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最終更新時間: 2025-06-06 08:58

2023-11-29 Wed

#5329. 古英語地名に残る数少ないラテン語の遺産 [name_project][etymology][onomastics][toponymy][oe][roman_britain][celtic]

 ローマン・ブリテン時代の後に続く古英語期の地名には,思いのほかラテン語の痕跡が少ない.実際,純粋なラテン語由来の地名はほとんどないといってよい.ただし,部分的な要素として生き残っているものはある(cf. 「#3440. ローマ軍の残した -chester, -caster, -cester の地名とその分布」 ([2018-09-27-1])).
 Clark (481) は Lincoln, Catterick, camp, eccles, funta, port, wīc などを挙げているが,確かに全体としてあまり目立たない.

Unlike those once-Romanised areas that were destined to become Romance-speaking, England shows hardly any place-names of purely Latin origin. Few seem to have been current even in Romano-British times; fewer still survived . . . . PDE Lincoln is a contraction of Lindum Clonia, where the first element represents British *lindo 'pool' . . . . Whether Catterick < RB Cataractonium derives ultimately from Latin cataracta in supposed reference to rapids on the River Swale)(sic) or from a British compound meaning 'battle-ramparts' is uncertain . . . .
   The main legacy of Latin to Old English toponymy consisted not of names but of name-elements, in particular: camp < campus 'open ground, esp. that near a Roman settlement'; eccles < ecclesia 'Christian church'; funta < either fontana or fons/acc. fontem 'spring, esp. one with Roman stonework'; port < portus 'harbour'; and the already-mentioned wīc < vicus 'settlement, esp. one associated with a Roman military base', together with its hybrid compound wīchām . . . . Names involving these loan-elements occur mainly in districts settled by the English ante AD 600, and often near a Roman road and/or a former Roman settlement . . . .


 イングランドの地名に関する限り,ラテン語は(後の中英語期以降に関与してくる)フランス語と同様に,微々たる貢献しかなしてこなかったといってよい.

 ・ Clark, Cecily. "Onomastics." The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 1. Ed. Richard M. Hogg. Cambridge: CUP, 1992. 452--89.

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2023-11-27 Mon

#5327. York でみる地名と民間語源 [name_project][etymology][folk_etymology][onomastics][toponymy][oe][roman_britain][celtic][diphthong][old_norse][sound_change]

 「#5203. 地名と民間語源」 ([2023-07-26-1]) でみたように,地名には民間語源 (folk_etymology) が関わりやすい.おそらくこれは,地名を含む固有名には,指示対象こそあれ「意味はない」からだろう(ただし,この論点についてはこちらの記事群を参照).地名の語源的研究にとっては頭の痛い問題となり得る.
 Clark (28--29) に,York という地名に関する民間語源説が紹介されている.

. . . 'folk-etymology' --- that is, replacement of alien elements by similar-sounding and more or less apt familiar ones --- can be a trap. The RB [= Romano-British] name for the city now called York was Ebŏrācum/Ebŭrācum, probably, but not certainly, meaning 'yew-grove' . . . . To an early English ear, the spoken Celtic equivalent apparently suggested two terms: OE eofor 'boar' --- apt enough either as symbolic patron for a settlement or as nickname for its founder or overlord --- and the loan-element -wīc [= "harbour"] . . ., hence OE Eoforwīc . . . . (The later shift from Eoforwīc > York involved further cross-cultural influence . . . .) Had no record survived of the RB form, OE Eoforwīc could have been taken as the settlers' own coinage; doubt therefore sometimes hangs over OE place-names for which no corresponding RB forms are known. The widespread, seemingly transparent form Churchill, for instance, applies to some sites never settled and thus unlikely ever to have boasted a church; because some show a tumulus, others an unusual 'tumulus-like' outline, Church- might here, it is suggested, have replaced British *crǖg 'mound' . . . .


 もし York の地名についてローマン・ブリテン時代の文献上の証拠がなかったとしたら,それが民間語源である可能性を見抜くこともできなかっただろう.とすると,地名語源研究は文献資料の有無という偶然に揺さぶられるほかない,ということになる.
 ちなみに古英語 Eoforwīc から後の York への語形変化については,Clark (483) に追加的な解説があるので,それも引用しておこう.

OE Eoforwīc was reshaped, with a Scand. rising diphthong replacing the OE falling one, assibilation of the final consonant inhibited, and medial [v] elided before the rounded vowel: thus, Iorvik > York . . . .


 ・ Clark, Cecily. "Onomastics." The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 1. Ed. Richard M. Hogg. Cambridge: CUP, 1992. 452--89.

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