hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2023-11-29

■ #5329. 古英語地名に残る数少ないラテン語の遺産 [name_project][etymology][onomastics][toponymy][oe][roman_britain][celtic]

　ローマン・ブリテン時代の後に続く古英語期の地名には，思いのほかラテン語の痕跡が少ない．実際，純粋なラテン語由来の地名はほとんどないといってよい．ただし，部分的な要素として生き残っているものはある（cf. 「#3440. ローマ軍の残した -chester, -caster, -cester の地名とその分布」 ([2018-09-27-1])）．
　Clark (481) は Lincoln, Catterick, camp, eccles, funta, port, wīc などを挙げているが，確かに全体としてあまり目立たない．

Unlike those once-Romanised areas that were destined to become Romance-speaking, England shows hardly any place-names of purely Latin origin. Few seem to have been current even in Romano-British times; fewer still survived . . . . PDE Lincoln is a contraction of Lindum Clonia, where the first element represents British *lindo 'pool' . . . . Whether Catterick < RB Cataractonium derives ultimately from Latin cataracta in supposed reference to rapids on the River Swale)(sic) or from a British compound meaning 'battle-ramparts' is uncertain . . . .
   The main legacy of Latin to Old English toponymy consisted not of names but of name-elements, in particular: camp < campus 'open ground, esp. that near a Roman settlement'; eccles < ecclesia 'Christian church'; funta < either fontana or fons/acc. fontem 'spring, esp. one with Roman stonework'; port < portus 'harbour'; and the already-mentioned wīc < vicus 'settlement, esp. one associated with a Roman military base', together with its hybrid compound wīchām . . . . Names involving these loan-elements occur mainly in districts settled by the English ante AD 600, and often near a Roman road and/or a former Roman settlement . . . .

　イングランドの地名に関する限り，ラテン語は（後の中英語期以降に関与してくる）フランス語と同様に，微々たる貢献しかなしてこなかったといってよい．

　・ Clark, Cecily. "Onomastics." The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 1. Ed. Richard M. Hogg. Cambridge: CUP, 1992. 452--89.

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