We have already referred to the use made of the Pictish word _Peannfahel_, preserved by Bede, and to the phrase in Adamnan concerning Columba’s preaching by means of an interpreter. It is contended by the upholders of the Cymric theory that the ancient topographical appellations of the Pictish territory can in general only be explained by the Cymric dialects, one strong point being the number of local names beginning with the Welsh prefix _aber_, which, according to Chalmers, was in several instances subsequently changed by the Gael into _inver_. Skene,[68] who felt the force of this argument, tried to get rid of it by contending that _aber_ is essentially a Gaelic word, being compounded of _ath_, ford, and _bior_, water. Garnett thinks this explanation utterly gratuitous, and observes that the term may be much more satisfactorily accounted for by a different process. “There are,” he observes,[69] “three words in Welsh denoting a meeting of waters--_aber_, _cynver_, and _ynver_,--respectively compounded of the particles _a_, denoting juxtaposition, _cyn_ (Lat. _con_), and _yn_, with the root _ber_, flowing, preserved in the Breton verb _beri_, to flow, and all virtually equivalent to our word _confluence_. _Inver_ is the only term known in any Gaelic dialect, either as an appellative or in proper names; and not a single local appellation with the prefix aber occurs either in Ireland or the Hebrides, or on the west coast of Scotland. Indeed, the fact that _inver_ was substituted for it after the Gaelic occupation of the Pictish territories, is decisive evidence on the point; for, if _aber_ was a term familiar to the Gael, why should they change it?”