Robert Ferguson

“ We might pursue the subject still further, and enquire whether the secondary forms, such as sar, sal, car, cal, all having the same general meaning, to move, to go, may not be formed, by the prefix of a consonant, on the roots ar and al, and so also be ultimately referred to the simple root î or â.
As also the silent and ceaseless flow of water is the most natural and the most common emblem of the efflux of time; so in the same root is to be found the origin of many of the words which mean time and eternity. ”

“ In the case of a descriptive name we may be sure that it has been given—not from any fine-drawn attribute, but from some obvious characteristic—not from anything which we have to seek, but from something which, as the French say, "saute aux yeux." If a stream be very rapid and impetuous—if its course be winding and tortuous—if its waters be very clear or very turbid—these are all marked features which would naturally give it a name. ”

“ There is no branch of philological enquiry which demands a wider range than that of the origin of the names of rivers. All trace of a name may be lost in the language in which it was given—we may have to seek for its likeness through the whole Indo-European family—and perhaps not find it till we come at last to the parent Sanscrit. ”

“ The idea of a river as a protection or as a boundary seems to indicate a more settled state of society, and therefore not to belong to the earliest order of nomenclature. And consequently, though this chapter is not quite so bad as the well-known one "Concerning Owls," in Horrebow's Natural History of Iceland, the sum and substance of which is that "There are no owls of any kind in the whole Island"—it will be seen that the number of names is very small in which such a meaning is to be traced. ”

“ An allied Celtic word is found as the ending of many British river-names, as the Conway, the Medway, the Muthvey, the Elwy, &c. Hence I take to be the following, in the sense of water or river.
An allied form to the above is found in Sansc. vi, vîc, to move, Lat. via, &c., and to which I put the following.
Formed on the root vi, to move, is probably also the Sansc. vip or vaip, to move, to agitate, Latin vibrare, perhaps vivere, Old Norse vippa, vipra, gyrare, Eng. viper, &c. I cannot trace in the following the sense of rapidity, which we might suspect from the root. ”

“ The rivers themselves hardly seem to bear out the special idea of smoothness, which we might be apt to infer from the root, and from the character of the mythological river Lethe.
From the Sansc. nî, to move, comes nîran, water, corresponding with the Mod. Greek νερόν of the same meaning. And that the Greek word is no new importation into that language, we may judge by the name of Nereus, a water-god, the son of Neptune. The Gr. ναω, fluo, the Gael. nigh, to bathe, to wash, and the Obs. Gael. near, water, a river, show a close relationship; the Heb. nhar, a river, also seems to be allied. ”

“ Though Gluck is a writer for whose opinion I have great respect, and though this is the principle for which I myself have been all along contending, yet I am rather inclined to think that in Danuvius, as in Conovius (the Conway) , there is contained a definite appellative, qualified by a prefixed adjective: this seems to me to be brought out more clearly [117] in the Medway, and in the names connected with it.
The word Ister, which, according to Zeuss, is the Thracian name of the Danube, I have elsewhere referred to the Armorican ster, a river. ”

“ While in the Gaelic we find tain, and the Obs. ta, water, taif, sea—in the Welsh we have the verbs taenu and tafu, to expand or spread. The latter, I think, must contain the root-meaning; and the appellatives must rather signify water of a spreading character. In this sense we find the words to, tû, tau, in the Hungarian dialects signifying a lake. The Sansc. has tan, to extend, but we must presume a simpler form ta, corresponding with the above Obs. Gael. word for water. [134] Mone explains tab, as in Tabuda (the Scheldt) , as "a broad river, especially one with a broad mouth." ”

“ I think that Donaldson and Mone are unquestionably wrong in making the name of this river Rho-dan-us, from a word dan, water. Still more unreasonable is a derivation in the Cod. Vind., from roth, violent, and dan, Celt. and Hebr. a judge! On this Zeuss (Gramm. Celt.) remarks—"The syllable an of the word Rhodanus is without doubt only derivative, and we have nothing here to do with a judge; nevertheless the meaning violent (currens, rapidus,) is not to [95] be impugned." The word in question seems to be found in Welsh rhedu, to run, to race, Gael. ”

“ For the word does not stand alone—the prefix med is [124] found in several names in which the second part can hardly be taken to mean poculum, and the ending way is found in several names of which the former part cannot mean mulsum. In any case, it seems to me that a Saxon derivation can hardly be sustained. For Medoăcus, (=Medwacus) , occurs as the ancient name of a river in Venetia—this appears to be precisely the same name as that of the Medwag or Medway—and in Venetia we can account for a Celtic element, but not for a German. ”

“ Hence we may take the names Stry and Streu. But is the form Stur from this source also? Förstemann finds an etymon in Old High German stur, Old Norse stôr, great. This may obtain in the case of some of the rivers of Scandinavia, but is hardly suited for those of England and Italy, none of which are large. The root, moreover, seems too widely spread, if, as I suspect, it is this which forms the ending of many ancient names as the Cayster, the Cestrus, the Alster, Elster, Ister, Danastris, &c. The Armorican ster, a river, seems to be the word most nearly concerned. ”

“ Allied to the last word is the Eng. race, and the many cognate words in the Indo-European languages which have the sense of rapid motion, as Welsh rhysu, &c.
From the Gael. garbh, Welsh garw, violent, Armstrong derives the name of the Garonne and other rivers. [39] The root seems [97] to be found in Sansc. karv or karp, Latin carpo, &c., implying violent action. The Lat. carpo is applied by the poets to denote rapid progress, as of a river, through a country. So likewise more metaphorically to the manner in which a bold and steep mountain rises from the valley. ”

“ There are a number of river-names in which the sense of clearness, brightness, or transparency is to be traced. From the Sansc. cand, to shine, Lat. candeo, Welsh, Ir. Arm., and Obs. Gael. can, white, clear, pure, we get the following. But the Gael. and Ir., caoin, soft, gentle, is a word liable to intermix.
The Old Celtic word vind, found in many ancient names of persons and places, as Vindo, Vindus, Vindanus, [59] Vindobona, Vindobala, &c., represents the present Welsh gwyn (=gwynd) , and the Ir. finn (=find) , white. "The Celt. vind," observes Gluck, "comes from the same root as the Goth. ”

“ The root, I apprehend, like that of most other river-names, is to be found in a verb signifying to move, to go—the Sansc. ar, ir or ur, Lat. ire, errare, &c. And we are not without an additional trace of the sense we want, as the Basque has ur, water, errio, a river, and the Hung. has er, a brook. The [39] sense of swiftness, as found in Sansc. ara, may perhaps intermix in the following names. But there is also a word of precisely opposite meaning, the Gael. ”

“ In an account of the hydrography of Lanarkshire, for which I am indebted to the kindness of a Friend, there is a burn called Galawhistle, which compares with the above Old Norse Vana-quisl. In connection with the Vistula Jornandes introduces a river Viscla, which has been generally considered to be merely another form of the same word—Reichard [64] being, as I believe, the only writer who considers it to be a different river. ”

“ The German Ise shows a simple root, and the Germ. Is (ar) , Is (en) , Eng. Is (is) , Dutch Yss (el) , Russ. Iss (et) , shew the same with five different endings. So we have in England the Tame, the Tam (ar) , and the Tham (es) , &c. The question is—what is the value and meaning of these various additions? [11]
With respect to the ending in a, found in some English rivers, there is reason to think that it is a word signifying water—the Old Norse â, Goth. ahva, Lat. aqua, &c. So that the a in Rotha may be the same as the a in the Norwegian Beina and the Swedish Tornea—as the au in the Germ. ”

“ For we may take it as a certain rule that no word, itself a compound, forms other compounds in ancient names. Indeed, the last of the five names, Irminher, (which is found as early as the 7th cent.) , is formed from the word her, army, so that, according to the above theory, it would be Her-mann-her. The fact then, as I take it, is that, both in the names of rivers and of men, the root is simply arm or irm, and armin or irmin an extended form, like those found all throughout these pages. ”

“ Of a corresponding meaning with the Saxon name Blythe may be the Avoca or Ovoca of Wicklow, the Oboka of Ptolemy. Baxter refers it to Welsh awchus, acer, a word of no very cheerful association for the spot where
"Nature has spread o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal, and brightest of green."
The Gael. abhach, blithe, sportive, would seem to give a better etymon for the bright waters of Avoca. Whether the Ocker of Germany (ant. Obocra, Ovocra, Ovokare) , may be derived from the same word I do not know sufficient to judge. ”

“ Such being the case, though in one point of view they may be called phonetic, as adding nothing to the sense, yet in another point of view they may be called formative, as being the particles by means of which words are constructed out of simple roots. And of the names in the following pages, a great part, in some language, or in some dialect, are still living words. And those that are not, are formed regularly upon the same principle, common to the Indo-European system. ”

“ So the Saone also was anciently known both as the Arar and the Sauconna—the latter, according to Zeuss, being its [3] Celtic name. And Latham, (Tacitus, Germania,) makes a similar suggestion respecting the Rhine—"It is not likely that the Batavians of Holland, and the Helvetians of Switzerland, gave the same name to the very different parts of their common river." ”

“ From the Gael. scar, sgar, Welsh ysgar, Ang.-Sax. scêran, to divide, in the sense of boundary, may be the following. The small [162] river Scarr in Dumfriesshire forms for six miles a boundary between different parishes. [65]
Any names in which the sense of land, terra, occurs, may, I think, be explained most reasonably in the sense of boundary or territorial division. ”

“ But the Gael. and Ir. malda, malta, gentle, slow, Anglo-Sax. milde, Eng. mild, may be perhaps more suitable: the Mulde, which joins the Elbe, and which in the 8th cent. appears as Milda, seems more probably from this origin. [163]
The Bord (au) , formerly Bordine, which forms for some distance the boundary between East and West Friesland, may, as suggested by Förstemann, be derived from Old Fries. and Anglo-Saxon bord, border. Another river of the same name (p. 33) may perhaps be otherwise derived. ”