The Adventurous History of the Word Wales

wurte runoz an walha-kurne heldaz kunimundiu worked runes on foreign-corn Held for.Kunimund

The history of the wordtakes us far back into the past, c. 500 B.C., to the time when Germanic tribes first started moving into Northern Germany from their homeland in Scandinavia. Here, they encountered, displaced and assimilated Celtic tribes. One of the most powerful Celtic people they met was called 'Volcae.' Caesar mentions them in his commentaries on the Gallic War:"And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively […]. Accordingly, the Volcae Tectosages, seized on those parts of Germany which are the most fruitful […] and settled there." (Caesar’s6.24)The Germanic new-comers then took over and generalized the name 'Volca' to refer to any foreigner or group of foreigners - primarily Celts or Romans, who spoke a foreign, non-Germanic tongue. The Latin letterusually represents a-like sound at the beginning of words. The Indo-Europeanshows up asin the Germanic languages, as in Latinbut Old English'what' or Latinbut Gothic'eight.' Finally, the Latin symbolcorresponds to a Germanic fricativelater. For example, Latin- Englishor Latin- English. Correspondingly, the Germanic speakers would eventually pronounce their freshly-borrowed wordas. This reconstructed base can explain a large number of descendant reflexes in the Germanic languages.The earliest known attestation of the rootappears in the form of a runic inscription on a gold coin called the 'Tjurkö Bracteate,' which was found in Sweden in 1817 and is dated to 400 to 650 AD. The word appears in the nominal compound, 'foreign-corn.' A foreign (Roman or Gallic) grain can be interpreted metaphorically as a gold coin. Therefore,appears to be a poetic paraphrase - a so-called kenning - for the bracteate itself:

‘Held worked runes on [this] foreign-grain [=gold coin] for Kunimund’



Old High German documents record the adjective related to walha, variably spelled as walask, walahisk, walhisk etc. 'strange, foreign, Romance.'

Interestingly, this word was in turn taken over by French speakers via Old Low Franconian with a sound change w > g (similar to the modern day English-French cognates war - guerre, warranty - garantie). Thus, walhisk surfaces in Old French as galeis, galois, gualeis, whence the Modern French gaulois. Reconstruction of the Tjurkö Bracteate

Subsequently, the Old English word Welsh even allowed for its interpretation as 'slave.' For example, the Old English rendition of the Old Testament directly translates Latin seruus with wealh.

Romano-British Celts attacked by Anglo-Saxon raiders and burying treasure as they escape from the invaders

In the West-Germanic languages, theinwas transformed into anunder the influence of a following(for example Gothic, but Old High German, Old English'army;' this also explains the difference between Modern Englishetc.). Therefore, the adjectiveshows up asfrom Middle High German on and still exists in Modern German as'strange.' The word is used particularly frequently in Swiss German, wheredesignates 'French-speaking Switzerland,'refers to a former Burgundian defensive barrier, oris the term for a Romansh dialect once spoken in the city of Chur.There are many more examples that testify to the Proto-Germanic root, like the Modern Dutch word'Waloon' for the predominantly French-speaking southern part of Belgium or the Old Norse adjective'French, Romance.' Even, a region in Romania famous for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or the, an antiquated name for Romanians themselves, ultimately derive from the same base: Slavic speakers took over the word from German and continued the tradition to use it for foreign people, except that it was now applied to Romance speakers in Eastern instead of Western Europe.The Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded England in the fifth century and also brought along with them the word. They used it to refer to the local Romanized Celtic population. But the encounter between British Celts and Anglo-Saxons was not a peaceful one: The invaders quickly displaced, murdered or enslaved the Celtic-speaking peoples. Gildas, a sixth century British cleric, writes about his fellow Celtic countrymen:"Some […] were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered to them. […] Others remained still in their country, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests, and to the rocks of the seas." (Gildas', 25)Even though the attackers were the newcomers to the land, they called the ancestral population the, 'strangers.' The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records,'473 A.D. thefled from the English like fire.''607 A.D. And this year Ethelfrith led a troop to Chester and there murdered a huge number ofand thus was fulfilled Augustine’s prophecy when he said, “if thedon’t wish peace with us, they shall perish at the hands of the Saxons."'More clearly than in other languages,took on the meaning not just of foreigner but of 'the other' in Old English; it became a term for an inferior race, worthy of enslavement. Without mercy or shame, the Anglo-Saxon invaders gradually forced the Welsh from the rich, arable plains of the East to the rough, barren mountains in the West. And these are still the regions where the English Celtic-speaking minorities live to this day,'(the land of the) foreigners' and, with- referring to the original tribal name of the inhabitants andfrom Old English 'foreigner.'comes from the corresponding adjective,'foreign.'Old English:Latin:Modern English: 'The Hebrew, whom you brought hither, came in to me to ridicule me.' ( Genesis 39:17 Another reference toas a slave comes from Riddle number twelve of the. It asks for the name of a thing that first moves around on green meadows, but, once dead, is turned into thongs, shoes or wine flasks, which are then served and cleaned by Welsh slave girls. What could that be? Well, most scholars believe the answer to the riddle should be "leather."The wordis also used in a racially discriminatory sense in thefrom the late seventh century. The law assigns - even to free- a lower social rank than to an Englishman, as the compensation paid for killing them was lower for the former than for the latter.But the Anglo-Saxons also coined much more innocent expressions from the word. For example, the compound- Modern English- is first documented c. 1050. The nut is "foreign" because it was originally native to France and Italy.The wordhas a long, sometimes purely practical, sometimes more prejudiced history. But the meaning of 'serf' forhas long died out and the modern day usage ofis often associated with positive connotations and noble attributes. After all, French managed to develop a proud tradition of, despite the fact that this word, too, originally merely meant 'foreigner.' Go ahead and articulate the wordwith similar pride and elation!