CHAPTER XVI.

GENTILE FORMS.

s. 341. These have been illustrated by Mr. Guest in the Transactions of the Philological Society.

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_, 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: _wal-nuts_=_foreign nuts_.

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.--Guest, Phil. Trans.

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