Featured Title:
Watchers of the Dawn DVD and ebook |
 |
| The Quest for the Shaman: Shape-shifters, Sorcerers and Spirit-healers of Ancient Europe |
 |
| Login |
|
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like your own home page, fewer ads, and your contributions link to your page. |
| Who's Online |
There are currently, 115 guests and 3 members online.
You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here |
| |
Forum: General Forum
Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , Klingon , sem , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , coldrum , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith
Respond to: River name?
|
| Review your Reply |
enkidu41
Joined:
18-02-2004
Messages: 172
from London
 OFF-Line
|  New Message Posted!2005-01-31 19:26
I'm not an academic either in this or any other matter. I lived in west Penwith for many years and count many of the local people as friends. I offer no opinions on things I know nothing about.
|
Thorgrim
Joined:
25-06-2003
Messages: 794
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2005-01-31 13:20
Don't know much about Cornish language and how it is spoken, but I always take with a large pinch of salt the academic attempt to put sounds into phonetic descriptions. Maybe the Cornish speaker hadn't read up on how he should have sounded!
|
AngieLake
Joined:
12-03-2004
Messages: 550
from Newton Abbot, Devon
OFF-Line
|  New Message Posted!2005-01-31 13:10
Hi Enkidu
I met the local man whose pronunciation I copied at Higher Drift Stones. We chatted for a while about that site, as he was curious about my dowsing, and he pointed out the tall standing stone that I hadn't noticed (to the SE?), and told me that he worked all his life on the farm land around us.
When he said his own word for Boscawen Un, I heard it as 'Boscanoon', but you may well be correct that he dropped his 'o'. Also, I have had a hearing problem most of my life, for which I use a small hearing aid, but am usually fine in a situation like that, where it is quiet, and I am concentrating on someone speaking. Don't you think that whatever the word is - it gradually gets condensed over the years by lazy efforts to say it properly? That's how we arrive at most of our place names today. So - I would still call it 'Boscanoon' I'm afraid!
Now:
For Rev's sake, I've found another list of Cornish words this morning (something I printed off a website some time last year), and in it:
'House' is 'Chy'
Now, why I didn't think of that, I really don't know, as, when I was married (my ex was in the Police) we were posted to Newquay for 4 years, and lived in 'Chynance Drive' - 'The house in the valley' (nance = valley)!
On this list, 'Bos' = 'Dwelling' (pronunciaton = Bose).
There was no Breton equivalent (the site gave several similar Breton words and their pronunciation).
'Lyn', meanwhile, meant 'Lake' (so my name would be 'Angela Lyn' in Cornish!) Pronounced 'Linn', and the Breton equivalent was 'Loc'h, pronounced 'LoRR'. (There must be a reason for those two capital 'R's, but I hadn't printed it out.)
As Cilla would say, 'I wish you a Lorra, lorra luck with your research on your river name!' Corny, huh?
|
enkidu41
Joined:
18-02-2004
Messages: 172
from London
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2005-01-31 00:10
Interesting input from Angie re. Bollin. Just a small correction to her pronunciation of Boscawen-Un.
Phonetically, the 'o' disappears so the pronunciation becomes b'scaun-OON with the 'au' sound being somewhere between an 'aw' and an 'ah', and with the stress on the final syllable, 'oon'.
|
enkidu41
Joined:
18-02-2004
Messages: 172
from London
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2005-01-30 23:58
And for good measure, Field throws in the suggestion that Itchen may perhaps(!) mean 'mighty' or 'powerful'.
|
enkidu41
Joined:
18-02-2004
Messages: 172
from London
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2005-01-30 23:49
Ekwall has Itchen connected with the tribal name Iceni but this is thought groundless by Room who suggests it may represent the name of a Celtic river God.
|
AngieLake
Joined:
12-03-2004
Messages: 550
from Newton Abbot, Devon
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2005-01-30 22:17
Hi Rev
In reply to your original question about the River Bollin, and what 'Bo' might mean:
I remembered I had a couple of old (1960s) guide books to Cornish names, and looked up 'Bo'. I found (in the 1st book):
'bos' - which meant 'dwelling'; 'bogh' - a 'billy goat, or buck'; 'bora' - 'dawn'; 'bownd' - 'tin bounds'; 'bownder' - 'lane'; and 'bowjy' - cowshed.
These were all the words beginning with 'bo'.
'Lyn' on the other hand, meant 'stitch of land'; 'lynn' meant 'anchorage'.
In the second book:
'Bod' meant 'a dwelling' (Variants: 'Bot', 'bos', 'bo').
Therefore, Boscawenoon =
'Bo' = 'house'/'home' ; '-scawen' = 'at the elder tree'; 'scawenoon': '('house') 'at elder tree', 'on the' (n, an). 'down' ('oon', 'goon').
Boscawen Un (the circle in Cornwall) is pronounced 'Boscanoon' by the locals. Then there's 'Goonhilly', where the huge communications telescopes/space scanners are situated on the Lizard Peninsula downs. (I digress!)
From this we would get 'Bo-llin' translating as:
'Home/s by the anchorage' perhaps? or 'House Anchorage', or 'House at stitch of land'?
(Hope this helps just a little.)
Angie
|
Zenmonk
Joined:
09-11-2004
Messages: 45
from Pontypridd
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2005-01-30 11:21
This isn't going to help you OP, I'm sure. But In France/Brittany there is a castle called Rosanbo (which is really nice and cheap to have a tour of too) It means the Rose on the Bo, Ros or Rose is maybe the family name I cant remember, but Bo was the old name of the river.
|
Thorgrim
Joined:
25-06-2003
Messages: 794
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2005-01-17 16:47
River names are certainly among the oldest in Britain. A British (Celtic) origin has been suggested for many rivers including the rivers Itchen of Hampshire and Warwickshire. However, so little is known about the early language of the Britons that it is not always possible to suggest a meaning. Itchen is certainly pre-English and probably pre-Celtic. Consult the Hampshire volume of English Place-name Society at your nearest large library. Good luck!
|
Jimit
Joined:
31-05-2002
Messages: 289
from winchester
OFF-Line
|  New Message Posted!2005-01-17 10:57
Here where I live in Winchester the local river is the Itchen. Any enquiries I've made obout its derivation just come up with "Unknown..prob pre-Celtic"
A couple of obscure ideas.....from the Greek for fish or the Sanskrit for to sprinkle or wet!
Any ideas?
| |
|
Main News