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The Birth of English: Clues in Placenames

The document discusses the origins and evolution of English placenames from their Celtic roots through successive waves of invaders - Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. Each group contributed linguistic elements to placenames, with the Anglo-Saxons coining thousands of names using elements like "tun" meaning farm or village. Scandinavian Vikings also influenced names in northern England with elements like "by" meaning village. The Norman conquest in 1066 introduced French elements as the upper class spoke Norman French. Today, over 98% of English placenames originated before 1500, with some modern names commemorating historical figures or events.

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118 views3 pages

The Birth of English: Clues in Placenames

The document discusses the origins and evolution of English placenames from their Celtic roots through successive waves of invaders - Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. Each group contributed linguistic elements to placenames, with the Anglo-Saxons coining thousands of names using elements like "tun" meaning farm or village. Scandinavian Vikings also influenced names in northern England with elements like "by" meaning village. The Norman conquest in 1066 introduced French elements as the upper class spoke Norman French. Today, over 98% of English placenames originated before 1500, with some modern names commemorating historical figures or events.

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THE BIRTH OF ENGLISH :

CLUES IN PLACENAMES

English does not originate in Britain. Long before the Germanic tribes that became the English people
arrived, Britain was inhabited by various Celtic tribes, of which the Britons were one. The placenames
below all have some distant Celtic link:
 Cities: Belfast, Cardiff, Dublin, Glasgow, London, York.
 Rivers: Avon, Clyde, Dee, Don, Forth, Severn, Thames, Usk.
 Regions: Argyll, Cumbria, Devon, Dyfed, Glamorgan, Kent, Lothian.

We cannot be sure what these placenames might have originally meant. With Celtic placenames we can
compare words in surviving Celtic languages, such as Welsh, or consider the geography of the places in
question. Thus, we can be fairly certain about the meaning of the following Celtic placename elements:
 Pen (Welsh pen) = top, hill (e.g. Pendle).
 Lin (Welsh llyn) = pool (e.g. Lincoln).

The first invaders of Britain were the Romans, who arrived in AD 43 and occupied much of Britain for
roughly the next 400 years. London is a Celtic placename supposedly based on the personal name
Londinos, meaning 'the bold one. Nevertheless, there are a few important Latin placename elements,
notably:
 castra = a camp, walled town (e.g. Lancaster).
 portus = port (e.g. Portsmouth).
 via strata = paved way, a 'street' in a town (e.g. Stratford).

The English language has its roots in the language of the second wave of invaders: the Germanic dialects
of the tribes of northwestern Europe who invaded Britain in the fifth century, after the Romans had
withdrawn.

Collectively, these Germanic settlers are usually referred to as the Anglo-Saxons, but from the very
beginning writers of these Anglo-Saxon tribes referred to their language as Englisc (derived from the
name of the Angles).

languages today. Thousands of English placenames were coined by the AngloSaxons in this early period.
Common placename elements include:
 burh = fort (e.g. Canterbury).
 dun = hill (e.g. Swindon).
 feld = open land (e.g. Macclesfield).
 ford = river crossing (e.g. Oxford).
 tun = farm, village (later developing into 'town') (e.g. Eton).
 ing = place of (e.g. Clavering).
 ingas = followers of (e.g. Hastings, Heading).
 ham = settlement, homestead (e.g. Northam).
 hamm = enclosure, land in a river bend (e.g. Chippenham).

In the ninth century, Britain saw the beginning of a third wave of invaders - the Scandinavian Vikings.
The significance of this boundary is that it had the effect of increasing dialectal differences between the
north and the south. Common placename elements include:
 by = village (e.g. Kirkby or Kirby, Crosby).
 thorp = village (e.g. Milnthorpe).
 thwaite = glade, clearing (e.g. Hawthornthwaite).

Aspects of Scandinavian society are sometimes reflected in placenames. The following placenames all
contain words indicating a particular rank in Scandinavian society.
 Holderness = hold's or yeoman's headland.
 Dringhoe = dreng's or free tenant's mound.
 Lazonby (Lazenby) = leysingi's or freedman's village.

As with Anglo-Saxon placenames, a number of Scandinavian placenames were formed by adding the
name of the tribal leader Corby = Kori's village; Formby = Forni's village). In some cases, an Anglo-Saxon
tribal leader's name was simply replaced by a Scandinavian one.

The fourth wave of invaders were the Norman French who arrived in 1066. Norman French became a
prestige language spoken by the upper classes and used for administration. The fourth wave of invaders
were the Norman French who arrived in 1066. Norman French became a prestige language spoken by
the upper classes and used for administration. As with AngloSaxon and Scandinavian placenames,
sometimes the personal name of the local lord of the manor or powerful family became part of the
placename. For example:
 Melton Mowbray (Roger de Moubray).
 Leighton Buzzard (the Busard family).
 Stanstead Mountfitchet (the Montifiquet family).

Possibly the most common French words to be incorporated into placenames are beau and bel which
mean beautiful or fine (e.g. Beaulieu = beautiful place; Beaumont = beautiful mountain; Belvoir -
beautiful view). These positive terms were sometimes used to improve the image suggested by a
placename, as when Fulanpettae 'foul pit' was changed to Beaumont.

In Britain, very few new placenames have been coined. According to one source, about 98 per cent of
current English placenames originated before 1500. The few placenames which have been recently
created tend to commemorate famous events and people. For example: Battles:
 Waterloo, Maida Vale, Peacehaven.
 People: Nelson, Telford, Peterlee.
An interesting modern development is the transference of a placename from one country to another.
For example, Waterloo is transferred from the name of a place near Brussels where the famous battle
took place in 1815. In the United States, for example, we find the transferred British placenames
Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Canterbury, Lancaster, New Castle, Norwich, Swansea, and many
others. In many cases local placenames survived, despite the colonisers' attempts to create a second
England by transferring placenames out of Britain. As a result, in former British colonies one typically
finds a mixture of transferred British placenames and native placenames.

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