It’s not so much a question I’m going to pose, but it’s going to be quick, as I must dash to work. I’ve discovered a series of 3 books, written by Sabrina Qunaj, a young author from Austria. The story takes place in Wales of the 12th century, when civil war wreaked havoc in England and the Welsh people rebelled against the new rulers, the Normans. Of course there is a lot of drama, tragic love stories, heroes fighting for freedom and justice. The characters do have depth, are multifaceted and unique, and the Welsh history, the locations and names are very well researched (she even wrote about her journey in Wales).
I’m not sure whether the books are already translated into English, but here is the link to the author’s website:
Big lump in throat! Is she on here at all? Has she learned Cymraeg? It is a wonderful feeling to discover that a young lady from far away Austria has learned about us, about those Princes of Gwynedd who led Wales against the Anglo-Norman invasion and lost, about, perhaps, Owain Glyndwr and his disillusion with so-called English Justice and his efforts to get our Country alliance with France! I am not up to reading her books in German, but more power to her elbow - or rather her pen!
You know, I sent her a message and thanked her for her wonderful stories. I told her that the characters she described with so much empathy let me feel that my own admiration and love for Cymru is too big to ever give up learning Cymraeg (no matter how much of a snail I think I am). I told her about SSiW and all the dedicated people here that fight like the brothers Cadell, Maredudd and Rhys ap Gruffydd for their country, culture and language!
P.S. I’ve learned that the name Wales derives from “vealh” - foreign (fremd in German), and that this was how the Saxon invaders called Cymru and y Cymry when they seized the kingdom of Britain. Sabrina Qunaj wrote: “Schon traurig, dass dieses Volk und ihr Land bis heute als „fremd“ angesprochen wird.” - It’s sad that to this day, this people and their country is called and addressed as “foreign”.
It doesn’t really mean foreign. Firstly, it means that bit of the island of Britain that sticks out to the West. Etymology is a different thing to meaning. And secondly, Germanic tribes didn’t call just anyone vealh - only people who had lived a literally civilised life under the Roman Empire. Hence Wallonia in Belgium, Wallachia in Romania, Unterwalden in Switzerland, etc.
Oh, I wasn’t aware of this, it’s interesting. I will do more research on this topic, thank you very much for helping me to acquire accurate and in depth knowledge! You’re certainly right, the meaning of a word can differ from its etymology, I didn’t consider that.
The people of the French part of Switzerland are called “die Welschen, Welschland”, too, and the name of the canton Wallis seems to point to the Roman Empire, as well…
I’m afraid not. A reader asked her the same question and she answered that it was extremely difficult for a German book to be translated into English, as the English language area was huge and they had a lot of authors themselves. She thinks it is more likely for her books to be translated into other languages in the future. But one never knows…
See also the connection between Wales/Welsh and the “Scottish” surname “Wallace” (as in Sir William Wallace of “Braveheart” fame:
(that webpage misses out the vealh connection, although I’m sure that’s relevant also).
Also not mentioned there is that large parts of northern England and what is now southern Scotland are thought to have spoken Cumbric, a Celtic language similar to Welsh, well after the Saxon invasion(s). It’s possible that William Wallace, whose name might have meant either “the foreigner” or “The Welshman”, actually spoke Cumbric. This is of some personal interest to me as my father was called Wallace (in honour of the great man, I’m sure - his dad had pretensions to Scottishness… ), and it also happens to be my middle name. My parents, and ancestors as far back as I can trace also mostly came from Cumbria. So although I have no connection to Wales by birth, I do have a sort of backdoor connection with the language.
(Sadly, there is no written evidence for the Cumbric language, so we can mostly only speculate).
Wow, it feel like another door to a deeper understanding of Wales has just opened, diolch yn fawr iawn! It’s strange, now that you’ve pointed out that the name Wallace might mean “the foreigner” or “the Welshman”, I can certainly see the similarity of the words; especially between Wallace and Welsh. But I’d never have thought about this before. I’m going to read the links now, merci!
No – ‘alien’ comes from Latin alienus, meaning ‘from elsewhere’, which comes from Latin alius ‘other’. The same root shows up in Welsh as ail- (as in ailwneud, ‘to re-do’) and in llall and arall (at least according to the GPC etymologies for those words).
The Old English wealh, on the other hand, although it was a pretty generic Germanic word for (non-Roman) ‘foreigner’, seems to have come originally from the name of a Continental Celtic tribe, known to the Romans as the Volcae – see wealh (proto-Germanic walhaz) and Volcae in Wikipedia. Since an awful lot of the non-Roman foreigners the early Germanic tribes encountered would have been Celtic, it’s really not that much of an over-generalization.
[ETA: English else as in elsewhere comes from the same root as ail-, arall, alien, too.]
You’re certainly right, the meaning of a word can differ from its etymology, I didn’t consider that.
Live long and Prosper or Byw yn hir ac Ffynnu!