el-

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Type:	lexical
Meaning:	'many, much'
Language:	Celtic
Phonemic analysis:	/el/-
From PIE:	*pelh₁-u- 'many, much'
From Proto-Celtic:	*el-u- 'many, much'
Attestation:	eluveitie

Commentary

Lexically only in OIr. il 'many', comp. lía (IEW: 800, Matasović 2009 s.v. *filu-). In Continental Celtic onomastics, the morpheme is attested in the ethnonym *elu̯ētii̯ī 'those with many pastures' according to the etymology of Thurneysen 1923: 11 f. (see eluveitie) and in the theonym *L-4 eluontiu (dat.) < *pelh₁u-pont-i̯o- 'he of many paths' (Schmidt 1991: 364). Besides these two names, an element elu(o)- appears as first element or base in Gaulish personal names, e.g. ελουισσα (G- 121), ηλουσκονιος (G-68), eluorix, eluiomaros, eluadius, eluissius, eluillus, eluinus (Delamarre 2007: 221 et passim). It is not quite clear whether and how elu-, eluo- and eluio- belong together; some may have different etymologies (see KGP: 203–05, GPN: 347 f., DLG: 162 for discussions).

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.