Bits 'n Bobs
You can tell I'm off sick - I'm just blogging away...Little interesting (?) things I've discovered; "Great Britain".
Who put the 'Great' in Great Britain? I remember from some past reading that Great Britain is called Great, meaning 'Greater' to distinguish it from 'Lesser' Britain, or Britanny, in France. I think that, as the Celts were pushed to the edges of Britain in Wales and Cornwall by subsequent invasions from Europe, some moved over to what is now Britanny, and hence the similarity of the name. Certainly, a lot of place names in Britanny start with a K which is not a French derivation, and similarly many place names in Cornwall start with a K too. The BBC site (link below) approaches this subject from a Welsh perspective, and has some interesting information, including this about languages (and as you know, I'm into languages at the moment, from reading the India History with Sanskrit references).
"Despite the encroachment of English - and French, in Celtic Brittany - six of the Celtic languages survived into the modern period. Irish, Scottish, and Manx Gaelic, which are referred to as q-Celtic or Goidelic languages, comprise one group; while Breton, Cornish, and Welsh form the p-Celtic or Brythonic group".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/celts/pages/about.shtml
And why are Jersey and Guernsey, two islands just off the French Coast, part of Britain? This ones easy; they came with the Norman Estates, when William the Conqueror invaded in 1066.
posted by piedmichael @ 11:54 am
1 Comments:
Hi there. As you're interested in languages, a blogger and just blogged about celtic languages, you may be interested in the following:
Blogiadur: Aggregator of Blos in Welsh
TìrnamBlòg: Aggregator of Blogs in Scottish Gaelic
There are also blogs in Breton, Cornish and quite a few in Irish Gaelic, but no aggregators.
Post a Comment
<< Home