Re: fortis , f- >>

Most cities named after geographical features in their own languages include a modifier, e.g. Frankfurt, Rutherford, etc. It's when new speakers come in that we see such basic names as Forest, Lake, etc. --as seen in some Celtic names in England and Spanish names in central and central Texas such Llano, Plano, etc. And when the previous language becomes completely unknown, we get tautological absurdities such as English Brill "hill-hill" (Welsh bryn) and Cheatwood, Chitwood, Chetwood "forest-forest" (Welsh coed). See the Oxford book on Toponyms.

So I'd suspect that Roma is not from Latin but from a pre-Roman language that was still fresh in people's memories.

From: stlatos <sean@...>
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 9:44 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] fortis , f- >>

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
>

> First, since Oscan had *-fr- from medial *-sr- (Neap. <Ottufre> 'October'), it probably had initial *fr- from *sr- as well, like Latin <fri:gus> 'coldness', and Etruscan allows fr-. But even if Oscan retained *sr-, Etruscan allows that as well, with <sren> 'image' vel sim., <srenchva> 'set of images' vel sim. Finally, Rome is not a river, but a city at a ford on a river.
>

Well, it's a city not a river, but it's also a city not a field, a city not a hill, a city not a wall, but cities can be named after any of those. Is Athens a group of goddesses? Even if it was called "River City", after the word lost its meaning in L (if it ever had one), calling a city by its now-otherwise-unused name and leaving off the now-redundant word for 'city' would have soon be perfectly natural.

I think the meanings 'river or field' are most likely, but there's not much ev.