How old is English? |
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[1] Let it be clear: a 'pre-Celtic language' means: we-don’t-know. It’s scientific rubbish. The only 'pre-Celtic' language to be found in Europe is Basque. Besides, Basque is not pre-Celtic but pre-agricultural. All other European languages (except Hungarian and Finnish which are related to Siberian/Mongolian languages) are derived from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language. If you read the summary, then you'll know that 'Celtic' didn't exist as a specific language. click here for more
[4] Tacitus mentioned both Tamisa and Tamesa. The medieval name was Temese.
IsisThe Thames is also called 'Isis' in Oxford (and upstream). Some people argue that the 'Thames' is the contraction of 'Tame', a left tributary of the Thames, and 'Isis' (Tame+isis =Tamisis). Most etymologists consider this explanation as a fairy tale. What could be is that 'isis' used to be 'iz', a Brythonic word for 'water'. Paris (from the tribe Parisii) is explained as 'par iz' = 'close to the river' or 'people living on the river shores' (compare : ancient Greek 'para' = close to. 'Para' is a cognate to our word 'for'). The part of the Thames upstream, to the west of Oxford, was during the Bronze Age and before within Brythonic speaking country or proto-Wales.
[5] We find exactly the same in modern Dutch:
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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].
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]. 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. 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.
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’. 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.
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