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in reply to a message by Dorchadas
Oh, I see you took the bit about Patrick Hanks from the following Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac
The bit you quoted from the article wasn't even in annotated in the article itself as coming from Patrick Hanks. If you didn't know already, Wikipedia isn't the best of sources.
Also, the Wikipedia article claims that the first element of the name Cormac *can* come from an Old Gaelic word for "raven". I think this claim is unlikely, and here is why:
There are three Gaelic languages nowadays: Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, all of which are Insular Celtic languages. Other Insular Celtic languages (of the branch called Brythonic) are Breton, Cornish and Welsh. The Gaelic languages and Brythonic languages are all related to each other, because they all descend from (Proto-)Celtic.
Now, in both old and modern Irish - as well as modern Breton, Cornish and Welsh - the word for "raven" is bran. It is ultimately derived from Proto-Celtic branos meaning "raven". Only Manx and Scottish Gaelic deviate from this: in Manx, feeagh is the word for "raven", whereas in Scottish Gaelic it is fitheach (in both cases it is derived from Old Irish fiach, which also means "raven"). As you can see, both bran and feeagh/fiach/fitheach don't remotely look like cor - if Cormac was to mean "son of raven", the name should instead have been Branmac or Fiachmac something along those lines.
Only in the Scots language (which is different than Scottish Gaelic, in that Scots is Germanic in origin whereas Scottish Gaelic is Celtic in origin) is there something that resembles cor. In the Scots language, corbie or corby is the word for "raven". However, in this instance, the word is derived from Latin corvus "raven". You see, Scots is a language that didn't yet exist around the time of e.g. the High King Cormac of Ireland: the language fully developed during the later part of the Middle Ages. This means that the name Cormac is older than the Scots language (and as such, there is no relation between Cormac and the Scots word corbie). Also, by the time the Scots language had formed, Christianity had already been introduced to Scotland, so this means that some Latin words were already known to the people and as such had found their way into the Scots language - like corbie. The word certainly didn't come from Gaelic or any other Insular Celtic language - not even from any language of the Germanic branch of languages that the Scots language belongs to (as they have entirely different words that mean "raven", none of which even remotely look like cor). The only language corbie could ultimately have been derived from, is Latin.
So, again, I see no evidence to support the claim that the cor in Cormac means "raven".
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on... when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend... some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold." ~ Frodo Baggins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac
The bit you quoted from the article wasn't even in annotated in the article itself as coming from Patrick Hanks. If you didn't know already, Wikipedia isn't the best of sources.
Also, the Wikipedia article claims that the first element of the name Cormac *can* come from an Old Gaelic word for "raven". I think this claim is unlikely, and here is why:
There are three Gaelic languages nowadays: Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, all of which are Insular Celtic languages. Other Insular Celtic languages (of the branch called Brythonic) are Breton, Cornish and Welsh. The Gaelic languages and Brythonic languages are all related to each other, because they all descend from (Proto-)Celtic.
Now, in both old and modern Irish - as well as modern Breton, Cornish and Welsh - the word for "raven" is bran. It is ultimately derived from Proto-Celtic branos meaning "raven". Only Manx and Scottish Gaelic deviate from this: in Manx, feeagh is the word for "raven", whereas in Scottish Gaelic it is fitheach (in both cases it is derived from Old Irish fiach, which also means "raven"). As you can see, both bran and feeagh/fiach/fitheach don't remotely look like cor - if Cormac was to mean "son of raven", the name should instead have been Branmac or Fiachmac something along those lines.
Only in the Scots language (which is different than Scottish Gaelic, in that Scots is Germanic in origin whereas Scottish Gaelic is Celtic in origin) is there something that resembles cor. In the Scots language, corbie or corby is the word for "raven". However, in this instance, the word is derived from Latin corvus "raven". You see, Scots is a language that didn't yet exist around the time of e.g. the High King Cormac of Ireland: the language fully developed during the later part of the Middle Ages. This means that the name Cormac is older than the Scots language (and as such, there is no relation between Cormac and the Scots word corbie). Also, by the time the Scots language had formed, Christianity had already been introduced to Scotland, so this means that some Latin words were already known to the people and as such had found their way into the Scots language - like corbie. The word certainly didn't come from Gaelic or any other Insular Celtic language - not even from any language of the Germanic branch of languages that the Scots language belongs to (as they have entirely different words that mean "raven", none of which even remotely look like cor). The only language corbie could ultimately have been derived from, is Latin.
So, again, I see no evidence to support the claim that the cor in Cormac means "raven".
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on... when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend... some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold." ~ Frodo Baggins
This message was edited 10/22/2012, 3:27 AM
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