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Many varying etymologies of Yr Wyddfa ("Snowdon") and Eryri ("Snowdonia" - itself a faux-Latin Victorian coinage) floating about here. So! here& #39;s the most definitive explanation I can muster for the origins of the Cymraeg names: (1/x)
Wyddfa is from gwydd + ma, where gwydd is & #39;sight, face& #39; which therefore likely signified a visible peak; ma (mutating to fa) is & #39;place& #39;, so = the "(high and) visible place" perhaps. (2/x)
Gwydd does also mean a grave or barrow or cairn, but this may be a later meaning retrospectively applied to Yr Wyddfa. The link with Rhita Gawr is of course a legend, and it& #39;s likely the mountain name predates this link. (3/x)
Eryri isn& #39;t from eryr & #39;eagle& #39; nor is it a Latin borrowing, but most likely a form of a Celtic root ~*ar- referring to a ridge/edge (the nearby ridge called Aran is of the same origin)... (4/x)
...though the Welsh word for eagle is also probably derived from that root separately (they are both high-up things!). Eryri is plural so "ridges". (5/x)
Like Rhiannon Coslett writes in this great article in The Guardian today, language is political; I& #39;d say names are doubly so. There& #39;s also a lot of romance and identity attached to names that enrich etymologies. (6/x) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/30/snowdon-yr-wyddfa-language-political-english-wales-ireland">https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...
Above I gave the (I think) linguistically most plausible origins for Wyddfa and Eryri. As a linguist I encourage people to remember that most words have mundane roots. But the links to eagles and giants and cairns and invaders are part of these words& #39; histories too. (7/x)
