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British Toponymy

British toponymy is the study of British place names (on the mainland, Shetland, Orkney, the Channel Islands and other associated places), their origins and trends in naming. It is different from the study of etymology, which is concerned mainly with the origin of the words themselves.

British toponymy is rich, complex and difficult. Moreover it is extremely inexact and non-empirical. Many British forms and names have been corrupted over the years through being occupied by many different groups of people speaking different languages with similar words meaning different things. In some cases words used in place names are derived from languages that are extinct, and of which there are no extant known definitions. There are also many compounds between two separate languages from separate periods.

The oldest and most ancient of place names tend to be rivers, and are assumed to descend from Old European pre-Celtic languages (of which nothing is known), and must be at least Neolithic in age. There are many other languages which have shaped and informed the nomenclature of Britain: various Celtic languages (including Brythonic, Gaelic (Old Irish), Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish and Pictish), Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Norman French, modern French and a few others besides.

Place names are generally composed of either a single element or a compound of two elements. The Anglo-Saxons contributed many elements such as -ing-, -ham-, -ton, -bury, -stead, -ford, and -ley. These form the majority of place names in England and some in Wales and Scotland.

Scandinavian place names such as -by, thorpe, and toft are commonest in the area covered by the Danelaw, the north and east of England north of Watling Street. Also in this area, church becomes kirk and ditch becomes dike. In the south and west of England, place names are more Anglo-Saxon.

Place names in Cornwall are largely Celtic, with elements such as tre-, pen-, and lan-. A scattering of names throughout England are of Celtic origin. Names in Wales are mainly of Celtic origin, common elements being llan-, pen-, and cwm-.

In southern Scotland, place names are generally Celtic (both Goidelic and Brythonic), Anglo-Saxon, or Scandinavian. In the Scottish Highlands names are generally Gaelic (such as loch, glen, and inver), with Norse influence around the coasts and islands (including island names ending in -ay).

Chester, -cester, -caster, or other similar elements, indicate a Roman fort or settlement. Medieval Latin added various elements such as Regis (of the King), Magna (great), and Parva (little). Some names are suffixed with the name of a landowning family, as in Stanton Lacy and Newport Pagnell, and some names reflect a connection with the church, such as Monkwearmouth and Newton Abbot.

Sometimes, identifying the origins and meaning of a name is easy. The modern form of the name may reflect its original meaning. A good example of this is Box Hill, Surrey which is what it says it is: a hill upon which box once grew. Sometimes it is not: Beadlam, North Yorkshire (grid reference SE 654 846) has nothing to do with the lunatic asylum (Bedlam, from Bethlehem) of earlier times, but is from Anglo-Saxon (æt) bōðlum = "at the buildings", or its Old Norse equivalent. See "The place-names of the North Riding of Yorkshire" by A H Smith (Cambridge 1928), page 66.

Back-formation is the process whereby names are derived from one another in the opposite direction to that which one would expect - for example rivers that had the original names forgotten, so the river is named after the town or valley rather than vice versa. The river running through Rochdale became known as the "Roch" through this process.

See also

References

External links

Shetland Islands
Sealtainn


Flag Coat of arms
Location

Geography

Area Ranked 12th
 - Total 1,466 km²
 - % Water ?
Admin HQ Lerwick
GB-ZET
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Orkney
Àrcaibh


Flag of Orkney Coat of arms
Location

Geography

Area Ranked 16th
 - Total 990 km²
 - % Water ?
Admin HQ Kirkwall
GB-ORK
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Channel Islands (Norman: Îles d'la Manche, French: Îles Anglo-Normandes/Îles de la Manche) are a group of islands in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy, but dependent on the British Crown.
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Etymology is the study of the history of words - when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.

In languages with a long written history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to
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This page is protected from moves until disputes have been resolved on the .
The reason for its protection is listed on the protection policy page. The page may still be edited but cannot be moved until unprotected.
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Toponymy refers to the scientific study of place-names (toponyms), their origins, meanings, use and typology. The first part of the word is derived from the Greek topos (τόπος), place; followed by ōnoma
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See Language (journal) for the linguistics journal.


A language is a system of symbols and the rules used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon.
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extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point).
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Celts, normally pronounced /kɛlts/ (see article on pronunciation), is widely used to refer to the members of any of the peoples in Europe using the Celtic languages or descended from those who did.
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Neolithic[1] or "New" Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic era follows the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic
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Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. During the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Europe, from the Bay of Biscay and the North Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to the
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Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic is derived from the Welsh word Brython
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Goidelic languages (also sometimes called, particularly in colloquial situations, the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) have historically been part of a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, through the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland.
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Scottish Gaelic}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Scotland
Regulated by: Bòrd na Gàidhlig
Language codes
ISO 639-1: gd
ISO 639-2: gla
ISO 639-3: gla

Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig
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Welsh}}} 
Writing system: Latin alphabet (Welsh variant) 
Official status
Official language of: Wales (de facto)
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: cy
ISO 639-2: wel (B) 
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Cornish}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Not an official language but a recognised minority language in the United Kingdom
Regulated by: Kesva an Taves Kernewek (KK), Agan Tavas (UC, UCR), Cussel an Tavas Kernuak (RLC)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:
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 Pictish}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: xpi

Pictish is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to be spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland
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Latin}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Old English/Anglo-Saxon}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: ang
ISO 639-3: ang Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon[1], Englisc
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Old Norse}}} 
Writing system: Runic, later Latin alphabet.
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: non
ISO 639-3: non

Old Norse
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Norman}}} 
Writing system: Latin (French variant)
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: roa
ISO 639-3: nrm  
Areas where the Norman language is strongest include Jersey, Guernsey, the Cotentin and the Pays de Caux.

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French (français, pronounced [fʁɑ̃ˈsɛ]) is a Romance language originally spoken in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, and today by about 300 million people around the world as either
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The Danelaw, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles also known as the Danelagh, (Old English: Dena lagu; Danish: Danelagen), is a name given to a part of the British Isles, now northern and eastern England, in which the laws of the Danes held predominance over
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Watling Street is the name given to an ancient trackway in England and Wales that was first used by the Celts mainly between the modern cities of Canterbury and St Albans. The Romans later paved the route, part of which is identified on the Antonine Itinerary as Iter III: "Item a
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Cornwall
Kernow

(Flag)
Motto: Onen hag oll
(Cornish: One and all)

Geography
Status Ceremonial & (smaller) Non-metropolitan county
Region South West England
Area
- Total
- Admin.
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Goidelic languages (also sometimes called, particularly in colloquial situations, the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) have historically been part of a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, through the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland.
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Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic is derived from the Welsh word Brython
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Box Hill is a well known beauty spot in the North Downs of Surrey, England, close to the southern outskirts of London, overlooking Dorking to the south-west. There is a small village of the same name about 1.5 km to the east.
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Buxus
L.

Species
About 70 species; see text

Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box (majority of English-speaking countries) or boxwood (North America).
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