{"id":17680,"date":"2019-04-03T21:23:33","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T21:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=17680"},"modified":"2019-04-03T21:23:33","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T21:23:33","slug":"asterix-and-the-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=17680","title":{"rendered":"Asterix and the King"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever wonder why the names of the Gauls in the Asterix books all end in <strong>-ix<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/35168673@N03\/3644972492\/in\/photolist-6y6rkj-TpFKV-cDpJQj-shGCJ-2UBLJo-2C3BC8-2UAfyq-6rRcbW-2UCxry-2C8S6h-2C3eyg-2C76JY-2C2ZMt-2UvPYg-2C8vK3-eRCFsA-48UNeY-cWdabW-4NMbC4-eRCFoh-3H2ETg-2C8QGA-2UBZmE-2C3ZZF-2UAbiG-2UAjJ3-2UvN5Z-5nR6HV-2C3JZg-2C8ikY-2Uxj5V-2UA6J3-2Uw75x-2C8cF7-2UvJMr-2C7YkN-2C3YG2-2C4ydZ-2C6Hem-2UAiPE-2C7QLh-9FebgQ-2UvSVt-2C6UD9-2UAeLJ-NECwS-UMbhN5-Y1J4Cu-d3dH5L-9Fec83\" title=\"Asterix &amp; Obelisk\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3380\/3644972492_ef0324da3e_z.jpg\" alt=\"Asterix &amp; Obelisk\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"\/><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/24976298@N06\/14101778132\/in\/photolist-nu8ikJ-8G7wDC-ameYs1-5SsbNp-8Krw7Q-22s63Uu-bELYeW-B4RyB-yYimX-af2H3G-ppMcLg-bGwzgT-7xkwUg-23aUgfX-3EFKg-mom8m6-SFNTR7-5GzNs4-6wfaqz-6rZCz7-fmC5Qy-4HFBGr-QJTr92-beUBj8-RMWJ6K-hdJ5ht-vVPem-58Rroo-9CvPHf-fmCfPh-fmCewU-aP7Y78-9xmUoF-gV5cDR-874N3-QJTrxi-bGwEVB-3e9Go2-qok4Un-dFLi8p-8PR4YF-2eWuJV3-cAqjiA-kcoRZG-abxZZG-fmC4xu-BwZipv-afMxgN-5tjEoQ-25TADP\" title=\"Vercingetorix @ Al\u00e9sia\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7377\/14101778132_51e61f2126_m.jpg\" stylalt=\"Vercingetorix @ Al\u00e9sia\" style=\"float:right; margin:0 0 15px 15px;\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\"\/><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There were genuine Gauls with names ending in <strong>-ix<\/strong>, or rather <strong>rix<\/strong>, which means king in Gaulish. They include     Vercingetorix (see photo), Dumnorix, Albiorix, Adgennorix and Dagorix [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/rix#Gaulish\">source<\/a>]. Asterix and friends have joke names with the <strong>-ix<\/strong> suffix to make them sound Gaulish.<\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>rix<\/strong> comes from the Proto-Celtic <em>*r\u012bxs<\/em> (king), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*h\u2083r\u1e17\u01f5s<\/em> (ruler, king). Words for king in Irish (<em>r\u00ed<\/em>), Scottish Gaelic (<em>r\u00ecgh<\/em>), Manx (<em>ree<\/em>) and Welsh (<em>rhi<\/em>) come from this root [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/celtiadur\/2019\/04\/02\/king\/\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The Welsh one is in fact rarely used &#8211; the usual Welsh word for king is <em>brenin<\/em>, which comes from the Proto-Celtic <em>*brigant\u012bnos<\/em> ((someone) pre-eminent, outstanding), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*b\u02b0er\u01f5\u02b0-<\/em> (to rise, high, lofty, hill, mountain) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/brenin\">source<\/a>], which is also the root of such English words as barrow, burrow, bury, borough, burgher and fort [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Category:English_terms_derived_from_the_PIE_root_*b%CA%B0er%C7%B5%CA%B0-\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Words for realm or kingdom in Germanic languages come from this root, including <em>Reich<\/em> (empire, realm) in German, <em>rike<\/em> (realm, kingdom, empire, nation) in Swedish, and <em>rik<\/em> (realm, kingdom) and <em>kinrick \/ kin(g)rik<\/em> (kingdom) in Scots.<\/p>\n<p>We also get the English suffix <em>-ric<\/em> from this root &#8211; as in bishopric (a diocese or region of a church which a bishop governs), and in the obsolete English word for kingdom &#8211; kingric, which means &#8220;king king&#8221; [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/rix#Gaulish\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The words for king in the Romance languages also come from <em>*h\u2083r\u1e17\u01f5s<\/em>, via the Latin <em>r\u0113x<\/em> (king, ruler)  [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/rex#Latin\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever wonder why the names of the Gauls in the Asterix books all end in -ix? There were genuine Gauls with names ending in -ix, or rather rix, which means king in Gaulish. They include Vercingetorix (see photo), Dumnorix, Albiorix, Adgennorix and Dagorix [source]. Asterix and friends have joke names with the -ix [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,97,104,107,116,127,10,23,43,45,56,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breton","category-cornish","category-english","category-etymology","category-german","category-irish","category-language","category-manx","category-proto-celtic","category-proto-indo-european","category-scottish-gaelic","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}