§ 3. i. Welsh, Cornish and Breton are descended from British (properly Brittish), the language of the ancient Britons. The speakers called themselves Brittones, and their language *Brittonikā.
The Old English name was Brittisc or Bryttisc, as On Bryttisc sprecende Guthlac, Godw. 42, 17 (cf. Rhys, CF. 676), which in later spelling was Brittish, misspelt British[1] under the influence of the Lat. Britannia. The name continued to be used for the derived languages: “The Gaulish speach is the very Brittish, the which was very generally used heere in all Brittayne before the coming in of the Saxons; and yet is retayned of the Walshmen, the Cornishmen, and the Brittons,” Spenser, State of Ireland (Lloyd’s Enc. Dic.). It was commonly used for Welsh as late as the 18th and beginning of the 19th cent.: “In these Schools…Men, Women and Children being ignorant of the English Tongue, are taught to read their native British language,” Welsh Piety 1754 p. 53, 1755 p. 47 etc. Cf. dedication of Grawn Awen (Caledfryn) 1826.
ii. The Welsh call themselves Cymry, from *kom-brogī ‘fellow countrymen’; but the use of this as a national name is subsequent to the separation of the Welsh from the Cornish and the Bretons. The old name, which survived in poetry, was Brython b.t. 13 from Brittones; the corresponding name of the language Brythoneg was superseded by Cymraeg, but some memory of it survived (D.D. gives Brythoneg, but with no quotation). The Bretons call their language Brezonek, and Cornish was called Brethonec; all these forms imply an original *Brĭttŏnĭkā. Sir John Rhys in his LWPh.² 16 adopted the names Brythons and Brythonic for the Brittones and their language, remarking, however, that he would “like to have called them Brittons and their language Brittonic”. I prefer to call the language by its traditional English name British, which in this connexion involves no ambiguity. The term Brythonic suggests a later period, and tends to disguise the fact that the language meant is the speech of the ancient Britons.
iii. The name Brittō, sg. of Brittones, probably owes its tt to its being a formation of the type of Gk. Νικοττώ etc., see § 93 iii (2), for an earlier Britann(os), pl. Britannī. Similarly we have a late Βριττία for Britannia. *Brittia survives in Bret. Breiz ‘Brittany’, and *Britanni̯ā, in Ml. W. Brydein used as a variant of the more usual Prydein as in b.b. 100, milvir Pridein l. 5, milguir Bridein l. 7. Britan- seems to be for Pritan- by British alternation p:b § 101 iii (2); cf. prit(an)nii Holder i 564, pritnnii do. ii 1046. Pritto also occurs as a personal name beside Britto, and Prittius beside Brittius (see Holder s. vv.). The view now generally held that the members of these pairs are unrelated rests on no other basis than the assumption that British p- could under no circumstances pass into b‑. The fact,- ↑ It is of course still pronounced Brittish, rhyming with skittish, not with whitish.
