Was reminded of this article when reading the following commentary on the well-known Artognou stone:
"The particular linguistic interest here is that, c 550, this name incised as ARTOGNOV was not a correspondingly spoken trisyllable, /art-og-noo/, but... had almost certainly become a spoken /arth-no/ softening or aspirating the T, losing the internal compositional O by the process called syncope, and also losing the prefixed G. In other words, whoever committed this name to writing knew its older and fuller form, as it would have been in the fourth or third century. This deliberate archaism, otherwise known as IOC ('Inscriptional Old Celtic'), characterizes the treatment of Celtic as opposed to Latin names on many post-Roman inscriptions."
Not sure how relevant it is to your study, but it's interesting, especially given that you guys have noted the relationship between the names Arthnou and Arthwys. The same author renders the rest of the inscription quite conservatively, identifying "Paternus", "Coliauus" and "Artognous" as the names of individuals while making no particular attempt to connect them.
The Artorius etymology is the only one that works. Over 100 people with this family name are attested, so your grounds for ruling it out are not very cogent just on statistical grounds.
My grounds for ruling it out are perfectly valid and are not even “mine”, others have raised them long before I did. In order to make a case for Artorius, you have to overcome the three points against it. “It sounds very close” and “it’s a reasonably common name” are valid reasons for a hypothesis and an investigation, but in and of themselves are neither good history nor good linguistics.
I think you have to deal with the fact that all the university-based linguists who have ever written on the topic maintain that the Artorius etymology is correct. It was accepted in the 19th century by Celticists such as Heinrich Zimmer and Sir John Rhys, it was also accepted by Kenneth Jackson, and today by people like Peter Schrijver. There are no valid linguistic objections to it that I can see - Arthur is the regular outcome of Artorius in Welsh. All the other etymologies of Arthur, in contrast, are irregular because they require the acceptance of fudges (like -s- > -r- etc.).
This isn’t true, plenty of Celticists have argued against it and as I have said multiple times it isn’t a regular outcome of “Artorius” in Welsh - I actually say what the regular outcome would have been in the piece above.
Zimmer and Rhys didn’t demonstrate the etymology they merely stated it was plausible. Most of the people who currently support it do not actually provide any evidence they simply assert that it is correct. There is actually no evidence at all, linguistic or otherwise, that connects the name Artorius to the name Arthur aside from chance phonological similarity.
Jackson (1959:2): "the name Arthur is unquestionably derived from Artorius" Higham (2018:30) "the medieval Welsh name, Arthur, is very likely to derive from the Roman Artorius, with the long ‘o’ transmuting into ‘u’, the ‘t’ thickening to ‘th’ and the ending discarded" (his footnote cites advice from Richard Coates, Bristol, and Peter Schrijver, Utrecht). We even have evidence of long o > u in British Latin inscriptions.
Old Norse "Arnthor", meaning Thor the eagle. It was common to put these describing words to the name, also Thor the bewinged, "Vingthor". Is it totally out of context?
Likely something along the lines of 'Bear Wisdom' or 'Bear Hunter'. From Lin's previous article on this.
*Artowissus probably means something like “bear wisdom” or “bear hunter”. Artognou, also cited in the article, would be a near-synonym for this name, although it must represent either a very early stage of Brythonic (we would expect *Arθgnọw, whence Breton Artgnou a few centuries later), or represent a deliberately archaising form. *-gnow, itself derived presumably from a P.Celt *gnāwos, is attested only in this name and in Brythono-Latin name Uirognous, < ultimately *Wirognāwos, for which we would expect something like *Gwɨroɣnọw.
This is a funny one – traditionally we’d analyse it as *katugnawos “battle wise” or “battle fame” but it seems like it’s more likely derived from a root *kaito- whence Welsh coed, so perhaps “forest wise”.
Was reminded of this article when reading the following commentary on the well-known Artognou stone:
"The particular linguistic interest here is that, c 550, this name incised as ARTOGNOV was not a correspondingly spoken trisyllable, /art-og-noo/, but... had almost certainly become a spoken /arth-no/ softening or aspirating the T, losing the internal compositional O by the process called syncope, and also losing the prefixed G. In other words, whoever committed this name to writing knew its older and fuller form, as it would have been in the fourth or third century. This deliberate archaism, otherwise known as IOC ('Inscriptional Old Celtic'), characterizes the treatment of Celtic as opposed to Latin names on many post-Roman inscriptions."
Not sure how relevant it is to your study, but it's interesting, especially given that you guys have noted the relationship between the names Arthnou and Arthwys. The same author renders the rest of the inscription quite conservatively, identifying "Paternus", "Coliauus" and "Artognous" as the names of individuals while making no particular attempt to connect them.
Bear King harkens to Beowolf.
The Artorius etymology is the only one that works. Over 100 people with this family name are attested, so your grounds for ruling it out are not very cogent just on statistical grounds.
My grounds for ruling it out are perfectly valid and are not even “mine”, others have raised them long before I did. In order to make a case for Artorius, you have to overcome the three points against it. “It sounds very close” and “it’s a reasonably common name” are valid reasons for a hypothesis and an investigation, but in and of themselves are neither good history nor good linguistics.
I think you have to deal with the fact that all the university-based linguists who have ever written on the topic maintain that the Artorius etymology is correct. It was accepted in the 19th century by Celticists such as Heinrich Zimmer and Sir John Rhys, it was also accepted by Kenneth Jackson, and today by people like Peter Schrijver. There are no valid linguistic objections to it that I can see - Arthur is the regular outcome of Artorius in Welsh. All the other etymologies of Arthur, in contrast, are irregular because they require the acceptance of fudges (like -s- > -r- etc.).
This isn’t true, plenty of Celticists have argued against it and as I have said multiple times it isn’t a regular outcome of “Artorius” in Welsh - I actually say what the regular outcome would have been in the piece above.
Zimmer and Rhys didn’t demonstrate the etymology they merely stated it was plausible. Most of the people who currently support it do not actually provide any evidence they simply assert that it is correct. There is actually no evidence at all, linguistic or otherwise, that connects the name Artorius to the name Arthur aside from chance phonological similarity.
Jackson (1959:2): "the name Arthur is unquestionably derived from Artorius" Higham (2018:30) "the medieval Welsh name, Arthur, is very likely to derive from the Roman Artorius, with the long ‘o’ transmuting into ‘u’, the ‘t’ thickening to ‘th’ and the ending discarded" (his footnote cites advice from Richard Coates, Bristol, and Peter Schrijver, Utrecht). We even have evidence of long o > u in British Latin inscriptions.
The o in Artorius isn’t long - this is one of the principle issues with the etymology.
It's taken as long in all the dictionaries.
Old Norse "Arnthor", meaning Thor the eagle. It was common to put these describing words to the name, also Thor the bewinged, "Vingthor". Is it totally out of context?
Does Arthwys have a meaning?
Likely something along the lines of 'Bear Wisdom' or 'Bear Hunter'. From Lin's previous article on this.
*Artowissus probably means something like “bear wisdom” or “bear hunter”. Artognou, also cited in the article, would be a near-synonym for this name, although it must represent either a very early stage of Brythonic (we would expect *Arθgnọw, whence Breton Artgnou a few centuries later), or represent a deliberately archaising form. *-gnow, itself derived presumably from a P.Celt *gnāwos, is attested only in this name and in Brythono-Latin name Uirognous, < ultimately *Wirognāwos, for which we would expect something like *Gwɨroɣnọw.
Don't forget Catugnavus from Binchester (RIB 2491.78)!
This is a funny one – traditionally we’d analyse it as *katugnawos “battle wise” or “battle fame” but it seems like it’s more likely derived from a root *kaito- whence Welsh coed, so perhaps “forest wise”.
Where would the composition vowel -u- come from if the first theme is an o-stem?