[Spellyans] Wasp
Craig Weatherhill
craig at agantavas.org
Mon Feb 13 22:22:55 GMT 2017
How should <guhyen; guhy>, "wasp; wasps" be correctly spelt?
Old Cornish has: <guhien>. Nance lists: <guhyen; guhy>
I don't know if it's attested elsewhere in the texts, but SWF (following KK) spells it <goghien; goghi>. George's first dictionary suggests a reconstruction from a postulated Common Celtic <*woks-> and equally postulated Indo-European <*wops->.
Welsh has <gwchi>, although current Welsh doesn't seem to use it.
It is attested in one place-name: Tregiffian, St Buryan. Attested spellings are as follows:
Tregughion 1292, 1334
Tregughyon 1300
Tregguhion 1331
Tregivian 1331
Treguvan 1336
Tregivian 1451
Tregevyon 1550
Tregufyon 1617
Treguvian 1668
Treguvan 1668
Treguffian 1668
Tregiffien 1723
Presumably, the meaning is: "wasp (infested) farm".
Craig
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