LL-L "Etymology" 2009.10.15 (03) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 15 October 2009 - Volume 03
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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.14 (05) [EN]


from Heather Rendall  heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk



David wrote:   Going a little further on British survivals, there's a very
interesting



article on Cumbric on Wikipaedia, which shows the kind of tantalising



evidence there is for the survival of this form of British Celtic in N



England and S Scotland, almost certainly into the 1200s.



... and even beyond perhaps! I have mentioned before the reprint of John
Davies "The Celtic Element of the English People" which deals with the Welsh
words preserved / used in Lancashire, Northampton and Leicester dialects.



But I am also intrigued and puzzled by Welsh remnants here near Worcester.



The first example that struck me was a place name just up the road from me;
the area is known as Highfields. One of the houses / plots has been known
since at least the 17th C as Huckerfield Gate. Now 'hucker' sounds very
close to Welsh 'ucha(f)' which itself means 'higher' as opposed to lower
'isa(f)'. Co-incidence?



Then in a 19th century document listing the fields etc of a farm sale it
spoke of "  the woodlands or coydlands as they are known"  coyd = coed =
Welsh for wood. Double co-incidence??



Last week I found a field name of 1856 given as Geffyl Croft - more commonly
now known as Horsecroft - ceffyl = Welsh for horse. I am now fully engaged
in searching for any more!



In a 17th century (1683) a reversion of a lease it states: "and also 4
parcels of lands whose English names are as follows.... "



I know there are people who think anything over this side of the Severn
constitutes Wales! But are you not intrigued by these words?



Heather



PS The river running through Wichenford is the Laugherne. Usually this is
ascribed to deriving from the Welsh word for 'fox' BUT in medieval documents
it is written 'lawerne' even 'la werne': now Laugherne pronounced 'lawn'. A
1800 dictionary gives lawn as = an open space between woods;  and Davies in
the book mentioned above agrees giving its use in Anglo-Celtic as 'an open
space in a chase or a wood' ; he links it to 'llan' an enclosure or 'llawnt'
smooth, rising hill; 'llaned' waste or level ground



Perhaps the clear land on either side of the river?

•

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