Dear Nick,
Another fascinating list of words and place-names, but is it onomastics as we know it? You don't give any phonological reasons for deriving an etymology from the surviving forms of the place-name. So there's no case to answer.
Over and out,
Jeremy Harte
-----Original Message-----
From: The English Place-Name List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nick Corbett
Sent: 17 September 2014 11:26
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Subject: why geese at Gosport HMP?
(cheers Tom and Jeremy for your feedback on ASH/uxello names. Better than silence. My brain sees this pattern. It may of course be deluded....)
Why geese at Gosport?
No-one is very happy about the apparent etymology i.e. OE geese (e.g. see EE or Richard's PN Hants/Batsford) G. is located opposite Portsmouth, on the other side of an inlet of the sea, which goes on to broaden outand form Portsmouth Harbour.
G. to Portsmouth is physically like SaltASH to Plymouth DEV. A significant physical position.l
It certainly will have had a pre-medieval name. There may be continuity via (mis)translation.
There are some homonyms or very near homonyms in the neo-Celtic languages which I'm pretty sure will have also
been such in British . They are very frequently confused in W and C placenames. And indeed (uidua "wood" and
Fr. "veuve" /widow in France - Bois de la Veuve/widow's wood being very common in FRance. In fact this is a tautological
hybrid like Chetwood. There might be 1 of these widow's woods in HRF. (W. gweddw/widow ).
I'll follow CPNE and then add comments from GPC (Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru - the equiv. of OED) online free, which I've just discovered.
goth 1 - "water-course" plural guyTHy. W gwyth.
OC guid.
goth 2 - "goose" OC guit, glossing L. auca. W. gwydd circumflex on w.
guyth 1 "trees"
W. gwydd (circumflex on y)
this classically gets re-interp. onomastically in W as Gwyddel "Irishman", and probably also in Cornwall (CPNE says prob. via a form like * guythel - thickets, trees.)
guyth 2 "(industrial) work(s)"
W. gwaith
"or better (compare) W. gwyth seam of a mineral, stream, channel" CPNE (circumflex on w)
We should not forget that Vectis/Wight is Ynys Wyth in mod W (radical *Gwyth) and may belong to this discussion.
GPC suggests the W. goose word might go back to an onomatopeaic (?sp sorry) *gha gha, "maybe via a form like
*gigida" I guess in British times.
The French toponomists don't give a Gaulish word for this bird.
(Even so, Stephane Gendron's discussion on Goose PNs in "Animaux et NL"/Errance is interesting).
Amongst the translations GPC gives for W. gwyth (circ. on w) "seam" are sea inlet, channel.
And I think this is why we get re-interpreted geese at Portsmouth Harbour (annoyingly I've left my notes at home, but google Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru and check it out).
The re-interp. could have been from British to VL to OE, or from a British PN meaning "at the inlet of the sea" to OE when some basic top. British was remembered.
Or mis-remembered.
Joyce is very good on this mis-translation by the final L1 speakers in Ireland.
They will normally have a restricted vocab., and tend to re-interpret rarer top. elements as more common proper nouns, which then often get translated into L2.
It's just possible that we might have another example of this W. gwyth "channel" in the W. name of Shrewsbury.
It is supposed to be a rough translation of top English "place at the scrubland", but I wonder if the W, name Amwythig might not be the primary name, referring per Elephant theory to the bend of the Severn, and being misunderstood when translated into OE.
But this is speculative, although W. place-names with am/about + 2nd el seem rather archaic and seem to combine with watery words in about 50% of cases e.g. Amrath PEM (RN) and Amlwch ANG "around the inlet/lough"
(Depends on your views on the Pengwern name of course).
Thanks all for reading this
Nick
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