Brittonic Place-names

Those place-names which combine noun + noun (and, to a lesser extent, adjective + noun) in close compounds are regarded as among the most ancient Irish place-names.  It is widely held that they reflect a structure dating back to the Common Celtic period due to their similarity to Brittonic and Gaulish compounds in  terms of structure and vocabulary.
In this paper, the Gaulish, British and Irish names are compared, particularly in terms of the repertoire of elements found in each set and the semantic categories represented. It is found that there is surprisingly little overlap between the Gaulish and Irish repertoires, both in terms of generic and specific elements.  In general, the British names, especially the Romano-British ones, offer better parallels with the Continent.
The close compound structure, inherited from Indo-European, is taken up in Ireland, but gets heavily adapted in terms of the repertoire of elements and is steadily replaced by other structures. The strongest connections with Gaulish names are found in Ulster and North Leinster.  There are areas where noun + noun compounds are scarce or absent.
The early Irish elements with non-cognate Gaulish synonyms merit further study, as a proportion of them may have non-Celtic origins.

Breton, Cornish and Welsh are thought to have originated in a language similar to the Gaulish Language in Continental Europe, known as Common Brittonic or Ancient British. We have little direct evidence of this Brittonic Language in England, that gave rise to Welsh and Cornish and Breton. The Bath 'curse tablet' is the only written example of Ancient British. The language is also known in place-names and in some personal names.

Unusually, the place-names don't preserve much of the language's grammar, and seem to date to a time when quite ordinary nouns had more specific or even religious meanings. An example of an Ancient British word is abonā for a river, likely with the stress on the final syllable. This is the origin of the name Avon, the name of several rivers in England. This implies that the word had some more important meaning than just being any river, this may be reflected in the grammar of the word as the ending-nā is probably later, so 'a river of abounding water' or similar? Modern Brythonic languages are very different from the Gaulish and Ancient British languages, and it often isn't possible to trace a development in Brythonic back to Gaulish. Similarly, a lot of the vocabulary isn't the same, whereas Gaulish tends towards IE roots similar to the Latin forms, such as-cue/-pe 'and', Brythonic has

Published assessments of the place-name Dorking have noted it has some interesting aspects, in particular the possibility that it derives from a combination of Brittonic and Old English elements. Despite this, a full exploration of the etymological implications of the early attestations of the name has never been offered, and some ‘tricky’ issues skirted around or ignored. This article revisits all previous suggestions and enters new one into the debate, based upon British and continental European toponymy, as well as the archaeology and topography of the Dorking area. Subjecting all of the possibilities to critical evaluation, it finds the exact etymology cannot be established on the strength of the information presently available, but reveals Dorking to be a name formation of much greater complexity and interest than previously considered.

Tonn and tuadh/dumhach: concealing Brittonic cognates of Welsh tywyn ‘beach’ and tywod ‘sand’ in Irish place-names?

A well-known geographical triad mentioned in The Metrical Dindshenchas is trí tonna h-Érenn uile, usually interpreted as “three great waves of Ireland”: Tonn Chlidna (Co. Cork), Tonn Rudraige (Co. Down), Túag Inber (Co. Derry).  Despite folklore about powerful, destructive waves, observation at these locations suggests that these names simply refer to three stretches of coastline, two of them notable for beaches and sand-dunes.  Furthermore, The Tuns is the English name of a hazardous sand-bank, sometimes exposed, at the mouth of the River Foyle.  It will be argued that Ir. tonn and Eng. Tuns in these names are ultimately derived from a Brittonic word referring to a beach, cognate with Welsh tywyn ‘seashore, sand-dune’. 
Similarly, there is a group of coastal names around N. and N.W. Ireland, anglicised as -toy, -tooey, doo-, dooey, etc.  These include Ballintoy (Co. Antrim), Slievetooey (Co. Donegal), Dooagh, Doogort and Dooega on Achill Island (Co. Mayo), and various places called Dooey.  Túag Inber also belongs here.  Many of these names do not have an agreed origin.  It is proposed that these names refer to beaches and/or sand-dunes, and that they derive from a Brittonic cognate of Welsh tywod ‘sand’, which should best be spelt tuadh/duadh in Modern Irish.  When rendered in Irish with dumha ‘mound’ or dumhach ‘sand-bank’, the silent -mh- is unetymological.
This group of place-names provides important evidence for two elements which are not found in Irish dictionaries, but are they simply loanwords into Irish from Brittonic or traces of an extinct Brittonic dialect spoken in Ireland?  Both elements appear to have been re-interpreted in late medieval Irish tradition, suggesting they were no longer widely understood and that the names were coined at an earlier date.

Abstract submitted prior to conference:
The Irish element gaoth (masc.) is found in a number of Irish place-names, principally in the northern half of Ireland.  It is a homonym of gaoth (fem.) meaning 'wind'.  While the word is rarely used as a common noun in Irish, it is clear from place-names that it refers originally to a water-feature, often the estuary of a river, e.g. Gaoth Dobhair (Gweedore, Co. Donegal), Gaoth Sáile (Gweesalia, Co. Mayo).  The relevant names have been studied by Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig (Scathlán no. 3, 1986).  No clear etymology has yet been advanced to my knowledge.  A Britonnic origin for gaoth is proposed here (which also applies to the sense 'wind'), deriving it from the Celtic root *WEKT- seen in Vectis, the Celtic name for the Isle of Wight.  It therefore shows the characteristic Britonnic change W- --> gw-, rather than Irish f-.  It is likely to have passed through an early Britonnic form *gweith (cf. Inis Gueith, Nennius' name for the Isle of Wight) before being borrowed into Irish as gaoth.  The element has several Britonnic cognates, the best attested being Breton gwazh.  The basic meaning of the root appears to be 'current, movement', cf. Latin veho and vector, developing to 'wind' ('current of air') and 'river, estuary' ('(tidal) current of water').

N.B. Since presenting this paper I have revised my ideas about the roots involved.  I no longer propose to derive gaoth in both senses from *WEKT-.  Gaoth as a hydronymic element is more likely derived from *WĒTT-, which is widely regarded as the origin of Welsh gŵyth 'vein, seam, channel' and Breton gwazh 'stream, bog'. I still regard it as a loan from Brittonic into Irish.  Ir. féith 'vein, sinew, nerve' and 'bog channel' (1 word or 2?) are usually derived from *WEIT-, possibly a variant, given the semantic similarity. Gaoth 'wind' remains problematic, but a loan from Brittonic is also possible here.

W opracowaniu poruszona została problematyka wybranych aspektów orientacji marketingowej jednostek terytorialnych, która stanowi jeden z etapów zmiany orientacji tych jednostek w odniesieniu do rynku. W ramach wprowadzenia przedstawiono kilka kluczowych elementów odnoszących się do marketingowej koncepcji jednostek terytorialnych. W dalszej części scharakteryzowano przesłanki przemawiających za wzrostem zainteresowania orientacją marketingową jednostek terytorialnych. Poruszono również zagadnienia jakości życia społeczności oraz procesu promocji, będącego jednym z elementów terytorialnej kompozycji marketingowej. Następnie zaprezentowano elementy kształtujące, dynamizujące rozwój orientacji marketingowej, na przykładzie kreatywności, przywództwa oraz strategii rozwoju terytorialnego.