On 2006-10-10 05:00, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> Watts, The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, puts
> Brit. *s- > /h/ in the mid-6th c. and the arrival of the
> English in 577. He thinks it unlikely that they'd have
> heard anything but /h/ pronunciations and suggests that it
> was important enough that they'd probably heard of it rather
> earlier.
Yes, Ceawlin's conquest of the Severn Valley began in 577, but I see no
reason why the Anglo-Saxons, especially those in what was to become
Mercia, should not have been aware of a major river just outside the
area controlled by them. Then, the change of s- > h- did not take place
overnight in AD 550; there must have been a lengthy period of variation,
with the conservative s-form (preserved also in British Latin) being
probably regarded as more careful. The Severn isn't the only example of
a Brittonic river-name retaining its *s in English.
Piotr