Toponyms #1
English abounds with toponyms
– place names we use to refer to things other than the original place. I hope
you enjoy considering this smattering of toponyms.
Paisley – now a distinctive shape we print onto fabric, but
originally a town in Scotland where such fabric was first made. Interestingly,
the word paisley comes through Middle Irish from the word baslec,
which came from the Latin word basilica, which means that the town
was originally identified by its church.
Today, the word babel
refers to a confused medley of sounds,
but originally it referred to Babhel, the capital of Babylon. Babhel
is a Hebrew word that started out as Bab-ilu, an Accadian word meaning the gate of God, which causes those of
my generation to wonder what Ricky Riccardo was really singing about.
Our modern colors burgundy
& magenta are both toponyms. Burgundy was originally a
region in France named in Late Latin with the term Burgundiones, which
translates to highlanders. In time,
the wine of the area picked up the name, and the deep hue of the wine gave us
the word burgundy as it refers to color.
On the other hand, the town of Magenta was where the Sardinians
& French teamed up to fight the Austrians during the Second Italian War of
Independence in 1859. The town was originally named after Marcus Aurelius
Valerius Maxentius. It wasn’t until a few short years after the battle
that a deep reddish purple dye was discovered in that region, and voila, magenta.
Even in the 13th
century some folks (well, royalty, anyway) enjoyed relaxing at the spa.
Our modern word spa is a toponym taken from Spa,
Belgium, a town blessed with mineral hot springs. The town’s name came from the
Walloon word espa, which meant spring
or fountain.
Because many of New York’s
financial institutions ended up situated along the wall that once offered
defense to the struggling Dutch town of New York, the adjacent street was named
Wall
Street. That struggling little town has done all right for itself to the
point that we now use this toponym to refer to the entire
American financial world.
My niece & nephew
refer to those lovely plastic playgrounds some fast food restaurants offer as king
cities. Any of you here in California will easily fill in the etymology
on that one. In the meantime I’m hoping you’ll use the comments section to
suggest new toponyms we should insert into the language.
Paisley surprised me, as did spa and magenta. Paisley, down from basilica...huh.
ReplyDeleteI had always thought babel descended from the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, when God created different languages. From the Babylonian capitol? There's another shock!
LOL the Ricky Ricardo joke. Babeloo indeed. I've always thought it was hilarious that there's an Earl of Paisley. I imagined him as a hippie in paisley shirt and love beads.
ReplyDeleteActually the Biblical Tower of Babel is same as the Tower of Babylon--different versions of the same word--which was a ziggurat (I took Egyptian and Mesopotamian archaeology in college) where people spoke many languages. So you're both right.
Lots of fun stuff here, as usual.
Howdy Rachel6 & Anne -- I love the basilica/paisley transition. I suppose Anne's Earl of paisley in his love beads was worshiping at the church of the day (after a fashion), & thanks Anne for clarifying the Babhel/Babel situation.
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