Demetae
Sign in to saveright|thumb|250px|Tribes of Wales at the time of the Roman invasion. The modern Anglo-Welsh border is also shown, for reference purposes. The Demetae were a Celtic people of Iron Age and Roman period, who inhabited modern Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales. The tribe also gave their name to the medieval Kingdom of Dyfed, the modern area and county of Dyfed and the distinct dialect of Welsh spoken in modern south-west Wales, Dyfedeg.
Article
3 sectionsContents
- Etymology and relationship to Dyfed
- History
- References
right|thumb|250px|Tribes of Wales at the time of the Roman invasion. The modern Anglo-Welsh border is also shown, for reference purposes. The Demetae were a Celtic people of Iron Age and Roman period, who inhabited modern Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales. The tribe also gave their name to the medieval Kingdom of Dyfed, the modern area and county of Dyfed and the distinct dialect of Welsh spoken in modern south-west Wales, Dyfedeg.
==Etymology and relationship to Dyfed== The tribal name Demetae is thought to derive from a Common Celtic element related to the modern Welsh word defaid (sheep) as well as the Ancient Brythonic word defod (wealth, property or riches). This element persists in the name for the area of West Wales that the tribe inhabited, with the post-Roman Kingdom of Dyfed (proto-Celtic *dametos) a clear continuation of the Pre-Roman etymon. The name even survived the Norman conquest of Wales and the introduction of the Shire system, with Thomas Morgan noting that the Welsh inhabitants of Pembrokeshire still referred to the area as Dyfed in the nineteenth century.