Note 6 — Chapter III

This root is important. As it means sea in more European languages than one, it has created a philological difficulty in the case of a very interesting gloss, Mori-marusa, meaning dead sea; where by a strange coincidence the same consonants (m-r) are repeated, but with a difference of meaning.

Prichard, who drew attention to this remarkable compound, having stated that a passage in Pliny informed us that the Cimbri called the sea in their neighbourhood Mori-marusa, inferred that the name was Cimbric; and further argued, that as mor mawth in Welsh meant the same, the Cimbric tongue was Welsh, Cambrian, or British. As far as it went the inference was truly legitimate; but the reasoning which led to it was deficient. The likelihood of there being more languages than one wherein both mor meant sea, and mor meant dead, was overlooked; though one of the languages that supplied the coincidence was the Latin—mare mort-uum.

Another such a tongue was the Slavonic; and to that tongue I imagine Morimarusa to be referrible. I also imagine that by the Cimbri of Pliny were meant the Cimmerii; so that the Sea of Azof was the true Dead Sea; or, perhaps, the Propontis; in which case its present name, the Sea of Marmora, is explained.

The name of the Province, Ar-mor-ica, means the country on the sea, and if rendered in Latin would be ad mare. Ar-gail is such another word; and it was the name of the landing-place of the Gael=ad Gallos.

To the Gaelic Ar-mor-ica, the Slavonians have an exact parallel in the word Po-mor-ania; where po means on, and mor the sea.