[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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