[Spellyans] valley in Cornish

[nicholas williams]

Ros means 'headland, promontory' in Irish, although the word
is confined to toponyms, e.g. Ros Láir, Ros Comáin, Ros Dumhach.
The word is Celtic *ross- < *pro-sta- 'standing out'.
I am at the moment in the barony of Erris in NW Mayo, which
name is Iorras, a compound of the prefix air + ros. There is also a
barony of Urris in County Donegal, which is a variant of the same
name. The full name of Erris in Irish is Iorras Domhnann, where
Domhnann is the genitive of Domhnainn (plural) < Dumnonii,
a people who also gave their name to Devon.

I must say that I was astonished to see Cornish ros cited
as the word for valley. A promontory and a valley seem very different.

Nicholas

On 29 Jul 2008, at 11:08, Craig Weatherhill wrote:

> Ros originally meant "promontory"

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kernowek.net/pipermail/spellyans_kernowek.net/attachments/20080729/ba7080ae/attachment.htm>