Re: re [tied] sabrina river

On 2006-10-10 16:28, Gordon Selway wrote:

> This would seem to point to the name having been embedded in English
> well before the battle of Dyrham. Given that there had been German
> mercenaries in the Roman army in the third and fourth centuries, the
> name is as likely to have been common currency long before the
> English settlements. Just as the Rhine and the Rhone or the Seine
> (and less pointedly the Scheldt) have been well known in these
> islands for centuries.

Just one afterthough. The name must have been borrowed during the
Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, whether directly from Brittonic of via
Insular Latin; if it had been brought from the continent, the *a in the
first syllable would have been affected by Anglo-Frisian brightening and
the umlauted to /e/ in West Saxon. WS Sæfern behaves like Latin loans
borrowed between brightening and i-umlaut (including the word <læden>
'Latin' itself).

Piotr