Iulius Ausonius (son père), on peut confirmer une origine celtique; dans le premier cas, il est possible de découvrir un indice d'une ascendance druidique, tandis qu'on peut suggérer hypothétiquement une ascendance servile dans le second. Pour ce qui est d'Aemilia Corinthia Maura (sa grand-mère), Pomponius Maximus (mari de sa soeur) et Valerius Latinus Euromius (son beau-fils), divers indices pourraient révéler une parenté avec des empereurs du III e siècle. Mais au-delà de ces acquis, l'ensemble de ces 43 personnes (pour lesquelles 86 PNs ou 51 formes différentes de PNs sont attestés) forme une base de donnés remarquable concernant les coutumes onomastiques; il en ressort notamment, d'une manière impressionnante, une influence surprenante de la culture celtique dans l'Aquitaine du IV e s. malgré-ou plutôt en interaction avec-l'influence romaine. La condition fondamentale de cette analyse n'est pas seulement l'arbre généalogique assez volumineux, c'est-à-dire, la concentration chronologique et géographique des données ainsi que l'organisation transparente de celles-ci, mais aussi la notion du cover name (CN, nom de code, Deckname selon Leo Weisgerber), ce qui signifie un nom d'origine celtique qui prend l'apparence d'un nom latin ou grec. Ainsi, par exemple, Veneria ou Aeonia. Cette étude encourage à continuer l'enquête avec une série d'investigations limitées à des régions gauloises dans des périodes bien circonscrites. La synthèse des résultats ne promet pas seulement la découverte de principes onomastiques et généalogiques mal connus aujourd'hui, mais aussi une meilleure compréhension des mécanismes et des conditions de la romanisation et des procès d'acculturation qui s'ensuivaient. 'Cover Names' and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul 3 © 2003 Altay Cos kun & Jürgen Zeidler. The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. 'Cover Names' and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul 4 © 2003 Altay Cos kun & Jürgen Zeidler. The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. an additional kind of source different in nature: a respectable number of personal names (PNs). Omitting all anonymi and more than a dozen of persons for whom kinship can be asserted on onomastic grounds, I still count 43 individuals who are attested to have 'Cover Names' and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul 5 © 2003 Altay Cos kun & Jürgen Zeidler. The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. 8 Cf. Prof. 4.11f.; further sect. II.1 with n. 14 on Patera's family. Admittedly, it is difficult to trace a Celtic basis for Patera; however, the long e ¥ , which is evidenced by the metre (Iambus), allows to distinguish the word from the Latin homograph. 9 Cf. also praef. 1.5f.; Prof. 16.6-8. The ancestors are nowhere stated to have been citizens of Autun, but the conclusion is frequently drawn by modern scholars (cf., e.g., Sivan 1993, 50f.). For the history of 369-71 cf. I. König: Die gallischen Usurpatoren, Munich 1981, 148-57: he dates the siege to late autumn 369/summer 370 and the expulsion of Argicius' family to end 370/early 371 (p. 149); similarly Drinkwater (n. 4) 79-81. For the imperial chronology cf. also Kienast (n. 6) 246-49. For the year of birth of Caecilius cf. Gens 114-18. 10 Rankin 235 is obviously confused with the family of Attius Patera (Prof. 4.7-14); he further states: 'The association of druids with sacred woodland precincts called nemeta implies a suggestive connection with the name Arborius'; he regards Dryadia as a translation into Greek. Cf. further Green 1991, 307f. and Sivan 1993, 53. However, the evidence Sivan is drawing on is tenuous: the fact that Ausonius' matertera Aemilia Hilaria is characterised as virgo devota in the headline of Parentalia 6 has barely any significance, because this apposition is an apparent medieval gloss, cf. Green 1991, 310. The latter's argument can be buttressed by the fact that Hilaria's motivation for her virginity had obviously nothing to do with religious conviction; cf. Gens 221-23 (with n. 109) for an interpretation of Parent. 6 (Aemilia 'Cover Names' and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul 6 © 2003 Altay Cos kun & Jürgen Zeidler. The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. professions of his academic uncle and of his aunt Aemilia Hilaria, a physician, might well hint at some kind of a druidic tradition. 11 What do the PNs tell us in this regard? Argicius is entirely Gaulish, and Aeonia is best explained as a latinised Greek CN for Celtic Aiunia, so that Gallic roots of the family are conclusively confirmed. This view is strongly supported by an analysis of the cognomen Arborius, which is declared to be the family name in Parent. 4.3: Arborium Aeduico ductum de stemmate nomen. Its dissemination clearly reveals that it originated from Gaul, not from Italy, and moreover that it was in all likelihood restricted to this very family. At any rate, the onomastic motif of the 'tree' is essential. This is corroborated by the pseudo-Greek name Dryadia, which is exclusively attested for three of Ausonius' kinsmen commemorated in the Parentalia (12, 23, 25). The latter name is probably shaped after Greek ¦ § © , ¦ § © ¦ , ('dryad', 'nymph of the (oak) tree', < ¦ § " ! #), but the similarity to Celtic *derv(o)-/dru-(root with Schwebeablaut) likewise '(oak) tree', may have induced the choice as well. Remarkably, the combination of the latter basis with Indo-European (IE) *veid-/vid-('see' or 'know') results in nothing else but *dru-vid-, i.e. 'druid', whose close connection to trees, whether real or in a metaphorical sense, is undisputed. 12 When I am tempted to allow the onomastic theme to tip the balance, I do not, however, insist in claiming genealogical descent from druids whose activities had been banned as early as the mid-1 st century; nor do I know how far the creation of the name Arborius predates its first attestation in 3 rd-century inscriptions. 13 But I do suggest that there was a long tradition of skills, knowledge and awareness. The latter may even be reflected in reserving Arborius to male, Dryadia to female members of the family until the 5 th century, which is quite remarkable given that arbor-like nearly all species of trees-is female in Latin. In addition, Ausonius who never fails to mention the distinguished ancestors of his friends and kinsmen, does not claim druidic extraction for him-Hilaria) as well as for a systematic approach to the religiousness of the family. For interpolations in headings of poems cf. also my note 'Alethius: quaestor or grammaticus?, and the Problem of Titulature in Claudian's carmina minora', Prosopon 12, 2001 (http://www.linacre.ox.ac.uk./research/ prosop/prosopo.stm). But even if virgo devota should be considered authentic, there is no need to identify Christian devotion with Greek origin in late 3 rd-century Gaul. 11 Cf. Parent. 2-6 and Gens 112f. for further details; also Rousselle 241-51, 242 on C.A. Arborius' astrological interests and Gourevitch 71 on Aemilia Hilaria; for druids as devoted teachers cf. Loicq 11f. 12 Cf. Latin videre; Greek 'Cover Names' and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul 9
Personal names in medieval libri vitæ as a sociolinguistic resource
Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics
This paper explores the potential of using a historical sociolinguistic approach to interrogate the extensive lists of personal names found in medieval libri vitæ. So far, these lists have mainly been exploited in historical and a few onomastic studies, with a focus on name etymology and personal naming practices. Both the linguistics of the names and sociolinguistic perspectives remain to date underexamined. In this contribution, we explore possible sociolinguistic research questions, and present methodological challenges and preliminary results on the basis of four case studies from two examples, the libri vitæ of Thorney Abbey and Reichenau. The case studies examine autographs, choice of script and language, and dialect adaptation. Our main interest lies in the modelling and explanation of graphic and linguistic variation in the names. Our particular focus is on the status of the respective vernacular languages involved (Old English and Old High German) and in the conclusions we ...