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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