About the Yew1

[Anton Sherwood]

Gordon Brown wrote:
> For that matter, what about Eboriacum (isn't that the Latin
> for York?) -- any possible relation to *ebur-?

Here's Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names:

	[<Ebo'rakon> c 150 Ptol ...]  The Brit
	name is held to be derived from a pers. n.
	<Eburos> (Gaul <Eburos>, Welsh <Efwr>).  But
	this name is supposed to be a derivative of
	Gaul <eburos> (Ir <iubhar>) `yew', and <Eburacon>
	might then well be derived directly from
	the tree-name.  Owing to popular etymology
	the Brit name was changed into OE <Eofor-
	wic>, which may have been supposed to
	contain OE <eofor> `boar'.  Scandinavians
	at an early date came to know the name,
	and in their speech it became <Iorvik>, found
	in Egill's Arinbjarnardra'pa of 962.  A later
	development of this is <Iork>, found in later
	ON sources, as in Fagrskinna.  In this
	form the name was re-adopted by the
	English.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/