"The "maes" element always has been rather puzzling, it doesn't seem to be Norse. I can't recollect what Hugh Marwick made of it. He strongly believed in a P-Celtic substratum to Orkney names, and yet he had difficulty producing immediately convincing examples. Interestingly, Jakob Jakobsen, the Faeroese scholar who studied the place-names of Shetland, equally well convinved himself - if no-one else - that the Celtic substratum was a Q-Celtic one. For many years the standard opinion on the pre-Norse language of the North was that promulgated by Prof Kenneth Jackson in his essay "The Pictish Language" in the seminal F T Wainwright volume "The Problem of the Picts" 1955 - that whereas the Picts of Fife, Angus, Perthshire spoke a P-Celtic language (with hints that this may have been slightly closer to Gaulish than to welsh), those north of the Highlands spoke a non-Indo-European language. You can't of course look for traces of a language you don't know. Jacksons view still seems to me to make good sense but the non-IE Pictish has now been challenged by K Forsyth who thinks that P-Celtic was spoken throughout the Pictish region. I can't help thinking though that if it had been so very general, the place-name traces would be obvious - as they are in the southern Pictish area, with "lin" instead of "loch", "lan" for an enclosure around a church, and abundant instances of "aber". If Welsh place-name elements (like the river names "Pant" and "Cam") can survive in East Anglia - a region heavily Anglo-Saxonised - surely some would be apparent in Orkney?
Anyway, obscure elements like "maes" could be non-IE, but no-one can prove they are. It isn't unique to Maeshowe. There is a chambered tomb, as it happens of Maeshowe type, on Start Point in Sanday - its name has been corrupted in recent times to "Mount Misery" but the older form is "Maesry". I don't think anyone can make any more of it than this."
Reply | with quote | Posted by Lianachan 26th April 2005ce 23:33 |
Entymology of Maeshowe - discussed with experts (Lianachan, Apr 22, 2005, 09:44)- Entymology of Maeshowe - Part II (Lianachan, Apr 22, 2005, 09:45)
- A new response. (Lianachan, Apr 22, 2005, 14:58)
- aargh (Lianachan, Apr 22, 2005, 16:32)
- Re: aargh (follow that cow, Apr 23, 2005, 09:36)
- Another response (Lianachan, Apr 26, 2005, 23:33)
- An excellent resource about "Pictish" (Lianachan, Apr 29, 2005, 13:03)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (follow that cow, Apr 30, 2005, 16:28)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, Apr 30, 2005, 23:44)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 01, 2005, 11:37)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, May 01, 2005, 13:53)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 01, 2005, 16:24)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, May 01, 2005, 19:06)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 01, 2005, 21:11)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, May 01, 2005, 22:16)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 01, 2005, 22:18)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 01, 2005, 11:32)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 02, 2005, 09:34)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (follow that cow, May 02, 2005, 10:32)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, May 02, 2005, 11:34)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (moss, May 02, 2005, 15:11)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, May 02, 2005, 17:16)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 02, 2005, 18:57)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (hamish, May 02, 2005, 20:41)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 02, 2005, 21:44)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 02, 2005, 21:49)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 03, 2005, 01:11)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (hamish, May 02, 2005, 20:41)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, May 02, 2005, 22:37)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 02, 2005, 23:02)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 02, 2005, 23:04)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (Littlestone, May 02, 2005, 23:33)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (follow that cow, May 02, 2005, 23:21)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 03, 2005, 08:23)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (follow that cow, May 03, 2005, 12:19)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 03, 2005, 15:54)
- Survival (Littlestone, May 03, 2005, 17:18)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (follow that cow, May 03, 2005, 18:22)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 03, 2005, 21:38)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 03, 2005, 22:01)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (follow that cow, May 03, 2005, 22:29)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (BigSweetie, May 04, 2005, 00:32)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 04, 2005, 03:08)
- Re: Pretanike-Britain, Breton, Prythain or Picti? (PeterH, May 03, 2005, 22:14)
- Re: Entymology of Maeshowe - discussed with exp... (Pilgrim, May 05, 2005, 23:06)
- Etymology of Maeshowe: Update & Answer? (Lianachan, Jun 03, 2005, 14:25)
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