TO DEGERMANISE THE WALES MOTTO

Evening Star, Issue 16628, 10 January 1918, Page 3

TO DEGERMANISE THE WALES MOTTO

A philological problem has tlmist itself upon tlie British Eoyal Family over the question of the motto worn by the Prince of Wales, Since King George discarded his family name of Wettin for the English cognomen of Windsor newspaper letterwriters have been restive over tho “ Ich Lien ” of the Prince’s crest. One of these, Mr W. Llewelyn Williams, asks ‘‘ whether the heir to the proudest throne in the world should still use a German motto, or whether it would not be more consonant with our national dignity to substitute oile more racy of the soil.” Some writers have slipped in the explanation that tlie Prince’s motto is really Welsh, only its form, " Eich Dyn,” got somehow Germanised. Mr Williams says in the London ‘ Times ’ that such a suggestion was “jocularly made for Lire first time by Lewis Morris (tho great-grand-father of the poet) in the middle of tho eighteenth century, and was never meant to be taken seriously.” Welshmen, at least, now seem to be taking the question itself seriously, for Mr J. Gwenogvryn Evans interjects in the same paper: May I bo allowed to raise an emphatic protest against, the mistaken ardor of certain Welshmen to' have ‘ eich dyn ’ inscribed on tho plumes of the Prince of Wales? I do so for two reasons : (1) ’ Eich ’ is not a Welsh form, though now .in _ common use in Welsh newspapers. This word was invented and introduced by William Salesbnry in tho time of Queen Elizabeth, but it did not get into general use till a couplo of centuries later. And even now it is never heard among those who speak Welsh naturally. The true form is ych, older ich. (2) In the ' Brut of tlie Princes ’ the word ’ dyn ’ is not used in connection with any Prince of Wales or in Wales, but means always an ordinary individual of the commonalty. Every prince was a vir, gwr, hero. Granting that King Edward presented his eldest son to Welshmen at Carnarvon Castle, it is certain that he could not have used ‘ eich dyn ’ —it was an impossible form at that time.”