[Spellyans] rickets/ague

[Craig Weatherhill]

What is the origin of this word?  I wouldn't have thought it cognate  
it with 'lewgh', calf (i.e. young bovine).  Might there have been a  
medical reason for it being derived from legh, pl. lehow, 'slabs,  
ledges'?  I must confess that I have little knowledge of rickets or  
ague.

Craig


On 16 Kev 2009, at 11:36, Owen Cook wrote:

> 2009/12/15 Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com> rug screfa:
>> On 15 Dec 2009, at 11:21, j.mills at email.com wrote:
>>
>>> Morton Nance (1938) gives leghow pl. rickets; ague. George (2009)  
>>> writes
>>> this as "legh" "to agree with the cognates" (Breton: lec'h, Welsh:  
>>> llech),
>>> and gives the translation equivalent: 'rickets'. The only source  
>>> that I have
>>> found for this word is Lhuyd (1707: 242a), who spells this word  
>>> "lêaụh" and
>>> translates it as 'ague'. How should this word be spelled? And what
>>> justification is there, if any, for the translation equivalent  
>>> 'rickets'?
>>
>> Lhuyd's form would not be so unusual, perhaps. KS spells leghow as  
>> lehow,
>> and Lhuyd's form looks like le'ow.
>
> Perhaps, but I would have made it lewgh. Why the intrusive -w- would
> have come in I don't know, but on the other hand why would "lêaụh"  
> =
> le'ow have the -h at the end?
>
> ~~Owen
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spellyans mailing list
> Spellyans at kernowek.net
> http://kernowek.net/mailman/listinfo/spellyans_kernowek.net