Re: : Butterflies

Paul Bennett wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:14:26 -0500, R A Brown
> <ray@...>  wrote:
>
>> caeruleancentaur wrote:
>>
>>> pili-pala.  This last one is a delightful word; is it onomatopoetic?
>>
>>
>> AFAIK, yes. In my 22 years sojourn in Wales, it was the only term I
>> actually heard in speech. Possibly the variants are regional.
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>>  I've saved the Latin until last.  The Latin word is papilio (-nis)
>>> which AHD says is of unknow origin.
>>
>>
>>  From which comes French 'papillon'
>
>
> Maybe my brain is seeing patterns where there are none, but I can't
> help  but notice the "pili" in both the Welsh and Latin forms. I doubt
> the Welsh  form influenced the Latin, but is it plausible that the
> occupying Romans  helped (in some way) the ancient Welsh choose which of
> the myriad possible  onomatopoeias sounded most suitable?
'Papilio' was borrowed by ancient British. It gives the modern Welsh
_pabell_ (pl. _pebyll_) = "tent, pavilion".

The derived meaning of 'tent' is as old as the Classical period of
Latin, and our word 'pavilion' is of course also derived from it via Old
French _pavillon_ when |ll| was pronounced [L]. Indeed, French
_papillon_ does not show the expected sound changes that would occur in
a word inherited from Vulgar Latin and must be due a later, learned
borrowing directly from Latin.

The other question is how ancient _pili-pala_ is. In Welsh's sister
languages, the word for 'butterfly' is:
Breton: _balafenn_ (pl. balafenned)
Cornish: tykky-Dew

There doesn't seem to be any commonality there; also the Welsh
periphrases _iâr fach yr haf_ and _glöyn byw_ suggest to me that there
was no established British word for the critter nor any borrowing from
Vulgar Latin with the meaning "butterfly".

I had assumed that_pili-pala_ began its life as a hypocorism. If it is
of ancient origin and there is any connexion with the Latin form (and I
am skeptical about either) then I would think it more likely that both
the British & the Latin forms shared a common source (we do not, as
Charlie reminded us, know the etymology of the Latin word).



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Ray
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