[Spellyans] *gwruthyl

[Deiniol Jones]

Nicholas Williams wrote:

> The verbal noun is interesting.
> We start with the IE root werg-, wreg- seen in English work, wrought  
> and Gk ergon 'deed, work', earlier *wergon.
> In Brythonic an adjective *wregto- gives Cornish *gwreith,* gwreyth.  
> This loses the gr in the cluster gwr to become gweyth 'thing  
> wrought, work'.
> The verbal noun develops from *wregto- + il-; cf. sevel, leverel.  
> This gives *gwrethyl.
> *Gwrethyl devolops in two ways. Either the rounded off-glide is lost  
> but rounds the stressed syllable > gruthyl.
> Or the r is lost (cf. *gwreyth > gweyth)

I was under the impression that the communis opinio has it that C.  
gweyth (along with its cognates W. gwaith and B. gwezh) derives from a  
Proto-Celtic *wexta:, ultimately from the PIE *weg'h-, as seen in  
Latin ueho, etc, and that the original sense was "course, period of  
time", with a later semantic extension to "work". Am I behind the  
times here? (I'm also aware of an alternate etymon in PIE *weik- "be  
victorious", which brings in OI fecht, but IIRC this isn't well  
supported by the Academy.)

Deiniol