LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 03.FEB.2000 (01) [E]

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From: Family Lindley [john at lindley-york.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject:  LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 01.FEB.2000 (01) [E]

Hi

Thank you for reminding me of the Swedish -tuna suffixes and for
drawing my attention to Holmberg's work.  If the Swedish -tuna
settlements are very early, do they predate the Low German
influence on Scandinavian languages through, for example, the
Hanseatic League thus representing a very early common
Germanic linguistic element ?

As far as I am aware, British historical geography focusses very
narrowly on -tun as an Anglo-Saxon element (and that may be largely
correct in the context of British settlement geography), but it is
helpful to be reminded of the broader picture which may disturb
the neatness of some explanations !

Regards

John Lindley
Wigginton
York.

John Lindley wrote:........

I hope that someone may be able to offer enlightenment
on a matter of place names, specifically the suffix "-ton"
found in England and to a lesser extent in Scotland


Carl Joan Petersson replied..........

It seems you have missed one very important area with a large number of
names in -tun:

Apart from in England, names in -tun (mostly in the old plural form: -tuna)
are very common in Scandinavia ........

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From: bri [bri at globalnet.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 01.FEB.2000 (04) [E]

>From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
>Subject: Place Names
>
>John Lindley wrote
>
>>I hope that someone may be able to offer enlightenment on ... the suffix
>"-ton" found in England and to a lesser extent in Scotland as "-ton" or
>"-toun".

Tipton in the Black Country was (probably) called 'Tibbs' Town'
originally, and I have always assumed that 'ton' was simply a corruption
of 'town'.
--
brian

www.mourne.net  New Irish poetry at IRELingus

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From: Family Lindley [john at lindley-york.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject:  LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 01.FEB.2000 (04) [E]

Hi all

Thanks for the clarification from Carl Johan Petersson who wrote ........

Briefly: the answer is yes. The names in -tuna date back to early Viking
Age or earlier, ie. before the year 1000 or even several centuries
earlier.............

and the Slavic/Sorb web-site from Ron Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com] who added
wrote
......

 P.S.: A pretty nice introduction to Slavic history of Germany's eastern half
can be found here:
<http://lakoma.tu-cottbus.de/Sorben/inhalt11/d0101.htm>............

Also to John Feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk> concerning
........

'There is a curious convergence in this and other words we've discussed
recently. Another AS place-name ending is "-den", as in "Debden"
(<"Deep-den") in Essex. In this case "den" signifies a clearing in a forest,
though AS "denu" also means "valley" or "lair".'

In connection with convergence and confusion there may be an interesting
question to raise concerning the British place name suffix -ley/-leigh/-lea
(originally -leah) which means a 'clearing' and possibly a cognate of -loh in
Germany and -loo in the Netherlands and Belgium.  However there is a Norwegian

(Scandinavian generally?) placename suffix -li (occasionally -lii in W.Norway)

meaning a steep slope.  The 'clearing' view prevails in British placename
studies.

Regards

John Lindley
Wigginton
York (UK)

(Lindley=clearing in a wood of lime trees or lime wood on a steep slope??)

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Place names

John Lindley wrote:

> In connection with convergence and confusion there may be an interesting
> question to raise concerning the British place name suffix -ley/-leigh/-lea
> (originally -leah) which means a 'clearing' and possibly a cognate of -loh
in
> Germany and -loo in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Doesn't _-loh_ and _-loo_ usually refer to wooded areas rather than to
clearings?

And what about English _-low_, as e.g. in Winslow, Marlow, Bigelow?

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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