The name Britain originates from the
Common Brittonic term *Pritanī and is one of the oldest known names for
Great Britain, an island off the north-western coast of
continental Europe. The terms Briton and British, similarly derived, refer to some or all of its inhabitants and, to varying extents, those of the
smaller islands in the vicinity. "British Isles" is the only ancient
name for these islands to survive in general usage.
Etymology
"Britain" comes from
Latin: Britannia~Brittania, via
Old FrenchBretaigne and Middle English Breteyne, possibly influenced by
Old EnglishBryten(lond), probably also from Latin Brittania, ultimately an adaptation of the
Common Brittonic name for the island, *Pritanī.[1][2]
The earliest written reference to the British Isles derives from the works of the
Greek explorer
Pytheas of
Massalia; later Greek writers such as
Diodorus of Sicily and
Strabo who quote Pytheas' use of variants such as Πρεττανική (Prettanikē), "The Britannic [land, island]", and nēsoi brettaniai, "Britannic islands", with *Pretani being a Celtic word that might mean "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk", referring to body decoration (see below).[3]
The modern
Welsh name for the island is (Ynys) Prydain. This may demonstrate that the original
Common Brittonic form had initial P- not B- (which would give **Brydain) and -t- not -tt- (else **Prythain). This may be explained as containing a stem *prit- (Welsh pryd,
Old Irishcruith; <
Proto-Celtic*kwrit-), meaning "shape, form", combined with an adjectival suffix. This leaves us with *Pritanī.[4][5][6][7][8][9]
History
Written record
The first known written use of the word was an
ancient Greektransliteration of the original
P-Celtic term. It is believed to have appeared within a
periplus written in about 325 BC by the geographer and explorer
Pytheas of
Massalia, but no copies of this work survive. The earliest existing records of the word are quotations of the periplus by later authors, such as those within
Diodorus of Sicily's
history (c. 60 BC to 30 BC),
Strabo's
Geographica (c. 7 BC to AD 19) and
Pliny'sNatural History (AD 77).[10] According to Strabo, Pytheas referred to Britain as Bretannikē, which is treated a feminine noun.[11][12][13][14] Although technically an adjective (the Britannic or British) it may have been a case of
noun ellipsis, a common mechanism in ancient Greek. This term along with other relevant ones, subsequently appeared inter alia in the following works:
Pliny referred to the main island as Britannia, with Britanniae describing the island group.[15][16]
Catullus also used the plural Britanniae in his Carmina.[17][18]
Orosius used the plural Britanniae to refer to the islands and Britanni to refer to the people thereof.[20]
Diodorus referred to Great Britain as Prettanikē nēsos and its inhabitants as Prettanoi.[21][22]
Ptolemy, in his Almagest, used Brettania and Brettanikai nēsoi to refer to the island group and the terms megale Brettania (Great Britain) and mikra Brettania (little Britain) for the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, respectively.[23] However, in his Geography, he referred to both Alwion (Great Britain) and Iwernia (Ireland) as a nēsos Bretanikē, or British island.[24]
Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the island group as αί Πρεττανικαί νήσοι (the Prettanic Isles).[25]
Stephanus of Byzantium used the term Ἀλβίων (Albion) to refer to the island, and Ἀλβιώνιοι (Albionioi) to refer to its people.[26]
Pseudo-Aristotle used nēsoi Brettanikai, Albion and Ierne to refer to the island group, Great Britain, and Ireland, respectively.[27]
Procopius, in the 6th century AD, used the terms Brittia and Brettania though he considered them to be different islands, the former being located between the latter and
Thule. Moreover, according to him on Brittia lived three different nations, the homonymous Brittones (Britons), the Angiloi (English) and the Phrissones (
Frisians).[28][29]
As seen above, the original spelling of the term is disputed. Ancient manuscripts alternated between the use of the P- and the B-, and many linguists believe Pytheas's original manuscript used P- (Prettania) rather than B-. Although B- is more common in these manuscripts, many modern authors quote the Greek or Latin with a P- and attribute the B- to changes by the Romans in the time of
Julius Caesar;[30] the relevant, attested sometimes later, change of the spelling of the word(s) in Greek, as is also sometimes done in modern Greek, from being written with a double
tau to being written with a double
nu, is likewise also explained by Roman influence, from the aforementioned change in the spelling in Latin.[31] For example,
linguist Karl Schmidt states that the "name of the island was originally transmitted as Πρεττανία (with Π instead of Β) ... as is confirmed by its etymology".[32]
It is quite probable that the description of Britain given by the Greek writer Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC derives wholly or largely from Pytheas. What is of particular interest is that he calls the island "Pretannia" (Greek "Prettanikē"), that is "the island of the Pretani, or Priteni". "Pretani" is a Celtic word that probably means "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk", referring to body decoration – a reminder of Caesar's observations of
woad-painted barbarians. In all probability the word "Pretani" is an ethnonym (the name by which the people knew themselves), but it remains an outside possibility that it was their continental neighbours who described them thus to the Greek explorers.[33]
Roman period
Following
Julius Caesar's expeditions to the island in 55 and 54 BC, Brit(t)an(n)ia was predominantly used to refer simply to the island of Great Britain.[citation needed] After the Roman conquest under the Emperor
Claudius in AD 43, it came to be used to refer to the
Roman province of Britain (later two provinces), which at one stage consisted of part of the island of Great Britain south of
Hadrian's wall.[34]
Medieval
In
Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the Graeco-Latin term referring to Britain entered in the form of Bryttania, as attested by
Alfred the Great's translation of
Orosius' Seven Books of History Against the Pagans.[35]
The
Latin name Britannia re-entered the language through the
Old FrenchBretaigne. The use of Britons for the inhabitants of Great Britain is derived from the
Old Frenchbretun, the term for the people and language of
Brittany, itself derived from Latin and Greek, e.g. the Βρίττωνες of
Procopius.[28] It was introduced into
Middle English as brutons in the late 13th century.[36]
The term Britain is widely used as a common name for the
sovereign state of the United Kingdom, or UK for short. The United Kingdom includes three countries on the largest island, which can be called the island of Britain or Great Britain: these are England,
Scotland and
Wales. However the United Kingdom also includes
Northern Ireland on the neighbouring island of
Ireland, the remainder of which is not part of the United Kingdom. England is not synonymous with Britain, Great Britain, or United Kingdom.
The classical writer
Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain (megale Bretannia) and to Ireland as little Britain (mikra Brettania) in his work, Almagest (147–148 AD).[37] In his later work, Geography (c. 150 AD), he gave these islands the names[38]Ἀλουίωνος (Alwiōnos),
Ἰουερνίας (Iwernias), and Mona (the
Isle of Anglesey), suggesting these may have been native names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest.[39] The name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the
Roman conquest of Great Britain, after which Britain became the more commonplace name for the island called Great Britain.[9]
After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only.
Geoffrey of Monmouth in his
pseudohistoricalHistoria Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) refers to the
island of Great Britain as Britannia major ("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from Britannia minor ("Lesser Britain"), the continental region which approximates to modern
Brittany, which had been settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by Celtic migrants from the British Isles.[40] The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between
Cecily the daughter of
Edward IV of England, and
James the son of
James III of Scotland, which described it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee". It was used again in 1603, when
King James VI and I styled himself "King of Great Britain" on his coinage.[41]
The term Great Britain later served to distinguish the large island of Britain from the French region of Brittany (in French Grande-Bretagne and Bretagne respectively). With the
Acts of Union 1707 it became the official name of the new state created by the union of the
Kingdom of England (which then included Wales) with the
Kingdom of Scotland, forming the
Kingdom of Great Britain.[42] In 1801, the name of the country was changed to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, recognising that Ireland had ceased to be a distinct kingdom and, with the
Acts of Union 1800, had become incorporated into the union. After
Irish independence in the early 20th century, the name was changed to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is still the official name.
^Chadwick, Hector Munro, Early Scotland: The Picts, the Scots and the Welsh of Southern Scotland, Cambridge University Press, 1949 (2013 reprint), p. 68
^Cunliffe, Barry (2012). Britain Begins. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 4.
^Oman, Charles (1910), "England Before the Norman Conquest", in Oman, Charles; Chadwick, William (eds.), A History of England, vol. I, New York; London: GP Putnam's Sons; Methuen & Co, pp. 15–16, The corresponding form used by the Brythonic 'P Celts' would be Priten ... Since therefore he visited the Pretanic and not the Kuertanic Isle, he must have heard its name, when he visited its southern shores, from Brythonic and not from Goidelic inhabitants.
^Claudius Ptolemy (1843). "index of book II". In Nobbe, Carolus Fridericus Augustus (ed.).
Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia(PDF). Vol. 1. Leipzig: sumptibus et typis Caroli Tauchnitii. p. 59.
^Greek"... ἐν τούτῳ γε μὴν νῆσοι μέγιστοι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι δύο, Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι, Ἀλβίων καὶ Ἰέρνη, ...", transliteration "... en toutoi ge men nesoi megistoi tynchanousin ousai dyo, Brettanikai legomenai, Albion kai Ierne, ...", translation "... There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne; ...";
Aristotle (1955).
"On the Cosmos". On Sophistical Refutations. On Coming-to-be and Passing Away. On the Cosmos. D. J. Furley (trans.). William Heinemann LTD, Harvard University Press. 393b pp. 360–361 – via
Internet Archive.
^
abProcopius (1833).
"De Bello Gotthico, IV, 20". In Dindorfius, Guilielmus; Niebuhrius, B.G. (eds.). Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. Vol. Pars II Volumen II (Impensis Ed. Weberis ed.).
Bonnae. pp. 559–580.
^Claudius Ptolemy (1843). "Book II, Prooemium and chapter β', paragraph 12". In Nobbe, Carolus Fridericus Augustus (ed.).
Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia(PDF). Vol. 1. Leipzig: sumptibus et typis Caroli Tauchnitii. pp. 59, 67.
^"After the political union of England and Scotland in 1707, the nation's official name became 'Great Britain'", The American Pageant, Volume 1, Cengage Learning (2012)
References
Fife, James (1993). "Introduction". In Ball, Martin J; Fife, James (eds.). The Celtic Languages. Routledge Language Family Descriptions. Routledge. pp. 3–25.
Schmidt, Karl Horst (1993), "Insular Celtic: P and Q Celtic", in Ball, Martin J; Fife, James (eds.), The Celtic Languages, Routledge Language Family Descriptions, Routledge, pp. 64–99
Look up Britain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Further reading
Koch, John T. "New Thoughts on Albion, Iernē, and the Pretanic Isles (Part One)." Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 6 (1986): 1–28. www.jstor.org/stable/20557171.