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There is clearly more substance in this debate than I first thought. Looking at it from a linguist’s perspective, I think the issue boils down to needing to consider:
(1) the plausibility of a name being formed from an Aramaic (properly Syriac, i.e. the Edessa literary dialect of Aramaic) adjective ‘arba:y ‘Arabic’; the corresponding noun in Syriac is ‘u:ra:ba: ‘Arab’, so we need some support for the idea that the adjectival form of the root could be used onomastically rather than the nominal form;
(2) its being made into a name in British Celtic or British Latin by the simple addition of inflectional <-a> rather than some more contentful suffix such as <-ica> or <-ana>;
(3) why Latin writers might have chosen to perpetuate this exotic form in the name rather than the Arab- which was already familiar to them. If they really did use the established form Arab-, then the text of Notitia Dignitatum is corrupt, but corrupt in a way which suggests transmission by British Celtic users because of the use of the “river-name suffix” -eia.
Aramaic source: http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/
Richard
From: The English Place-Name List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Griffiths
Sent: 29 May 2012 11:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [EPNL] FW: Arbeia
I sent the debate on Arbeia to Nick Hodgson, principal keeper of archaeology for Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums thinking he would be interested, and he has sent the following reply
John
Subject: RE: Arbeia
Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 11:15:17 +0100
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Dear John,
Thanks for forwarding this interesting discussion - please feel free to circulate the following comments to the group.
In response to the original enquirer, the meaning 'place of the Arabs' was in fact argued for in a reputable paper: D L Kennedy, 'The place name Arbeia', Britannia 17 (1986), 332-3.
This proposal is not capable of proof, of course, but it seems to have as much going for it as the etymology 'stream of the wild turnips' suggested by A Breeze (Durham Archaeological J 16 (2001), 21-5) which I challenged in Arch Aeliana 30 2002, 173-4, making the point that Breeze should at least have engaged with Kennedy's suggestion.
The name of the Tyne and the absence of any tributary stream at the hilltop site of South Shields does seem to tell against a river name. Against that, the link between 'Arbeia' and South Shields remains unproven. Wherever Arbeia really was, the Notitia Dignitatum attests there a military unit (the barcarii Tigrisienses) apparently raised in and transferred from an area which the Romans would have considered to be 'Arabia'. Kennedy's point was that, given the ethnic origin of the attested unit, the similarity of the form 'Arbeia' in the Notitia to the aramaic form for 'home of the 'Arabs' is perhaps no coincidence.
Another oddity about the Arbeia name is that it only appears in a single very late-Roman source. This could be taken to support the notion that the site was renamed in connection with the barcarii Tigrisienses, who did not arrive before the fourth century. if the name had been a long-used Celtic one derived from local topography, one would expect it to occur in a source such as the Ravenna list, which incorporates earlier, C2 and C3, material. In fact that list does contain certain unidentified names, one of which might be an earlier name of South Shields.
In short, while the 'place of the Arabs' suggestion cannot be proved, it does not originate in Wikipedia, and is not impossible.
Best wishes,
Nick
Nick Hodgson
TWM Archaeology
Arbeia Roman Fort & Museum
Baring Street
South Shields
NE33 2BB
Tel: 0191 454 4093
Fax: 0191 427 6862
email: [log in to unmask]
Hodgson, Nick
Principal Keeper
Email: [log in to unmask]
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