Those categories are great! I wish they would use similar ones in other languages, instead of just word of the year.
Couldn’t get the post itself to onebox via Nitter, so at least here’s a non-Twitter version of the image to expand:
Neat! Unfortunately it doesn’t solve the dispute, since Roman roads are obviously based on older routes (both by virtue of the geography, and directly) and they are in use until today, so there’s no chronological information in this map.
What dispute, exactly? If those place names are indeed of Old English origin, then they must necessarily be later than the Roman roads because we know that Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain and formed Old English after the end of Roman rule. Do you mean that the place names might have originally been Latin (from via strata rather than strǣt) and just got anglicised?
Let’s say hypothesis rather than dispute. I meant that this doesn’t prove the hypothesis that Anglo-Saxon -stræt settlements were specifically built on Roman roads rather than on roads in general (most of which happened to be Roman) and that therefore the word must mean Roman road, not just road. That’s what’s posited in the original tweet:
There’s a neat idea that strǣt in Old English was still associated with specifically Roman-made roads, not yet roads in general
From the map it’s possible that -stræt settlements were just built on roads, either before the Romans were there, while they were there (in both cases, they would obviously have received their AS names later), or afterwards.
But, honestly, I am not prepared to defend this hypothesis strongly, because Occam’s razor does point to the strong association seen on the map having the most straightforward explanation (that -stræt indeed meant Roman, or at least built-up) road.
There are not many places in the Anglosphere that had a transhumance culture, and thus a need for shielings and their associated culture and words. So much so that many don’t even know that word. The Scottish Highlands are a notable exception, but they lost that tradition during the highland clearances. Still, I bet there’s a Scots Gaelic word for Almabtrieb. In the meantime “shieling cattle drive” will do.
many local words are listed.
e.g.
In Ireland, transhumance is known as “booleying”.[15] Transhumance pastures were known as buaile, variously anglicised as booley, boley, bouley or boola.
The discussion was specifically about the word for the autumnal cattle drive down from the summer pastures, and I haven’t found any words for that in my, admittedly cursory, search.
For context, the Almabtrieb is a big deal in the alpine countries both as a local celebration and a tourist draw. I don’t think it holds this place elsewhere.
My granddad called it droving. The people who did it were drovers. Galloway/ Cumbria
As I understand it that’s the general term for moving cattle from A to B.
Seems to be, my grandad had very little to do with drovers so it makes sense he’d use the generic term.
Given that the Brits practically invented Alpine tourism you’d think they’d also invented (or, more likely, borrowed) a word.
A short, funny video about “i” in English:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/irish-names-pronunciation/index.html
Grrr, why won’t you onebox?
