Written record The first known written use of the word was an
ancient Greek transliteration of the original
P-Celtic term. It first appeared within a
periplus written in the circa 320s BC by the geographer and explorer
Pytheas of
Massalia, but no copies of this work survive. The earliest existing records of the word are quotations of the periplus by later authors, such as those within
Diodorus of Sicily's
history (c. 60 BC to 30 BC),
Strabo's
Geographica (c. 7 BC to AD 19) and
Pliny's Natural History (AD 77). According to Strabo, Pytheas referred to Britain as
Bretannikē, which is treated as a feminine noun. Although technically an adjective (
the Britannic or
British) it may have been a case of
noun ellipsis, a common mechanism in ancient Greek. This term along with other relevant ones, subsequently appeared inter alia in the following works: • Pliny referred to the main island as
Britannia, with
Britanniae describing the island group. •
Catullus also used the plural
Britanniae in his
Carmina. •
Avienius used
insula Albionum in his
Ora Maritima. •
Orosius used the plural
Britanniae to refer to the islands and
Britanni to refer to the people thereof. • Diodorus referred to Great Britain as
Prettanikē nēsos and its inhabitants as
Prettanoi. •
Ptolemy, in his
Almagest, used
Brettania and
Brettanikai nēsoi to refer to the island group and the terms
megale Brettania (Great Britain) and
mikra Brettania (little Britain) for the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, respectively. However, in his
Geography, he referred to both
Alwion (Great Britain) and
Iwernia (Ireland) as a
nēsos Bretanikē, or British island. •
Marcian of Heraclea, in his
Periplus maris exteri, described the island group as (the Prettanic Isles). •
Stephanus of Byzantium used the term Ἀλβίων (Albion) to refer to the island, and Ἀλβιώνιοι (Albionioi) to refer to its people. •
Pseudo-Aristotle used
nēsoi Brettanikai,
Albion and
Ierne to refer to the island group, Great Britain, and Ireland, respectively. •
Procopius, in the 6th century AD, used the terms
Brittia and
Brettania though he considered them to be different islands, the former being located between the latter and
Thule. Moreover, according to him on Brittia lived three different nations, the homonymous
Brittones (Britons), the
Angiloi (English) and the
Phrissones (
Frisians). As seen above, the original spelling of the term is disputed. Ancient manuscripts alternated between the use of the
P- and the
B-, and many linguists believe Pytheas's original manuscript used
P- (
Prettania) rather than
B-. Although
B- is more common in these manuscripts, many modern authors quote the Greek or Latin with a
P- and attribute the
B- to changes by the Romans in the time of
Julius Caesar; the relevant, attested sometimes later, change of the spelling of the word(s) in Greek, as is also sometimes done in modern Greek, from being written with a double
tau to being written with a double
nu, is likewise also explained by Roman influence, from the aforementioned change in the spelling in Latin. For example,
linguist Karl Schmidt states that the "name of the island was originally transmitted as Πρεττανία (with Π instead of Β) ... as is confirmed by its etymology".
Stephanus, epitomising
Markianos and an early lost
recension of
Ptolemy, states"Καὶ ἄλλοι οὕτως διὰ του π Πρετανίδες νῆσοι, ὡς
Μαρκιανὸς καὶ
Πτολεμαῖος."However, the tradition of the
Geographica preserved within the
stemma of surviving (13th–14th century) manuscripts only preserves "
Β" and not "
Π" recensions of "Βρεττανικήσ". According to
Barry Cunliffe: :It is quite probable that the description of Britain given by the Greek writer Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC derives wholly or largely from Pytheas. What is of particular interest is that he calls the island "Pretannia" (Greek "Prettanikē"), that is "the island of the Pretani, or Priteni". "Pretani" is a Celtic word that probably means "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk", referring to body decoration – a reminder of Caesar's observations of
woad-painted barbarians. In all probability the word "Pretani" is an ethnonym (the name by which the people knew themselves), but it remains an outside possibility that it was their continental neighbours who described them thus to the Greek explorers.
Roman period of the
Temple of Augustus and Rome in
Ankara, sporting the
Monumentum Ancyranum of the
Res Gestae Divi Augusti. The section relating to Britain is annotated. Following
Julius Caesar's expeditions to the island in 55 and 54 BC,
Brit(t)an(n)ia was predominantly used to refer simply to the island of Great Britain. After the Roman conquest under the Emperor
Claudius in AD 43, it came to be used to refer to the
Roman province of Britain (later two provinces), which at one stage consisted of part of the island of Great Britain south of
Hadrian's Wall. {{Verse translation|lang1=lat|... ad me supplices confugerunt reges ... Britannorum Dumnobellanus et Tincomarus
Medieval In
Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the Graeco-Latin term referring to Britain entered in the form of
Bryttania, as attested by
Alfred the Great's translation of
Orosius'
Seven Books of History Against the Pagans. The
Latin name
Britannia re-entered the language through the
Old French ''
. The use of Britons for the inhabitants of Great Britain is derived from the Old French bretun'', the term for the people and language of
Brittany, itself derived from Latin and Greek, e.g. the of
Procopius. ==Modern usage==