[tied] Re: NWB

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

>
> At 4:37:19 PM on Sunday, September 16, 2007, Richard
> Wordingham wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> > <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
>
> >> In what sense?
> >> Are the hydronyms pre-IE or Anglo-Saxon?
>
> > By implication, unusually many are of Anglo-Saxon origin,
> > but I can't preclude the possibility that a map of Celtic
> > hydronyms has been carelessly used as a map of pre-English
> > hydronyms. The map and discussion will come from Reaney's
> > book 'The Origins of English Place­Names'.
>
> (Just 'Origin'.) His map of British river names is actually
> taken from Jackson's LHEB, which has a fairly extensive
> discussion (220ff). The region from the eastern boundary of
> Dorset to the Tamar is within his Area III, of which he
> says:
>
> Here Brittonic river names are especially common,
> including often those of mere streams, and the proportion
> of certainly Celtic names is highest of all.

There's a version of this map at
http://www.yorksj.ac.uk/dialect/celtpn.htm . If you eliminate the Exe
on the basis of its being a river that would be known by name to
invaders, there is a relative dearth of 'certainly or probably Celtic'
river names in East Devon and West Somerset. It's an anomaly within
Area III. I don't know what to make of 'possibly Celtic' names - if
you include them, the anomaly disappears, so I don't know the answer
to Rick's question.

Richard.