(wālz)
A principality of the United Kingdom west of England on the island of Great Britain. Incorporated with England since the Act of Union (1536), Wales has maintained its own distinct culture and a strong nationalist sentiment. Cardiff is the capital and the largest city. Population: 2,970,000.
Word History: Although Celtic-speaking peoples were living in Britain before the arrival of the invaders from Friesland and Jutland whose languages would eventually develop into English, it was the Celts and not the invaders who came to be called “strangers” in English. Our words for the descendants of one of the Celtish peoples,
Welsh, and for their homeland,
Wales, come from the Old English word
wealh, meaning “foreigner, stranger, Celt.” Its plural
wealas is the direct ancestor of
Wales, literally “foreigners.” The Old English adjective derived from
wealh, wǽlisc or
welisc, is the source of our
Welsh. The Germanic form for the root from which
wealh descended was
*walh-, “foreign.” We also have attested once in Old English the compound
walhhnutu in a document from around 1050; its next recording appears in 1358 as
walnottes. This eventually became
walnut in Modern English, which is thus literally the “foreign nut.” The nut was “foreign” because it was native to Roman Gaul and Italy.
