Thames

 

The Thames has a wide estuary

Some British etymologists believe that the word Thames is pre-Celtic. [1] That is because no link with genuine 'Celtic' words could be found.

Thames = te + em + s. In Latin : Tamesa.

On the Continent there are rivers called Eem (Holland), Eems (border Holland-Germany), Amstel (The dam on the Amstel is now called Amsterdam) and Emme (Switzerland, compare: Emmenthal cheese). There is a major chance that it is an ancient German word for river (Van Dale Etymology Dictionary) There is a probable relation with ama (Latin), amei (ancient Greek) ‘(large) bucket (when fire)’, a word also used in the Middle Ages for a measure of capacity for liquid things [Dictionarium Latino-Gallicum (by Fr. Noel) Bruxelles, 1828].
Amnis: Latin (1) stream, broad and deep river, brook, also abstr. 'tendency' (2) water [Dictionarium Latino-Gallicum (by Fr. Noel) Bruxelles 1826].
Modern rivers with similar names include the Ems in Hampshire, the Emm Brook (which flows into the Loddon and thence into the Thames).

 

The Amstel, the Eems, Eem and the Thames have in common their sudden widening of the river, their estuaries, the river leads to or has a basin, a wide body of water. 'Ham' is an old English word for where the sea enters the land, an in depth elongated bay. The English have the odd reflex to believe that all words came from somewhere abroad. In this case, it is thought to be of Old Norse origin. But the word exists in Dutch as 'inham'. This means that the word is in fact 'shared' in all coastal German areas. Those words are related to the PIE word ‘A’ meaning water.

‘Te’ (aphonic ‘e’) has evolved in modern English into ‘at’ or ‘to’ according to the context [2].
The original river name was Eems or Ames. Thames (Te-emse) referred to the riverbanks in the London area (aT Ems/Ames), as well as to that particular section of the river. The 's' at the end is probably a declension or means 'water' [3], a Brythonic word.

Typical for natural estuaries is that their banks are regularly flooded, especially at spring tide. The height of this tide is difficult to predict as it can be combined with a northerly wind and storm. Building a house close to the water is hazardous under these conditions. So people searched for a place that was safe enough. This place is found more upstream. At a certain point, the floods are reduced to a minimum. This place on the Thames river banks is the region of London. That river section was during the Bronze Age probably called 'Temse' , 'where the estuary (and its floods) begins'.

As more houses were build there, the place became known as 'Lands (a)t Ames' (in modern English - see lower: London). This place became the most important point where the river could be crossed without having to swim. Travelers soon called the river itself 'Temse' and kept 'Lands' (modern English) or (proto-English) 'Landen' for the village of ferrymen and merchants.

At the time the Romans settled, the word Tamese was already used for the river itself.

Etymology of Thames: ‘aT (the) ames’ = 'place where the estuary begins'. The Romans wrote: Tamisa or Tamesa. [4]

The 'h' in Thames is in fact an grammatical error, the name is to be pronounced 'Tems'.

There is a city in Flanders, Belgium, located upon the river Schelde, that has the name Temse. In French: Tamise. There the river suddenly widened in ancient times, that is, before the river was captured (later) between dykes.

There is a Temse in Germany, a short natural channel between the river Warnow and the Butzower lake (village of Butzow, Mecklenburg, north-east Germany). Here also it refers to a 'wide water body' (lake).

'Thames' as a city can be found in the Homeros' poem 'The Odyssey', which mentions a bronze market placed overseas, beyond Gibraltar (from the point of view of the Greeks), named "Temese". Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. The Greeks had sufficient copper, but lacked tin. Tin is found in Cornwall, copper in Northwest-England. It's very likely that the mysterious Temese corresponds with the city of 'Thames'. So, following the Odyssey, we learn that, during the Bronze Age, the ancient Greeks used to sail to Temese/Thames - "placed overseas, in a foreign country" (Odyssey book I, 183-184) - to supply themselves with bronze around 800 BC. It's possible that 'Landen aT Ames' was at that moment an important trade and distribution center of bronze for all regions bordering the North Sea.

There is a remarkable similarity with the river name 'Humber'. In the first part we recognize the same 'ham'. The last part ('ber') means 'brown'. The animal 'bear' is also thought to mean 'the brown one'.

So, Humber = brown ham, wide brown water. A clear Germanic word.

As the word Thames shifted in meaning from the banks of the river to the river itself, the word 'lands' on the shore gradually replaced it. This could have happen after the 8th century BC. See next :

London

 

Nobody seems to know where the name London comes from. There is officially no etymological explanation for the Latin name Londinium. What is certain is that it was not the place of mr. Londin. All names, including family names, had a meaning, and clearly ‘Londin’ means nothing, it’s just a displacement of the problem. An alternative explanation is simple: Landen, if one accepts that the place-name was originally proto-English. ‘Land-en’ (aphonic ‘e’) is an ancient English, but still used in Dutch or German, plural for ‘land’.

‘Land’ meant originally: a good place to build a home upon, the house with its surrounding grounds. Ideal places were sandy soils, as often found near the sea. Therefore: ‘inhabited sandy place’. Later, the word referred mainly to the terrain adjacent to the dwelling. The origin of the word is German although the Gauls also knew the word (Les Landes, a region in South-West France – the name could have been given by the Franks). The explanation would be perfect for the place where London is, and quite logic. London must have been called Landen before the Romans came. Probably as a small settlement just before the widening delta of the Thames. A boat brought passengers to the other side of the river. The Romans must have found the location excellent and made a 'big' city of the former village (with a staggering 10 000 inhabitants). For more about that figure, click here. Its Roman bridge provided the only way by land to go north (or south) in east-Britain. The Romans latinised Landen into Londin and added ‘–ium’ for declension purposes. Place-names like Landen or with -land occur also in the other Germanic regions.

The place-name 'Landen' replaced the earlier place-name 'Tems'.

This explains also the French version: Londres. 'Landen' with '-en' plural was not the only possibility. A more High German '-er' ('Lander') could also be used. In middle Dutch there was some sort of competition between '-en' plural and '-er'. Eventually '-en' would prevail in Dutch. There was a similar plural battle in England: child -> childer -> childeren (children). Some regions used more '-en' and some more '-er' plurals. Later, '-en' became standard (probably in the southeast) and people forgot that '-er' was already a plural [5]. The '-en' plural won the game, just before it was replaced by the now common (and French) '-s' plural. The French understood it was a plural, but must have obtained the name from '-er' users. So they added their own plural '-s' and pronounced it Londers or (today) Londres.

The Ravenna cosmography (Vatican codex) refers to TAMESE as a place, not a river, just after LANDINI. However, Londinium Augusti is also mentioned. The Ravenna cosmography is thought to be a copy of a copy of a copy.... of several old documents (road descriptions) which were compiled and is far from precise. It's possible that Landini was the native place name for London (mentioned by travelers?) but believed to be a different place by the Italian copiers who had no idea.

Clearly, considering the local place-names in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, we can have no doubt that those once were countries where a Brythonic language was widely spoken. But that reasoning should also apply to the eastern part of Britain. There, we find very little or no trace of a Brythonic language in the local place-names.
Why are the place-names in England not similar to those in Wales? According to the official theory that the Brythonic language was evenly spread all over Britain, the spread of typical Brythonic place-names should have been accordingly. In reality we see that the more one goes to the east, the less Brythonic place-names are to be found. Once east of the Pennines, there are no genuine Brythonic place-names, despite all efforts of the old-school British etymologists.