One of the principal arguments of those writers who maintain that the separation of the Irish from the other Celtic tribes must have been of remoter date than the first peopling of these islands, is founded on the fact that the Irish use the word In-ver for the Mouth of a Stream, while the Welsh use Ab-ber (spelt Aber); a feeble support for so wide a conclusion, which a correct analysis of these terms, and a comparison of some interesting coincidences in the local names of ancient Gaul will show to be utterly futile! In-ver and Ab-ber are not simple but compound terms, literally corresponding to the Latin expression “Fluminis Æstuarium.” Æstuarium is from Æstuo, “To boil,” a metaphorical term, obviously derived from the agitation of the Waters where two Streams meet, or where a River enters the Sea.
In the first syllable “Inver” and “Ab-ber” differ, but they agree in the last. Both “In” and “Ab,” the first syllables of these terms, occur so often in Celtic regions that there can be no doubt they were both in use among the ancient Celts as words for a River, or Water. The last syllable of these words, Ber or Ver, I shall show to mean an “Estuary.”
“In” occurs in the name of “The Inn,” in the Tyrol, the “Æn-us” of the Romans, and in other instances previously [pg 071] noticed. “An” is a Gaelic or Irish term for “Water,” which is identical in sound and sense with terms of frequent occurrence among the tribes of the American Continent, as in Aouin (Hurons, N. America), Jin Jin (Kolushians, extreme North-west of N. America), Ueni (Maipurians, S. America.)
“Ab” occurs in “The Aube,” in France, &c., a name of which the pronunciation may be considered identical with Ab, “Water,” (Persian.) Ap in Sanscrit, and Ubu Obe in Affghan, mean “Water.” “Obe” occurs in Siberia as the name of a well-known river. In India also the term has been applied to “Rivers;” thus we have in that country the Punj-âb, (the Province of “The Five Rivers,”) an appellation of which the corresponding Celtic terms “Pump-ab” would be almost an echo!
Further it may here be noticed—as an example of the complete identity of the Celtic and Oriental languages when all the “Disjecta Membra” are compared—that this word does not exist in the modern Celtic in the simple form of Ab, but in the derivative form of Avon, which is found in the Roman maps spelt “Abon,” &c. Now this form also occurs in the East. Abinn, “A River,” is given by Klaproth from the language of the inhabitants of the Mountains to the North of Bhagalpur. Apem means “Water,” in Zend, an ancient Persian dialect. Af is “Water,” in Kurdish.
“Berw” is the South Welsh name for the effervescence in the deep receptacle in which a Cataract foams after its fall; it is applied also to the Cataract itself, as “Berw Rhondda,” the fall of the River Rhondda.
Aber, in Cornish, means “a Confluence of Rivers,” also “a Gulf,” “a Whirlpool.”[61]
In Breton or Armorican Aber means “a confluence of Rivers.” “Dans le diocese de Vannes,” says Bullet, “le mot [pg 072] a encore une autre signification, c'est celle de torrent.” “In the diocese of Vannes this word has still another meaning, viz., that of ‘a Torrent!’ ” Compare Torr-ens (Latin), “Torrent” (English), from Torreo (Latin), “To boil.” “Aber, in a deflected sense,” he says, “has been applied to a Harbour; hence Havre de Grace!”
“It is a curious fact,” says Chalmers, “which we learn from the Charters of the twelfth century, that the Scoto-Irish people substituted Inver for the previous Aber of the Britons. David I. granted to the Monastery of May Inver-In qui fuit Aber-In in Chart May.”[62] This remarkable place is at the “Influx of a small stream, called the In, on the coast of Fife. Both appellations are now lost.”