Transhumance [Re: etyma for Crãciun]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
wrote:

> At 6:56:18 AM on Monday, January 5, 2004, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > England is full of -tun place names. They are found on the
> > continent too (very few in Scandinavia), especially in the
> > area around Calais.
>
> The English <-tu:n> names do not appear to belong to the
> earliest layer of settlement names; in the earliest records
> (to 731) <-ha:m> is the most common habitative element, and
> there are just a handful of <-tu:n> names. Cameron has
> suggested that <-tu:n> names were not being formed in great
> numbers before the end of the 7th century.
>

Nielsen: "'Continental Old English' and s-Plurals in Old and Middle
Dutch":
"From a distributional point of view it is interesting that the -thun
names are only attested south of the second Dunkirk marine
transgression (+- 400 - +- 700) ... which provides us with a useful
terminus ante quem: the -thun names must have originated before 700".
If both arguments are right, that leaves a narrow window 650 - 700.
Anything spectular take place at that time in the Anglo-Saxon
colonisation?

Another point: According to Udolph, -ing-ton names are found only in
England and on the Litus Saxonicum (Pas de Calais). That would fit in
with some kind of collective, not personal settlement on the
continental side.

> > Udolph is very insistent that the place names (eg.
> > -horst/-hurst) indicate that the Anglo-Saxon migration
> > took place from the interior of Germany,
>
> Why, given the evidence of Frisian?
>

The place name evidence he offers seems solid enough. Interestingly,
some of them, on the German side are concentrated in the
Nordwestblock area, the existence of which he denies (and
vehemently), or around Hamburg; very few in Thuringia.
Which evidence does Frisian offer?

Torsten