English and Welsh

How was such communication carried on? Indeed for that matter how were the many surviving British place-names borrowed, once we move farther in and leave the ports and coastal regions that pirates in the Cha

It is, of course, impossible to go into details concerning the problems that these present. Many of them are familiar in any case to English philologists, to whom the Latin loan-words in Old English, for instance, have long been of interest. Though it is probably fair to say that in this matter the importance of the Welsh evidence is not yet fully recognized.

According to probability, apart from direct evidence or linguistic deductions, Latin of a kind is likely to have been a medium of communication at an early stage. Though medium gives a false impression, suggesting a language belonging to neither side. Latin must have been the spoken language of many if not most of the defenders in the south-cast; while some sort of command of Latin is likely to have been acquired by many 'Saxons'. They had been operating in the Cha

Later British and English must have come face to face. But there was certainly never any iron-curtain line, with everything English on the one side, and British on the other. Communication certainly went on. But communications imply persons, on one ride or both, who have at least some command of the two languages.

In this co

That the Walas or Britons got to know of this word would not be surprising. That they did seems to be shown by the mention among the great company of Arthur in the hunting of the Twrch Trwyth (Kulhwch and Olwen) of a man who knew all languages; his name is given as Gwrhyr Gwalstawt Ieithoed, that is Gwrhyr Interpreter of Tongues.

Incidentally it is curious to find a bishop named Uualchstod mentioned in Bede's History, belonging to the early eighth century (about a.d. 730); for he was 'bishop of those beyond Severn', that is of Hereford, Such a name could not become used as a baptismal name until it had become first used as a 'nickname' or occupational name, and that would not be likely to occur except in a time and region of communications between peoples of different language.

It would certainly seem that eventually at any rate the English made some efforts to understand Welsh, even if this remained a professional task for gifted linguists. Of what the English in general thought about British or Welsh we know little, and that only from later times, two or three centuries after the first invasions. In Felix of Crowland's life of St Guthlac (referring to the begi

In this story we find the term 'British' used. In the Anglo-Saxon version of the Life the expression Bryttisc sprecende appears. This no doubt is partly due to the Latin. But Brettas and the adjective brittisc, bryttisc continued to be used throughout the Old English period as equivalents of Wealas (Walas) and wielisc (waelisc), that is of modern Welsh, though it also included Cornish. Sometimes the two terms were combined in Bretwalas and bretwielisc.

In modern England the usage has become disastrously confused by the maleficent interference of the Government with the usual object of governments: uniformity. The misuse of British begins after the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, when in a quite u

'Fy fa fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman', wrote Nashe in 1595 (Have with уou to Saffron Walden).

Edgar says, or is made to say, in King Lear (III. iv).

The modern Englishman finds this very confusing. He has long read of British prowess in battle, and especially of British stubbor

But in early times there was no such confusion. The Brettas and the Walas were the same. The use of the latter term, which| was applied by the English, is thus of considerable importance in estimating the linguistic situation of the early period.

It seems clear that the word walh, wealh which the English brought with them was a common Germanic name for a man of what we should call Celtic speech. [17] But in all the recorded Germanic languages in which it appears it was also applied to the speakers of Latin. That may be due, as is usually assumed, to the fact that Latin eventually occupied most of the areas of Celtic speech within the knowledge of Germanic peoples. But it is, I think, also in part a linguistic judgement, reflecting that very similarity in style of Latin and Gallo-Brittonic that I have already mentioned. It did not occur to anyone to call a Goth a walh even if he was long settled in Italy or in Gaul. Though 'foreigner' is often given as the first gloss on wealh in Anglo-Saxon dictionaries this is misleading. The word was not applied to foreigners of Germanic speech, nor to those of alien tongues, Lapps, Fi

14

This may seem probable enough; but it does not promise easy evidence to the historical philologist. He will be faced with Latin incorporated in Welsh, and in English (each with its own phonetic history), and with different kind» of Latin on either side of the Cha

15

We here see the word applied to a tongue that was though Celtic not British. Wealhstod became the ordinary word in Old English for either an interpreter or a translator; but that was at a much later date. It seems never, however, to have been applied to communications with the 'Danes’.

16

Latin Life, ch. xxxiv.* What follows occurred in the days of Coenred, king of the Mercians [704-9], when the pestiferous British foes of the Saxons were embroiling the English in piratical raids and organized devastation. One night at time of cockcrow, when according to his custom the hero Guthlac of blessed memory began his vigils, suddenly as if he were lost in a trance he seemed to hear the roaring of a tumultuous crowd. At that he started up from his light sleep and rushed from the cell where he sat. Standing with ears cocked he recognized words and the native mode of speech of British soldiers coming from the roof; for when in former times he had been isolated among them on his various expeditions he had learned to understand their cacophonous ma

17

Its origin is not of importance in this context. It is commonly supposed to be the same as that of the Celtic tribal name represented in Latin sources as Volcae. that is derived from it at a time sufficiently early to allow it to be germanicized in form. Traces remain of the sense 'Romans'. Widsith, which contains many memories of pre-migration days, has an archaic form mid Rumwalum, and mentions Wala rice as the realm ruled by Court (Caesar); weala sunderriht and reht Romwala are found in two glosses on ius Quintan, But these are not normal uses. Later applications to Gaul (France) are probably not derived from English tradition.