rīg-

edit with form

Type:	lexical
Meaning:	'ruler, king'
Language:	Celtic
Phonemic analysis:	/rīg/-
From PIE:	*(H)rēĝ-
From Proto-Celtic:	*rīg-
Attestation:	ateporix, eskikorikos, natoris, ośoris, rik, rikanas, rikoi, rio, riol, riop, toutoris

Commentary

The well-attested lexeme (OIr. rí) is frequently used as onomastic element (as base or second element of compounds); cf. KGP: 260 f., GPN: 243–249, Lambert 1994: 25, 33, 42, 60, DLG: 260 f., Meid 2005: 72–90, Delamarre 2007: 230 et passim, Matasović 2009 s.v. Though usually associated with men, it can appear in female names (Stüber 2005: 64 f.); its primary meaning must have been 'ruling over, having power over' (Stifter in Marchesini & Stifter 2018: 147).

Names with rīg- as second element in a compound are not consistently spelled: the guttural is not reflected in writing in the nominative before s in three instances (natoris, toutoris, ośoris). This could be taken to indicate that the cluster [γs] had already been reduced to a simple sibilant in this position, but cf. the late attestation ateporix with [γs] written with in the Latin alphabet. It may be more likely that the velar segment was sufficiently lenited to make its non-spelling preferable to spelling with kappa to some Lepontic writers.

Further literature: Stifter 2012; Weiss 2017.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.
DLG	Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, 2nd, revised edition, Paris: Errance 2003.