handbook of the origin of place-names in wales and monmouthshire

Bishop Percy says that "in England, although the names of the towns and villages are almost universally ofAnglo-Saxon derivation, yet hills, forests, rivers, &c, have generally preserved their old Celtic names." Inillustrating the prevalence of Celtic names in Britain, the Rev. Isaac Taylor writes: " Throughout the wholeisland almost every river-name is Celtic, most of the shire-names contain Celtic roots, and a fair sprinkling ofnames of hills, valleys, and fortresses, bear witness that the Celt was the aboriginal possessor of the soil;while in the border counties of Salop, Hereford, Gloucester, Dorset, Somerset, and Devon, and in themountain fastnesses of Derbyshire and Cumberland, not only are the names of the great natural features ofthe country derived from the Celtic speech, but we find occasional village-names, with the prefixes 'Ian' and'tre', interspersed among the Saxon patronymics."What is true of England is pre-eminently true of Wales, where the great bulk of place-names are distinctlyCymric, everywhere thrusting themselves upon our notice as standing proofs of the vitality of the language ofour progenitors. Many are the false prophets that have sarcastically declared, from time to time, that the daysof the Welsh language have been numbered. We might observe, en passant, that it contains more vitalitythan the Gaelic. The latter is only talked in some parts of Scotland, but the Cymric is the domestic languageof the vast majority of the Welsh people, wheresoever situated. It is calculated that more than a million of theinhabitants of Wales and Monmouthshire use the vernacular in domestic conversation, in literary andnewspaper reading, and in religious exercises. What with the continuation of the Cymric in the curriculum ofour Universities and Theological Colleges, its introduction as a specific subject into our public elementaryschools, the ardency and faithfulness with which it is taught in our Sunday schools from Caergybi toCaerdydd, the ever-increasing attention paid and the new life infused into it by various institutions, as theEisteddfod, the Honourable Society of Cymrodorion, the Society for Utilising the Welsh language, and theproverbial clannishness of the Kymry; looking retrospectively and prospectively our conviction is that the dearold language contains germs of a long and healthy life, and when it shall cease to be a vernacular much ofits intrinsic value and glory will be preserved in its local names.PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES.We shall now deal briefly with the chief prefixes and suffixes that occur so frequently as components innames of places in Wales, in order to avoid entering largely into details in tracing their origin in thesubsequent pages. Many of them contain the geographical and historical clues to a large number of names,and since they enter so extensively into Welsh nomenclature, we think it essential to offer a few explanatorynotes thereon.Aber means the mouth of a river, a particular point at which the lesser water discharges itself into the greater.In the old Welsh it is spelt aper, and Professor Rhys, Oxford, derives it from the root ber, the Celtic equivalentof fer, in Lat. Fer-oe, Greek phero ΠEnglish bear. It originally meant a volume of water which a river bearsor brings into the sea, or into another river ; but it is now generally used to denote an estuary, the mouth of ariver. Some think it is cognate with the Irish inver: Inverary, mouth of the Airy; and that inver and aber aresuitable test-words in discriminating between the two chief branches of the Celts. Mr. Taylor says that "if wedraw a line across the map from a point a little south of Inverary to one a little north of Aberdeen we shall find(with very few exceptions) the invers lie to the north-west of the line, and the abers to the south-east of it."The Welsh form occurs repeatedly in Brittany: Abervrack, Avranches. The Norman French haver is identifiedwith the Welsh abet. In the lowlands of Scotland we find it in Aberdeen, Abernethy, Abercorn, Abertay, &c,and in England we find it in Aberford, Berwick, &c. Wherever found in Welsh place-names it is almostinvariably followed by a proper or common name, indicating a brook or river flowing into another river, or thesea.Ach is a Celtic derivative particle denoting water. Agh in Ireland means a ford, och signifies the same inScotland, and the Latin aqua has the same meaning. The Sanscrit ux, uks, means to water. We find manybrooks and rivers called Clydach, sheltering water; Achddu means black water, amdgwyach is a general termfor several species of water-fowl.Afon, a river, comes probably from the Celtic awon, the moving water. In the Manx language it is written Aon,in the Gaelic abhainn (pronounced avain), and in the Itinerary of Antonius it is Abona. It is found in English inthe form of Avon, which, in the opinion of Professor Rhys, appears to have been entitled to a v as early asthe time of Tacitus. This form occasions redundancy in the English language. To say " Bristol is on the riverAvon " is tantamount to saying " Bristol is on the river river." Afon, a common name, has become a propername in England, but in Wales it is the generic term for a river.Origin of Place-names in Wales & Monmouthshire Page 4