The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #48402   Message #727028
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
10-Jun-02 - 12:28 PM
Thread Name: Folklore: pre-English placenames
Subject: RE: pre-english placenames
The country is full of them, giving the lie to those who imagine that the Angles, Saxons and so on somehow "drove the Britons into the extreme West". Continuity of names for geographical features (which they mainly are in England, settlements being more usually named in English or its earlier forms) implies a degree of continuity of culture also.

The Scottish parallel would be placenames of Pictish (there are plenty) rather than Gaelic derivation, as (unless memory fails; my history books are still in boxes) Gaelic- and English- speaking immigration to what we now call Scotland was largely contemporaneous, though in the early days the Gaelic influence was undoubtedly greater.