Talk:Ywain

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Ywain... sounds like Ivan, would support the Sarmatian theory of King Arthur...ain´t it ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.30.126 (talk) 23:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Latin orthography and name origins

I've been spending some time looking up the Latin orthography of Owain or Yvain. In response to the Ivan/Yvain comment:

apparently in the relatively recent past, Breton names have been clumped together under similar sounding Christian names: see http://www.persee.fr/doc/abpo_0003-391x_1943_num_50_1_1820

In the time that I've taken to skim this article, it seems to say that Yves was perceived as a great name, and many many variants of the name exist, such as one "Ivon". But I do not believe this Ivon/Ivonius to be related to Saint John. When Saint Yves showed up, the name was associated with this martyr, and it seems that more "pagan" similar-sounding variants such as Yvain were clumped under Yves as variants therefrom. However, there seem to be a large multitude of Celtic sounding variations, as will be clear further below.

On to the names.

Monmouth's Yvain

Monmouth makes only one reference to the prince Yvain, son of Urian. This is, to my knowledge, the first proper written Latin reference (likely there are Welsh/Celtic exceptions?).

- on the website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, we have the 1508 Badius print of Monmouth's "De gestis regum britanniarum" we have:

1508 Badius	My quick transliteration
"[...] Augusſelus et enim rex albaniæ & galganus nepos regis cſi innumerabi libus aliis in die illa corruerũt. Succeſſit aũt auguſelo in regnũ euenus filius uriani fratis sui qui poſtea in decerta tionibus iſtis multis probitatibus claruit. [...]" (View no. 197/220)	"Augusel the king of Albania and Walgan, king's nephew, and innumerable others did fall. Succeeding Augusel in reign, Evenus son of Urian, his brother, who later in deeds much probity showed."

The editor(?) Iuonis Cavellatus may have added passages to this edition. I'm not quite sure.

- to compare with an English version, we have Aaron Thompson and J. A. Giles (1999):

"For the same day fell Augusel, king of Albania, and Walgan, the king’s nephew, with innumerable others. Augusel was succeeded in his kingdom by Eventus, his brother Urian’s son, who afterwards performed many famous exploits in those wars."

- in another Historia regum Britannie, MS 568 of Bern's Burgerbibliothek,

"Auguselus etenim rex albanie. & gualwanus nepos regis cum innumerabilibus aliis in die illa corruerunt. Successit autem auguselo in regnum huiuenus filius uriani fratris sui. qui postea in decertacionibus istis multis probitatibus preclaruit." (pp. 497-498).

The edition by Griscom and Jones (1977, Genève), we even have notes for other manuscripts, namely hiwenus and iWenus.

- in a Michael D. Reeve & Neil Wright edition (2007) we have:

"King Auguselus of Scotland and the king's nephew Gawain were killed that day along with innumerable others. Auguselus was succeded by Hiwenus, the son of his brother Urianus, who later distinguished himself thorugh his many brave deeds in these battles." (Book 11, Folio 177. Page 250).

Yvain in the later mythos

If you examine Owain/Yvain in the later legends (e.g. Chrétien de Troyes), you find his name far more standardised than these Celtic-Latin approximations.

In Bruce's 1999 Arthurian Name Dictionary, we have variants: Yvain, Evrains, Evayn, Eveins, Eventus... Owain, Owein, Uwayne, Ywaines... But no "huiuwenus" or similar isolate forms. Bruce states "Owain" to be the earliest form (Welsh poems? What about these weird Latin forms?)

Concluding comments

Sometimes latinised Welsh/Breton/Celtic, but why is Yvain sometimes "translated" into English, but not Augusel or Urian? Probably an oral standardisation preceded the written one; time for Latin-based vernaculars to adapt and create their Yvain variant. And then there's the layer of modern scholasticism that wants to preserve latin-ness of certain proper nouns but accepts the modern ortho-morphology of others.

I hope this can be of use at least on this talk page. Cheers.