Dear Mike and Tom: I am supposed to be at work right now,
: but this is more fun.

: What the Welsh called "caer" the Romans called
: "castra." Each word meant a "fortified
: hill."

: I would guess that the Welsh either borrowed
: "caer" from the Romans or that
: "caer" and "castra" share a common
: origin.

: Many of the Celtic, Greek, Latin, Romance, Germanic, and
: Scandinavian words can be traced back to
: Indo-European/Sanskrit origins. I have no idea whether
: the Old English (Anglo-saxon) "caeld" or
: "weille" can be traced back that far.

: If you use the keywords "latin",
: "celtic," and "sanskrit" you will
: find the common entymology of many english words.

: It seems that the Celts favored the "k" sound
: rather than "s" sound for "c," for
: most of their everyday words, (as in
: "cross"). The websites indicate a broad
: division of Indo-European languages into those
: favoring the "k" sound and those favoring
: the "s" sound. Those Celtic words acquiring
: the "s" sound may have entered the language
: as borrowed from some other language.

: Centuries before Latin became the most widely used
: written European language, the Celtic language was the
: most prevalent spoken language in Europe. By the 6th
: century B.C., Celtic speaking tribes occupied almost
: all of the Po Valley in northern Italy, and most of
: present day Spain, France, Germany, and Austria.
: French is said to have originated from an Celtic
: attempt to speak Latin. Toulon is of Celtic origin.

: Almost all of the rivers in France and many of the
: earliest towns have names of celtic origin.
: "Paris" derives from the name of a Celtic
: tribe, the Parisi.

: A different outcome occurred in present day Great
: Britain. Urban settlements arose much later in Great
: Britain than in France. The first roads were built by
: the Romans.

: By the 6th century AD, the Anglo-Saxons had displaced the
: Celts and their descendants, who retreated to the
: backcountry: Wales and Scotland. Most present-day
: place-names in England are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

: In the 9th and 10th century AD, the Vikings destroyed
: most of the abbeys and monasteries of the Celtic Irish
: Church in Great Britain. Since the sixth century AD
: the Celtic Irish Church had nutured the Gaelic
: language in Scotland. The Irish Church clergy were
: replaced by Benedictin, Cluniac, Cisterian and other
: orders subservient to Rome and the Archbishop of York.
: The celtic Gaelic language rapidly declined, first in
: favor of Old English, then Anglo-Norman French, then
: Middle English. The Scot Gaelic language survived
: longest in the remote, less populated regions, least
: accessible to the clergy.

David

Just to add to your comments. I believe that in Scotland "Car" was a suffix instead of the Welsh "Caer" for fortified hill. Hence the many placenames in Scotland beginning in "Car".

I have used a bit of poetic licence when I adopted the nickname "Caerwall" - but my excuse is that I lived in Wles when young and I wanted to difference it from the known surname "Carwell". Talking about "Carwell" I do note that this separate surname comes from the same geographic area as "Caldwell" but is a lot less common. I think it is a fair guess that they are versions of the same family name.

I have on several times postulated that there was a connection between the Iron Age fort on "Walls Hill" in the uplands between the property "Caldwell" and the valley in which Lochwinnoch lies.

I have heard that Walls Hill can easily be seen from Glasgow and is a reference landmark. Consequently it is very likely that it might have been a fortification and refuge of some consequence in the region. It may have been the mirror fort on the south side of the Clyde estuary to Dumbarton Rock on the north side.

The nearby farms are know as Castlewalls or an adaption of Castle-Wallace or Castle-wallys as it might have been more anciently spelled. ie: the english speaking regarded it as the castle of the welsh (Strathclyde Britons) and it could easily have been called Carwallys by the Britons themselves. So I think we can easily justify the Carwall's (Carwell) family as having come from this area and have been named after it. In fact there are two Carwell farms just to the east of this area that never seem to get a mention.

What I have trouble in justifyng is how this relates to the Caldwell name other than this is how it was anciently pronounced (Ker-wahl from my father's tuition or Kuh-well from some states of the USA - it is conceivably "Carwall").

Why it is spelled Caldwell is still the mystery. If we can resolve that one we have it made.

Of course we might just be named after the Caldwell Estate I am open to debate on this but I am not lying down on it - just yet.

Tom