Evidence of past beekeeping in Wales comes from some unexpected sources,
including the Welsh language itself, and texts of early laws, as well
as other written material and archaeological remains. In the Brythonic
Celtic languages, including Welsh, the bee is named for its
stinging - gwenynen - the nearest English cognate to which is
wen related to
wound. The collective word for bees is the simpler
gwenyn, which
is thus likely to have been used earlier than the word for an
individual bee.
(Quite possibly because Welsh views and interprets life and its components in more collective terms, and less individualistic terms.)... In almost all other Indo-European languages, including
Scottish and Irish, the bee is named after the sound it makes.
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