2427: Gaul(e) & Gallia Aug 13, 2021

There are many names of places and people around Europe and Anatolia from the name *walhaz [1] such as in Wallonia, Wallachia, Wales and Cornwall, but even a more quintessentially Celtic name: Gaul. Not only is 'gaul' descended from this root meaning , but also the regions of Spain 'Galicia', Ukraine and Poland's 'Galicia', and Turkey's historical region of 'Galatia'. What is more surprising is that the Latin term for the modern France, 'Gallia', is not related to the French 'Gaule' even though this is often how the region is translated. The French word is from *walhaz, but the Latin 'Gallia' actually morphed through the regular sound shifts into the French 'Jaille' which is found in certain place-names across the country.