Litavis
Template:Short description Litavis (Gaulish: Litauī 'Earth', lit. 'the Broad One')Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn is a Gallic deity whose cult is primarily attested in east-central Gaul during the Roman period.Template:Sfn She was probably originally an earth-goddess.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In medieval Celtic languages, various terms derived from *Litauia came to designate the Brittany Peninsula.Template:Sfn
Epigraphic evidence
Her name is found in inscriptions found at Aignay-le-Duc and Mâlain of the Côte-d'Or, France, where she is invoked along with the Gallo-Roman god Mars Cicolluis in a context which suggests that she might have been his consort.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Also, a Latin dedicatory inscription from Narbonne (which was in the far south of Gaul), France, bears the words "MARTI CICOLLUI ET LITAVI" ("To Mars Cicolluos and Litavis").[1][2]
Name
Etymology
The Gaulish divine name Script error: No such module "Lang". ('Earth', lit. 'the Vast One') likely stems from Proto-Celtic Script error: No such module "Lang". ('broad'; cf. Old Breton Script error: No such module "Lang"., Middle Welsh Script error: No such module "Lang"., 'broad'),[3] ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *Pleth2-wih1 ('the Broad One'; cf. Sanskrit Script error: No such module "lang"., Greek Script error: No such module "lang".; also Old Norse Script error: No such module "Lang"., 'earth').Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The Gaulish personal name Litauicos ('sovereign', lit. 'possessor of the land') is also cognate with the Welsh Script error: No such module "Lang"., meaning 'pertaining to Brittany', pointing to a Proto-Celtic term *Litauī-kos, here attached to the determinative suffix -kos.Template:Sfn
Medieval terms
The medieval or 'neo-Celtic' names for the Brittany Peninsula (cf. Old Irish Script error: No such module "Lang"., Old Welsh Script error: No such module "Lang"., Old Breton Script error: No such module "Lang"., Latinized as Script error: No such module "Lang".) all stem from an original *Litauia, meaning 'Land' or 'Country'.Template:Sfn In the Irish Script error: No such module "Lang". (11th c.), Script error: No such module "Lang". means 'Britons of the Continent or Armorica, i.e. Bretons.' Linguist Rudolf Thurneysen proposed a semantic development from an Ancient Celtic term meaning 'broad land, continent' into the Insular Celtic names for the part of the Continent nearest the British Islands.Template:Sfn
References
- ↑ Koch, John T. "Ériu, Alba, and Letha: When Was a Language Ancestral to Gaelic First Spoken in Ireland?" Emania: Bulletin of the Navan Research Group 9 (1991): 17–27.
- ↑ Barbet, Gérald; Billerey, Robert. "Une plaque de bronze avec dédicace découverte en Franche-Comté". In: Gallia, tome 61, 2004. p. 286. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/galia.2004.3065; www.persee.fr/doc/galia_0016-4119_2004_num_61_1_3065
- ↑ Bader, Françoise. "Les grands de l'Iliade et les Achéménides". In: Revue des Études Grecques, tome 112, Juillet-décembre 1999. p. 375. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/reg.1999.4376; www.persee.fr/doc/reg_0035-2039_1999_num_112_2_4376
Bibliography
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Further reading
- "Litavia" — article in Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia by Mary Jones
- "Litavis" — Litavis in the will of Lingon (in French); automatic Google translation into English
- Etymological translations of "Litanus," "Litaui/Litavi," "Litauis/Litavis," etc. by Patrick Cuadrado (in French); automatic Google translation into English