Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/404

 332

NOTES AND QUERIES. m a. v. APRIL 27, 1912.

The ' Jewish Encyclopaedia,' vol. v., 1903, has an article of about two columns (with illustrations) on ""etrog " (as the word is there spelt), and defines it as the citron (KiTpov). The " etrog," we are told, is used with the " lulab " at the Feast of Booths, or Sukkot. It is one of the fruits suggested as having been the forbidden fruit of which Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden. FREDK. A. EDWARDS.

[MB. ISRAEL SOLOMONS and MB. H. DABLEY EVANS are also thanked for replies. The latter refers to Tristram's ' Natural History of the Bible ' for a bibliography of the subject.]

THE THAMES (11 S. v. 45, 225). I think most people will agree with PROF. SKEAT that "it is safest to say that we do not know what Tamesis really meant," but it would be interesting to know his reasons for stating it is " probable " this form is of Celtic origin. The tendency of his note is to show that it is difficult, if not impossible, to associate it with a Celtic root.

The Celtic names of rivers, such as Avon, Exe, Usk, Dee, Derwent (Darenth, Dart)^ are usually simple and direct, and there is no ambiguity about their meaning. The names of the French rivers are largely Celtic, and this quality is also found in them. The Celts, however, were not the original inhabitants of either France or Britain, and for the names of several rivers in both coun- tries I think we must go back to an earlier race. I believe the word Tarn or Tern to be Ur-Aryan, for it can hardly be attached to Iberian or Basque. I hold it to be distinct from Tarn.

The termination in Tam-esis was probably given by the Celts, perhaps to distinguish the large and important river from those now known as the Thame, Teme, and pos- sibly Tamar. It is analogous to the water, bourn, or brook which the Angles and Saxons often tacked on to the Celtic names of streams.

Some of the largest rivers in this country, as well as on the Continent, may be referred to this primeval tongue. Among these w^T? Sevem which, though possessing a Welsh name, is certainly not of Celtic origin Its root is Sam or Sab, and it is related to the French Sambre.

The study of river-names is a fascinating pursuit, and, if scientifically worked up, might lead to important historical generaliza- tions. In this direction no one in England seems to have taken up the mantle of Arbois de Jubainville. W. F. PRIDEATJX.

I rejoice in what, perhaps, I am too sanguine in hoping may prove the death- blow given by PROF. SKEAT to the proposi- tion that the name " Thames " can be explained as derived from a Celtic word signifying " quiet, still." It is very im- probable that a primitive people would apply such an epithet to the most restless feature in the landscape, nor would it be appropriate as distinguishing the Thames from among the other rivers of Southern England, which all, as a rule, run with a placid current. It is to be noted also that the quiet reaches which form such a charm- ing feature in the Thames have chiefly been created by the construction of navigation weirs and locks, which had not come into existence when speech in the Thames Valley was Celtic. While it is certain that all place-names originally had a distinctive meaning descriptive, commemorative, or (more rarely) imaginative it is difficult sometimes to dissuade those persons who are attracted to speculate on their ety- mology from sheer guessing, which only con- fuses the issue. The meaning of " Thames " must be written off for the present as insoluble. If a solution is ever reached, it will probably come by comparative analysis of other names of British rivers which appear to be variants of the same vocable.

In both the main branches of Celtic speech Brythonic and Goidhelic the con- sonant m is subject to what has been termed aspiration, by which it either acquires the sound of v or w or is practically silenced. The name of Vortigern, ruler of South- Eastern Britain in the fifth century, affords a familiar example of this process, being a Brythonic compound, mawr teyrn magnus tyrannus, great ruler.

This softening of the m suggests a common origin for a great number of British river- names similar to that of Thames : Tamar (on which stands Tiverton, i.e., Tamar town), Tavy, Teifi (the Welsh / is sounded v), Towy, Teviot, Tweed, Taw (in Wales and Devon), Tay (written Tava by Ptolemy), Teith, Teign, and Tyne (in Northumberland and East Lothian).

In the county of Linlithgow there are two small rivers still bearing their original generic name in Gaelic, though the specific suffix has been lost. The more easterly of these is the Almond, which preserves the sound of the unaspirated amain=amnis, a ' river.

The more westerly stream is called the Avon, from the aspirated form amhain, which in the west of Ireland is still further