NAMES OF BRITISH TOWNS OR CITIES

DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE NAMES OF TOWNS OR CITIES IN BRITAIN COME FROM?

There are many towns or villages whose names contain the suffix -ford. Not only that, there is an important number of endings that get repeated over and over: -by, -ing, -ham, -bourne, -borough, -burg, etc. Why? These suffixes have a meaning.

The names of towns and cities in Great Britain reflect the history of this nation. We can find workds that come from the different languages that were spoken at a given time in the land. 

Some are Celtic in origin, others are of Latin root and most of them are Anglo-Saxon, but we cannot forget the influence of the Viking invasions, especially in the North-East of Britain. 

Let's have a look at the different name endings that have remained from the peoples that once inhabited Britain:


LATIN

The Romans stayed in Britain for several centuries, but the original inhabitants, the Celts, did not pick their language. 

However, the military influence of the Romans was so overpowering, that the names of their fortifications or “castra” have remained with different spellings. 
 Thus, we can find: Chester, Manchester, Colchester, Lancaster, Gloucester  /ˈglɒstə/, Leicester /ˈlɛstər/ etc.
From the word colonia, meaning settlement, we get the suffix -coln, as in Lincoln.
 

The element port can have two origins, the word porta, meaning gate, or the word portus, meaning harbour, thus, we can find towns inland and by the sea that contain that root: Portsmouth, Stockport. 
 
From the word strata, meaning street, we have the root strat, as in Stratford.

                                                          A fortified Roman castrum's sketch

CELTIC

Although the Celts were the oldest inhabitants, not many words of Celtic origin remain in the language. 

From the word aber, meaning mouth of a river, we have Aberistwith in Wales, and Aberdeen in Scotland, but nothing in England.
Other Celtic elements include coombe (deep valley), glen (narrow valley) and pen (hill): Coombe, Glenrothes, Penzance.


OLD ENGLISH

From the middle of the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded the British Isles. They were all Germanic tribes ad their language formed the base of the English language. Thus, the place names that contain Anglo-Saxon elements are numerous. Here are a few:

• burg, borough, bury, indicate that these places were once fortified settlements. The word derives from Germanic and can be traced in most countries in western Europe, including Spain and Portugal. Edinburgh, Marlborough and Shaftesbury are some examples.
• burna (-borne) a brook, stream: Winterborne
• dun - a hill: Ashdon (meaning hill with ash trees)
• eg (-ey) an island: Aldersey.
• ford - shallow place where water can be crossed. Oxford was originally a place where oxen used to cross the river.
• halh - a nook, corner of land, as in Bramhall
• ham - a homestead. It is found in hundreds of place names. Tottenham, Clapham, Lewisham or Nottingham are just a few examples. The “h” is silent in many of these names.
• ingas (-ing) the people of …: Charing, Kettering, Ealing. Sometimes -ing is combined with ham or tun: Birmingham, Wellington.
• leah (-ley) a clearing: Crawley.
• stede - a place, site of a building, as in Stansted.
• tun - an enclosure, farmstead, is by far the most common ending of English place names: Luton, Norton.
• well - a well, spring: Stanwell, Southwell.
• wic - a farm or settlement: Keswick, Warwick, Norwich. Notice that the “W” is silent in these place names.
• worth - an enclosure, homestead: Letchworth.

Edimburgh Fountain

OLD NORSE

The Vikings raided and finally settled in England in the 9th century, establishing the Danelaw in the North-East and East of the country. There are many Scandinavian place names, especially in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. These are the most typical endings:

• by -  a farm, then a village: Grimsby
• gil -  a ravine: Scargil
• holmr (-holm) flat ground by a river. There are many places called Holme or containing this word in their names.
• thorpe - a secondary settlement, farm: Althorpe.
• thveit (-thwaite) a meadow, a clearing: Gunthwaite.
• toft - a site of a house and outbuildings, a plot of land: Blacktoft.

Area of Danelaw

FRENCH 

After the conquest, the Normans changed very few place names in England. Most times they just added the name of the family that owned the land. Thus, Ashby-de-la-Zouch or Herstmonceaux state who their owners were in the past. 

Other French names are those beginning with Bel or Beau, meaning fair or beautiful: Beaulieu, Belgrave, Beaumont.

Richmond is also French, meaning strong hill (riche mont).

 

As you can see, the different endings or elemnts of place names give us a lot of information as to the origins and history of the place, relating it to the poeple that used to inhabit it long ago.

Richmond Castle

If you would like to know the original meaning of a place name in England, this website of the University of Nottingham can be of great help.

 

WHERE DOES THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE COME FROM?

Where does the English language come from?

Most European languages and many others from southern and western parts of Asia belong to the Indo-European group of languages, which includes languages spoken by almost three billion native speakers all around the world. Two of these are the most widely spoken languages in the world: Spanish and English, which come from different branches of the common Indo-European trunk. This picture portrays the main languages that supposedly derive from a common tongue that has disappeared. 

 

The Indo-European Branches of the Language Tree
From: Antropology.net

 As you can see, English is a Germanic tongue, but it has been largely influenced by Latin and French, and more than half its vocabulary comes from these two languages, making it as much a Germanic as a  Romance language.

The origin of English words. From Wikipedia Commons

But why has it received such a large influence of these two languages? The reason can be found in History. 

Around the 5th century AD some Germanic tribes invaded Britain. They were mostly Angles and Saxons coming from what is now Germany. They brought with them their language and did not mix with the older inhabitants of the British Isles, the Celts, who were mostly pushed towards the westernmost part of the country, a more mountainous and unassailable area where they settled and maintained their culture and language to this day: Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh are still alive and kicking, however, they have not influenced English, and very few words remain in it, many of them being place names.

Celtic languages today: green: Irish, red: Manx, blue: Scottish Gaelic, yellow: Welsh, orange: Cornish, pink: Breton

The Romans had conquered the British Isles some centuries before the Anglo-Saxons arrived, but, unlike in other parts of Europe, their language, Latin, was not widely spoken by the original inhabitants and so, once the Roman Empire fell in the 5th century, all influence of Latin died with it. However, it was much later, when the new inhabitants of the Isles became Christians when Latin became important, as it was the language of the church. Many English words such as bishop (from Latin episcopus) entered the language at this early stage. 

Latin kept on exerting some influence on the English language up to the 17th century, because it was the language of culture as teachers and students at universities used it for their studies and spoke and wrote in it. The period of the Renaissance was especially fruitful, with hundreds of words entering the language at the time and many writers, including Shakespeare, are responsible for coining new words of Latin origin.

The Anglo-Saxons suffered invasions from other Germanic tribes such as the Vikings, but the one that brought greater influence on the language was that of the Normans, a Germanic tribe that had previously settled on the north of France and had made French their language. So, when they conquered Britain in the 11th century, after the famous Battle of Hastings (1066), French became the language of the court and the nobility, and English was consigned to the popular classes and mainly spoken at home. 

The Battle of Hastings From Flemish Tapestries 

For 200 years at least French remained the language of ordinary intercourse among the upper classes in England but, eventually, it was English that became widely spoken and the use of French was restricted to some legal terms only. However, this Old English was so much influenced already by French that it is known by a different name: Middle English. That is, the original Germanic language had changed enormously in the course of two centuries losing most of the inflection and adding hundreds of new words which sound perfectly English to us, even though they are originally French. One example is the word table.

Apart from Latin and French, other languages have influenced English to a smaller extent, but that will be dealt with in another blog post!

GLOBAL WARMING - WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?
It is the gradual increase of temperatures in the surface of the Earth.

WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN?
When greenhouse gases(carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and methane)trap heat and light from the sun in the earth’s atmosphere, which increases the temperature.

WHAT DOES THIS INCREASE OF TEMPERATURES PRODUCE?
This hurts many people, animals, and plants. Many of them cannot take the change, so they die.

WHAT CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING?
Many things cause global warming. One thing that causes global warming is electrical pollution. Electricity causes pollution in many ways. In most cases, fossil fuels are burned to create electricity. Fossil fuels are made of dead plants and animals. Some examples of fossil fuels are oil and petroleum. Many pollutants (chemicals that pollute the air, water, and land) are sent into the air when fossil fuels are burned. Some of these chemicals are called greenhouse gasses.
We use these sources of energy much more than the sources that give off less pollution. Petroleum, one of the sources of energy, is used a lot. It is used for transportation, making electricity, and making many other things. Although this source of energy gives off a lot of pollution.

CAN WE STOP GLOBAL WARMING?
It is too late for that, but we can slow it down and lessen its effects. The big problem is slowing human use of fossil energy, especially coal.

THE FOLLOWING VIDEO WAS CREATED BY TWO OF MY STUDENTS IN COMERCIAL 32. WATCH IT.



 IF YOU WANT TO ENLARGE THIS VIDEO PRESENTATION, CLICK ON THE YOUTUBE LOGO ON THE RIGHT 

AFTER HAVING WATCHED THE VIDEO, CAN YOU ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?
1. What are the main consequences of global warming?
2. What are the man-made causes that produce this global warming?
3. In you opinion, can we do anything to slow down these consequences?

FINALLY, CLICK HERE AND CHECK HOW GREEN YOU ARE

ENVIRONMENT QUIZZES

1. HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?

2. CLIMATE CHANGE QUIZ

3. GOING GREEN QUIZ

4. NATURAL DISASTERS QUIZ

Some information has been retrieved from http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/global_warming.htm, and it has been adapted for this use

WHAT SHOULD I DO TO LEARN ENGLISH? SIX TIPS FOR LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Have you studied English for years and all you can now say is hello? Have you tried to speak and you mix Enlglish and Spanish? Not everything is lost. Read these tips that will help you to learn faster and easily.

1° CHOOSE A FUNNY WAY OF LEARNING: Learning a new language should be a fun adventure, not a chore. Using games is a great resource. And if you have internet at home, you can find a lot of very good material around the Internet for free!

2° PRACTISE REGULARLY: As with any skill that you are trying to learn, progress and mastery come with regular practice. A good daily routine is 10-15 minutes a day. And if you have a friend who is also learning the same foreign language than you, talk to them using that language. It will be very useful and funny.

3° REPEAT WORDS AND PHRASES OFTEN AND RECORD YOUR VOICE: Start right away with learning real language. You want to be practicing phrases and sentences that are part of a conversations that you would encounter. At first you'll feel that you are way in over your head, but you'll be surprised how quickly you improve.

4° FIND A FAVOURITE SINGER AND LISTEN TO THEIR SONGS: Sing along everytime you can. Mary McLaurin explains in her article about music-based learning: "Music exaggerates stresses [and sounds] and makes them easier to hear and understand.… It's a much more subtle way to get at the grammar and syntax.”

5° START READING FUN THINGS: For example, follow Twitter posts in the language you want to learn. Or find online news texts, etc. Reading, any kind of reading, has a huge, positive impact on second language learning. (Google now has an instant translation service for any text. The translation may be horrible, but you'll get the gist of the meaning.)

6° REINFORCE YOUR LEARNING WITH THINGS YOU ENJOY: Watch a movie from time to time, look at YouTube videos, or news videos in your new language. Find a language-exchange partner on a social networking site and start conversing via Chat or Skype.

So, what are you waiting for? Learning English has become you choice!

This article has been retrieved in October 21, 2011 from A blog About Games, Languages & Learning. Web site: www.gamesforlanguage.com.blog and it has been adapted for this use.