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Re: Brian and Brynn
The languages are very similar!
Hell, I speak french, and from this I can read spanish, latin and portugese usually. The languages are that similar. As for the names, just looking at the website, brynn is the very word for, or a word for hill/mound in the Welsh dialect, but Brian isn't a word, it is from the Old Celtic bre, and 'an' a common suffix was added to create a name. The common part, 'bre' is probably interelated between the languages.
~SD
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Additionally...They think that most European languages (French, Spanish, Irish, Welsh, English, Iranian, Indian, and some Asian dialects) descended from one parent language thousands of years ago, called (by linguists) Indo-European. Which is why many languages appear so similar--they're etymological cousins.Miranda
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FurthermoreAll languages ultimately derive or inter-relate to each other from influence. There are some more isolated groups though, like oriental, indo-european and african etcthanks miranda ^_^~SD
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Thanks guys! It just seemed odd that the names are so similar but not from the same language.
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Well, they aren't from the same language but they are from related languages. Celt languages today can be divided into Brythonic/British (P-Celtic if you want to sound very science-y ;o) - Welsh, Cornish, Breton and Goidelic/Gallic (Q-Celtic) - Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx (Isle of Man).So 'hill' is today in...Brythonic:
Welsh - bryn
Cornish - bre/bronGallic:
Irish - cnoc
Scottish - cnoc
Manx - cronk, knockNow where the idea that Brian meant 'hill' came from is beyond me. The official stance of etymology is that it's unknown but *probably* from the Old Celtic for 'high, noble'. I suppose they're assuming a connection to beann/beinn (top, peak) but that's still nothing more than assumption...though if all one wants is a straightforward 'meaning', full-on accurate or not, it'll do nicely.Devon
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