# Caratācos < Caratacus?



## Margrave

Hi!  

Seems like Caratācos is the original Brittonic spelling of the military chief the Romans named Caratacus (Caractacus). However, there is no information from where came this etymological proposition. I could not find if the Brittonic name Caratācos was attested in a contemporary inscription (100DC). Is this is Brittonic Caratācos spelling just a wild guess from someone in the last 200 years that took the Latinized Caratacus and "celiticized" it back to Caratācos? Any information, sources, are welcome  

Rgs


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## ahvalj

Latin orthography seldom marked vowel length, so it is more than probable that the underlying Celtic and Latin pronunciation was _-āk-._ The Middle Welsh form Caratawc testifies it, cp. _Matasović R · 2009 · “Etymological dictionary of Proto-Celtic”: _

_*esākos _(p. 119) > _ehawc_
_*kalyākos_ (p. 185–186) > _keilyawc_
_*markākos_ (p. 256–257) > _marchawc_
_*salākos_ (p. 319) > Old Welsh _halauc_
_*towissākos_ (p. 386) > _tywyssawc._
I don't know if *_-akos_ with a short _a_ ever existed in Celtic (there was _-akkos,_ however, but it produces the Middle Welsh _-ach_).

This suffix is well-known and in particular is the source of countless French toponyms in _-ac_ and _-y_. The _u_ or _o_ in the ending reflect respectively the Latin and the Celtic pronunciation of that time.

P. S. The nonlenited _t_ in the Middle Welsh _Caratawc_ suggests that the original form had _tt_ or some cluster that gave _*tt_ by assimilation (indeed _*Caractācos_?).


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## Margrave

Thank you very much for the time and detailed reply. A PC word (not attested) k_er(e)dikos (kerd + ikos)_ would make sense? I could not find information about the suffix _-akkos_ and its function. Is it the same as _-akos_?


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## ahvalj

This etymology is certainly not suitable. The only remotely comparable forms I was able to find is the town Caracca of the Celtic Carpetani and Caracoticum. Their etymology is of course unknown.

Celtic has the root _*kar-,_ e. g. in kareti and karants, but I doubt it is found in this name. 

For _*-ākos_ there's a Wiktionary page: -ākos.

The very rare variant_ *-akkos>-ach_ is found in e. g. gwyach (vs. *-ākos in this word in Goidelic).


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## Margrave

Thank you very much for the sources.


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## Welsh_Sion

Does this help at all?

We Welsh tend to think of 'Caradog' [sic.] (i.e. Modern Welsh spelling) to be our first 'national' hero ...

Caratacus - Wikipedia


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## Margrave

Hi!  Hope you are in good health. This helps me much because it is the attestation of MW _ceredig>caradog (modern Welsh)_.


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## ahvalj

As to proper etymology, I guess it couldn't help in principle: if linguists have not suggested anything convincing to date, this name is most probably not etymologizable at the current level of knowledge (and may easily remain so forever).


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## Welsh_Sion

Ceredig of course reputedly gave his name to 'Ceredigiawn' > 'Ceredigion'. (Whence the anglicisations, 'Cardigan'/'Cardiganshire').

Ceredig - Wikipedia


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## Margrave

Well, it is indeed a difficult name, Caradog, and it is still not attested by linguists. 

@Welsh_Sion, yes exactly. I think I've found the etymology, I will post here next week, need first to finish the paper about it.


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## Welsh_Sion

Are you behind this, Margrave? I don't know how accurate it is, of course - no falo portuges!

Carataco – Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre


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## Welsh_Sion

Caradog's father:

 Cunobelinus (Wel. 'Cynfelyn', Eng/Shakespeare. 'Cymbeline')


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## Margrave

Welsh_Sion said:


> Are you behind this, Margrave? I don't know how accurate it is, of course - no falo portuges!
> 
> Carataco – Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre


No, I never read that, but it is interesting. We have there Caradog ap Bran the legendary Welsh, however, Caradog's father was Cynfelyn.
Edit: one part is not accurate, it says the  Welsh king Caradog's legend stemmed probably from Caratacus. I believe not. Caradog's father was Scottish.


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## Rocko!

Archaeologia Cambrensis (1846).- Page 32.





The Coins of the Ancient Britons. (1890) By John Evans.- Page 553.


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## ahvalj

Thank you.

That fits everything except the Middle Welsh non-lenited _-t-_ in Caratawc.

I should have checked the paradigms of the descendants in Matasović and Wiktionary, which don't mention that what the former gives as _*kar-o-_ and the latter as _*kareti_ seems to be an _ā_-verb (Old Irish caraim; elsewhere the old classes are quite mixed).

So, if this scenario (but _Caratawc?_) is correct, we get the following:

Proto-Indo-European _*kehₐ-_ "to wish, to desire"
_*khₐros_ "dear, loved, beloved" (or something related) — with a zero grade unlike in Italic, Germanic and Latvian (if the latter word is related) or secondarily shortened by Dybo's law (but it should have also operated in Italic and Germanic, so perhaps the zero-grade is a better explanation)
Proto-Celtic _*karos_
denominative verb _*karāmi_ "to love" with the past passive participle _*karātos_ "loved, beloved"
a nominal _*karātākos_
a name _Caratacos_ [kara:ta:kos]


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## Margrave

@ahvalj @Rocko! @Welsh_Sion thank you very much!


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## ahvalj

But beware that there is no consensus among linguists. To be acceptable, this version needs to have _Caractacos_ reliably eliminated and the _-t-_ in the Middle Welsh form _Caratawc_ explained (orthography? relatinization? late voicing?).


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## Margrave

ahvalj said:


> But beware that there is no consensus among linguists. To be acceptable, this version needs to have _Caractacos_ reliably eliminated and the _-t-_ in the Middle Welsh form _Caratawc_ explained (orthography? relatinization? late voicing?).



@ahvalj Seems like in Old Irish there was the liasion _-t-_, I have the source from this statement somewhere, could not find it right away. I would_ perhaps discard the option kareti. If this is confirmed, we would have cara(t)akos. As for the root cara/kara, it may mean beloved. The Celtic suffix _-akos is already widely known.


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## ahvalj

_*Kareti_ is a variant reconstruction, it appears that the actually reconstructable verb is _*karāti _(based on the Old Irish verb _caraim_ cited above; the data of other Celtic languages are less relevant because the old classes mostly got mixed in them at the attested stages), which is better for this etymology because it explains the _-ā-._ The root is _kar-_ (the same in both reconstructions), _-ā-_ is the verbal suffix (as in _am-a-r_).

_-T-_ would be a past passive participle suffix, like in _amā-t-us_ > _ama-d-o_.


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## ahvalj

ahvalj said:


> the _-t-_ in the Middle Welsh form _Caratawc_ explained (orthography? relatinization? late voicing?).


Orthography — _Morris Jones J · 1913 · “A Welsh grammar, historical and comparative”: _20:


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## Margrave

@ahvalj, thank you for getting back to this thread, every piece of information is important for me.


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## ahvalj

Just in case, it was meant to remove the objections caused by this unexpected _-t-:_ it seems now that the explanation cited by Rocko! in #14 is fully reliable (assuming _-c-_ in _Caractacus _was added during transmission to Latin and Greek, as it often happened with foreign names). So, _Carātācos_ should have signified “O Amado” (a noun derived from a participle).


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## Margrave

Thank you very much. I am going with another possible meaning, which seems was not explored before (I may be wrong). But in fact, it is impossible to know which one was right for Caratacus.


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