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Subject: Re: [MLN] Meaning "vas qvha" on headstone
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 18:07:06 EDT



Hi

The phrase is from the old scottish language that used to be both spoken and
written - latin derivitaves.

Vas means a vessel, in this case her body .
We would write qvha as quha, the qu then becomes a 'w' and becomes wha so I
take the phrase to mean "whose vessel" meaning her body died - my assumption
would be that they mean her physical body died but not her spirit.

If you see old records with qu or qv than they are often where we now use a
w for example my own surname - White was often written as quhite and looks
like qvhite.

There are a lot of web sites dealing with the scottish language that may
help.

This one is quite interesting:
_http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/History_of_the_Scots_language_
(http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/History_of_the_Scots_language)

but googling will help try using quha as a search term.

Gillian White




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