I don't know where the language boundary has run round here historically without researching it. You may be right.
Richard
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From: The English Place-Name List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Keith Briggs [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 31 May 2011 21:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [EPNL] betēon > Béthune ?
Is it not possible to assume that Flemish was the main language in the Béthune area until recent times, so that French phonetics are not relevant?
Keith
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From: The English Place-Name List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard Coates [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 31 May 2011 17:20
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: betēon > Béthune ?
OK, the <t> is constant, which undermines my suggestion. But that fact itself is unusual – no intervocalic lenition. Maybe a northern dialect thing. Nothing better to propose.
RC
From: The English Place-Name List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Keith Briggs
Sent: 31 May 2011 16:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [EPNL] betēon > Béthune ?
This is the DT P-d-C entry for Béthune, which I suspect is all P.-H. had to go on.
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From: The English Place-Name List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard Coates
Sent: 31 May 2011 15:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: betēon > Béthune ?
The solution for Béthune (town) looks vanishingly unlikely to me, esp. in view of an ostensibly 8th-century record Bitunia which suggests a comprehensible Celtic *Bit-ōn-ia. (‘life/world’ + RN suffix? I know these culturally central words are difficult to understand the applications of.) But PHB has presumably unearthed more earlier forms.
The solution for the Dieppe river looks plain wrong. I would be amazed if OE unstressed /o/, esp. in effect in a grammatical suffix, carried the weight PHB places on it. (Looks like a francophone solution: excessive importance given to final syllables!)
Richard
From: The English Place-Name List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Keith Briggs
Sent: 31 May 2011 12:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [EPNL] betēon > Béthune ?
The new Dictionnaire des noms de lieux de la France by P.-H. Billy says (p.119) this about la Béthune (the river at Dieppe, said to be named from a place at its source, and not the town in Pas-de-Calais):
le nom du lieu Béthune repose sur l’anglo-saxon BETĒON ``enclore’’
Now betēon is said in B-T Supplement to mean `to cover’ (given with misplaced length mark as beteón; cf. betee in OED), which is not really the same as `to enclose’, and anyway, why should an infinitive appear as a place-name? Was there a related noun? (Or *betȳning?)
For the town in Pas-de-Calais, Billy has a vaguely Germanic BI-TUNA-JA.
Keith
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