I realise that the tree thing was probably a bit far fetched and the gwaith link seems to be the one favoured as mentioned by Steve and others, but it’s not overwhelmingly convincing and I get the feeling there is more interesting things to come.
I think you described what it might have looked like quite well, but I don’t think there would be any ice left by then and they have found a well preserved submerged forest. We were safely away from the end of the last glacial period 8,800 years ago and Britain was about to become detached again from the rest of mainland Europe or maybe it had just happened.
I was presuming the very earliest to come back as the ice retreated! But yes, the remains of forests frozen beneath the ice would be there when it thawed.
Wight: I suddenly realised I was right and wrong! The word was not a straight!
I realised it really did sound like eight or ate, but had nothing to do with wyth or narrow water. I found it by searching for
boat race course Chiswick
eyot pronounced ate or eight! It is an old English word for small island!
I hope it’s ok to bring this thread back to life. I was surprised to learn that there isn’t a Welsh or surviving Celtic name for Newcastle upon Tyne. This is despite the fact that there are Castell Newydd(s/au) elsewhere. This seems a bit of a shame as the Roman name, Pons Aelius (Hadrian’s Bridge), is almost purpose made for welshifying. The only Celtic named district of the town that I can think of is Pendower, but I suspect that was borrowed from the Cornish place of the same name.
Cestyll Newydd, I would have thought for the plural.
I suspect any Celtic/Brythonic legacy in the area would have had to have survived it being an early Anglian stronghold followed by plentiful Norse settlement.
Yes, I’m no expert, but it seems that the Tyne Valley might have been the last area in the NE to become Anglian and that it stayed Celtic after the Romans left. There are a few Celtic place names or part names in the countryside, that still survive. However, as you pointed out, most are of Anglian or Viking origin. This is also true of many of the dialect words.
Anyway, back to place names, I was born near Corbridge, which as the name suggests took its name from the stream, the Cor, whose name in turn predated the Romans. does anyone know the origin of “Cor”? I don’t know if its etymology is shared with Corwen.
Just watched the latest Julia Bradbury (Best Walks with a View on ITV) and she was walking up Pen y Ghent in the Yorkshire Dales and explained that it has retained its Welsh name from pre-Anglo-Saxon times and means Head of the Winds (so Ghent must be related to gwynt meaning wind in modern Welsh)
Indeed they are and the.name goes on in Barwick in Elmet. Someone mentioned Pen y Ghent earlier and it’s partner Ingleborough has a celtic remnant as well as scandinavian in its name. And there’s also Ben Rhydding in Wharfedale and lots of other remnants if you care to look. The Brigantes seem not to have been easily subdued. We’re thinking Leeds fans (it’s ok, I’m one) of 2000 years ago.
She didn’t mention that but its only a half hour programme and the focus is on the walking so a bit rushed but she did say Welsh used to be spoken throughout Britain
I wonder if that is related in any way to Gent/Ghent/Gand in East Flanders - it’s name is said to be a Celtic (Belgic, I guess) word meaning confluence
A brigand is a person who usually lives in a gang and lives by pillage and robbery, says Wikipedia - I always suspected that this was your real profession
Many geographical place names (and a majority of rivers) in England and Southern Scotland come originally from old old Welsh…(Brittonic celtic languages or romano british)
Hafren = Severn…but Severn itself has old associations with Welsh.
Tafwys = Thames
Wilmslow = Llyn du
Malvern = Moel gwern
Bredon hills
Mendips
Long mynd
Caterrick
Rochdale… all corrupted from old Welsh
Dovedale = Dwfr dôl (water meadow)
Avon = Afon
Dover - from Dwfr (water/s) etc
*and this isnt to ignore our lingual sisters in Kernow/Cornwall…whose original placenames have sadly been squashed out of existence…but being revivied
Probably true😀 and I’ve been called a mearcstapa before today too.[quote=“brynle, post:53, topic:4815”]
Wilmslow = Llyn du
[/quote]
Yep, Lindow moss, not far from here, with its famous bog burial. One local history source states “the area was inhabited by small, dark people speaking a form if Welsh”. We’re back! . The river names, many single syllable, are fascinating generally in that very many seem to have survived from well before Roman times
I wonder if you happen to know the etymology for the dreef ending in a lot places in and around Ghent, also in the Netherlands?
Graaf Henridreef; Twee dreefen; Kasteeldreef; Warandedreef; Muldersdreef; Kapitteldreef; Reinaartdreef - also Kasteellaan.
If you look around Europe there are lots of words that look like they share etymology with the Welsh Tref - Treycovannes in Switzerland to me sounds like a version of a Welsh Tregof. (Gof, gofan, gobhan).
Also the Treveri of Trier, who settled on the Moselle also seem to be a very important factor in the word Tre or Tref.
As far as I know, it is the same word as English “drive”, and yes, it is a very common word in Flanders and the Netherlands for road, lane and the like, not related to tref, I don’t think.
If I can indulge in a bit of conjecture and speculation. I looked through the etymology of the English Drive, which has lots of meanings these days. It shows the pathway of the word, through old English - Dutch, Germanic and it goes back to a supposed PIE root of *dhreibh- “to drive, push.” Original sense of “pushing from behind,”.
I get the impression it was used in relation to driving cattle and moving goods etc, in the sense today of a drover. I suspect a word like that could branch off into lots of meanings relating to the direction or route taken or places on the route. It feels like there could possibly have been a very old connection, which might have branched off in subtely different directions in the various Celtic and Germanic languages?. It also sounds like a word associated with trade or movement of people, where different languages might come into contact more often.
If I understand the etymology in GPC correctly, they trace Welsh tref back (albeit with a question mark) to a PIE root *treb- “dwelling” which also became German Dorf, English thorp(e) (now only in placenames).
I was a bit puzzled by the GPC one I must admit and I wasn’t quite sure what it was saying.
does ?cf mean “possibly comparable to”? and ?<IE mean “possibly before indo-european” i.e. “PIE”?
[Crn. C. tre, Crn. Diw. trea, H. Lyd. treb, gl. tribus, Llyd. C. treff ‘rhan o blwyf’, Llyd. Diw. tre(v), e. llwyth Gal. (A)treb(ates), H. Wydd. treb, Gwydd. Diw. treabh: ?< IE. *treb- ‘annedd’; ?cf. Llad. trabs ‘trawst’, Lith. trobà ‘tŷ’, H. S. þorp ‘farm; village’ (> S. thorp (mewn e. lleoedd)); ansicr yw dosbarthiad rhai o’r enghrau. isod]
eb. ac yn eithriadol fel eg. yn y cfn. tref tad, ll. trefi, -ydd, -oedd, ll. dwbl (prin) trefïos.
“<” usually means “derived from” in etymologies, not “before” (and “>”, “becomes” or “turns into”), so I understood it as "possibly derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *treb- (PIE not being “before Indo-European” but more like “the first Indo-European language, the common ancestor of Indo-European languages”).
And “?cf” I understood as “It may be possible to compare this to …” i.e. “this word may also be related to …”.
. The river names, many single syllable, are fascinating generally in that very many seem to have survived from well before Roman times