bit-

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Type:	lexical
Meaning:	'world, age, life'
Language:	Celtic
Phonemic analysis:	/bitu/-
From PIE:	*gu̯ih₃-tu- 'life'
From Proto-Celtic:	*bitu- 'world, age, life'
Attestation:	pit

Commentary

Common Gaulish personal name element as first and second element in compound names (e.g. βιτουκλοβιος G-529b, biturix, bitucaro, bitudaga, bitugnata, bituollus, adbitus, dagobitus) and simplex names (e.g. bitus, bitunus, bitunia), and in the ethnonym bituriges and derived toponyms (AcS I: 431–424, KGP: 149–151, DLG: 76 f., Meid 2005: 79, 131 f., Stüber 2005 passim, Stüber et al. 2009: 34, 253–255, 266, Delamarre 2007: 213 et passim). Lexically in OIr. bith 'world, life, age', MW byd, OBret. bit 'life, world', OCorn. bit gl. mundus. tu-abstract from the PIE root *g^u̯i̯eh₃- 'live'; see Irslinger 2002: 84 f., Stüber 2005: 88, NIL: 185–187 with n. 4, Matasović 2009 s.v. *bitu-, Zair 2012: 122 on short /i/. The root is also continued in biu̯-.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

AcS	Alfred Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, Leipzig: Teubner 1896–1907.
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.