CHAPTER XVI.
GENTILE FORMS.
[§ 273]. The only word in the present English that requires explanation is the name of the principality Wales.
1. The form is plural, however much the meaning may be singular; so that the -s in Wale-s is the -s in fathers, &c.
2. It has grown out of the Anglo-Saxon from wealhas = foreigners, from wealh = a foreigner, the name by which the Welsh are spoken of by the Germans of England, just as the Italians are called Welsh by the Germans of Germany; and just as wal-nuts = foreign nuts, or nuces Galliæ. Welsh = weall-isc = foreign, and is a derived adjective.
3. The transfer of the name of the people inhabiting a certain country to the country so inhabited, was one of the commonest processes in both Anglo-Saxon and Old English.