Key to English Place-names (original) (raw)

Elements - the words that make up the place-name.

Celtic - a family of languages, which includes the language spoken by the inhabitants of Britain before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century and its later forms (Welsh, Cornish), and also Irish and Gaelic.

Old English - the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons, spoken in England between the fifth and twelfth centuries

Old Norse - the Germanic language of the Vikings, who settled in northern and eastern parts of England in the ninth and tenth centuries

French - the language of the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror

Latin - the language of the Romans, who conquered Britain in the first century AD, but also the administrative language of the Normans: most Latin in place-names dates from the medieval rather than Roman period

Middle English - this refers to the varieties of English spoken between c. 1100 and c. 1500

Modern English - this refers to the varieties of English spoken after about 1500