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A "-wich town" is a settlement in Anglo-Saxon England characterised by extensive artisanal activity and trade – an "emporium". The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon suffix -wīc, signifying "a dwelling [1] or fortified [2] place". Such settlements were usually coastal [citation needed] and many have left material traces found during ...
This article lists a number of common generic forms in place names in the British Isles, their meanings and some examples of their use. The study of place names is called toponymy ; for a more detailed examination of this subject in relation to British and Irish place names, refer to Toponymy in the United Kingdom and Ireland .
In general, the Old English and Norse place-names tend to be rather mundane in origin, the most common types being [personal name + settlement/farm/place] or [type of farm + farm/settlement]; most names ending in wich, ton, ham, by, thorpe, stoke/stock are of these types.
Adjectives ending -ish can be used as collective demonyms (e.g. the English, the Cornish). So can those ending in -ch / -tch (e.g. the French, the Dutch) provided they are pronounced with a 'ch' sound (e.g., the adjective Czech does not qualify). Where an adjective is a link, the link is to the language or dialect of the same name.
Sometimes, however, the place names were changed by new settlers to match pronunciation habits without reference to the original meaning. For example, the Old English name Scipeton ("sheep farm"), which would normally become *Shipton in modern English, instead was altered to Skipton, since Old English sc (pronounced 'sh') was usually cognate ...
The Oxford English Dictionary records toponymy (meaning "place name") first appearing in English in 1876. [9] [10] Since then, toponym has come to replace the term place-name in professional discourse among geographers. [1]
This is a list of towns in England.. Historically, towns were any settlement with a charter, including market towns and ancient boroughs.The process of incorporation was reformed in 1835 and many more places received borough charters, whilst others were lost.
Latin place names are not always exclusive to one place — for example, there were several Roman cities whose names began with Colonia and then a more descriptive term. During the Middle Ages, these were often shortened to just Colonia. One of these, Colonia Agrippinensis, retains the name today in the form of Cologne (from French, German Köln).