Comments on: My name http://www.linguism.co.uk/language/my-name Language in a word Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:35:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: maureen http://www.linguism.co.uk/language/my-name#comment-886 maureen Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:37:55 +0000 http://www.linguism.co.uk/language/my-name#comment-886 HEALTH WARNING This database compiled by UCL is utterly useless when it comes to names of Manx origin. This set of names and their development is well studied and recorded, a process assisted by the fact that the complete manorial record - property holding, rents paid - exists for the first decade of the sixteenth century. In the current form most but not all of these names begin with the final sound of the Celtic "mac" = son of. Modern spelling may render this with K, C or Qu, the "ma" already falling into disuse 500 years ago! Hardly surprisingly, by the nineteenth century these surnames were well represented on the UK mainland, especially NW England, and elsewhere on the planet but the academics at UCL prefer to believe that the world ends at Formby Point, to misdescribe and misinterpret according to a naming system less ancient than the one they are messing with! Yes, of course I have pointed this out to them, politely in the first instance, but I have long since given up. (cross-posted at LanguageHat) HEALTH WARNING

This database compiled by UCL is utterly useless when it comes to names of Manx origin. This set of names and their development is well studied and recorded, a process assisted by the fact that the complete manorial record - property holding, rents paid - exists for the first decade of the sixteenth century.

In the current form most but not all of these names begin with the final sound of the Celtic “mac” = son of. Modern spelling may render this with K, C or Qu, the “ma” already falling into disuse 500 years ago!

Hardly surprisingly, by the nineteenth century these surnames were well represented on the UK mainland, especially NW England, and elsewhere on the planet but the academics at UCL prefer to believe that the world ends at Formby Point, to misdescribe and misinterpret according to a naming system less ancient than the one they are messing with!

Yes, of course I have pointed this out to them, politely in the first instance, but I have long since given up.

(cross-posted at LanguageHat)

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