How Countries in the British Isles Got Their Names

[rothaer]

Referring to the ending "wik" you mention:
Braunschweig = Brunswick is in Lower Saxony btw.

Absolutely. As for the wik names it's shown by the map.

Other maps do show a somewhat different pic, some of them showing notably connections to Flanders and Northern France. This is all no contradiction because such a map shows what connections there are but a connection per se does not exclude additional connections so this topic has to be enlightened on a broad scale. But regarding the number of dots in England representing wik names this is, however, among the more important connections.

[rothaer]

(...)

Likely much of the Rhine mouth area was tribally Saxon as well at that time. Tellingly, the expansion of the Franks to the Sea coinceeded with that Saxon mass emigration to Albion. It was at abt. 450 AD.

Who knows, maybe the last future Englishmen at that time already experienced a little Dunkirk at Dunkirk.

It looks like a Frankish aimed blow in the direction of Kalen (Calais) and Dünkirchen (Dunkirk), likely promoted by a notable power collaps particularly there (arrow added by me) due to the emigration. Which in turn likely promoted the emigration of remaining Saxons.

[Mingle]

It’s a funny thing as we actually apply diametrally opposite approaches on this tribe question. While you do what you elaborated I follow as a provocant working hypothesis to question if there were at all tribal Angles in England and not all just Saxons (and a few Eotas). Background is that angle is not just a tribe name but a Germanic productive word that means an angle, corner, and that could emerge independently by the usage of Germanic language.

If tribal Angles are proved for Britain, I’d be absolutely fine with that as well.

This kind of logic can be applied to almost any tribe if you go back far enough, Saxons included. They started off as generic words and over time became ethnic-tribal identities.

Angle/Engle - Fish-hook
Saxon - Knife
Jute - Giant
Frank - Axe

In Old English; they used the words Angelcynn, Angeltheod ('English Nation'), and Angelfolc. And they called their language Englisc. All these words point to English being an ethnic identity (which would've emerged out of a tribal one) regardless of the etymology of the word.

By the way, the earliest source I can find distinguishing the nations of post-Germanic Britain is from Procopius in the mid-6th century and he doesn't mention Saxons as living in England.

"The island of Britain is inhabited by three very populous nations, each ruled by a king. And the names of these nations are the Angiloi, Frisians, and, after the island, Britons."

It's interesting he mentions Frisians over the others when they're traditionally considered the smallest Germanic tribe of England. Quite a contrast with what Bede wrote two centuries after Procopius.

Here's a quote from a historian on the Roman misusage of 'Saxon':


To be clear, I think Saxons were a real tribe just like the Angles. It's just that their name was misused by the Romans for West Germanics in general (a tradition later adopted by Insular Celts from the Romans).

Unfortunately I don’t find it now(I should be able to find a source, though) but I want to make clear my statement:

1. There was a litte Germanic tribe called Eotas at the Rhine mouth.
2. The archaeological material culture of the Germanic settlers in areas that traditionally are considered settled by Jutes (f. i. East Kent) show more Roman influence than those considered settled by non-Jutes.

As for the latter I found this in the English Wikipedia (emphasis by me):

"Although not all historians accept Bede's scheme for the settlement of Britain into Anglian, Jutish and Saxon areas as perfectly accurate,[36] the archaeological evidence indicates that the peoples of west Kent were culturally distinct from those in the east of Kent, with west Kent sharing the 'Saxon' characteristics of its neighbours in the south east of England.[37] Brooches and bracteates found in east Kent, the Isle of Wight and southern Hampshire showed a strong Frankish and North Sea influence from the mid-fifth century to the late sixth century compared to north German styles found elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon England.[39][37][40] There is discussion about who crafted the jewellery (found in the archaeological sites of Kent). Suggestions include crafts people who had been trained in the Roman workshops of northern Gaul or the Rhineland. It is also possible that those artisans went on to develop their own individual style.[41] By the late 6th century grave goods indicate that west Kent had adopted the distinctive east Kent material culture.[37]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jutes


I agree that a neighborhood would make sense and also this is pointing against an origin of the immigrants in Jutland. Because many if not most of the Saxons or what was called Saxons came from just across the English channel.

I found this in the German Wikipedia article on the Saxon Shore:

„In Britannien eingewanderte germanische Stämme haben zum Teil früher an den Rheinmündungen, um Bononia (Boulogne-sur-Mer) oder im Gebiet des bis heute unbekannten Grannona (entweder bei Granville oder Port-en-Bessin-Huppain) gesiedelt, auch dort wurde diese Region als litus Saxonicum, als eine von den Stammesangehörigen der Sachsen bewohnte Küste bezeichnet.[5“

„Translation: Some of the Germanic tribes that migrated into Britain had previously settled at the mouths of the Rhine, around Bononia (Boulogne-sur-Mer) or in the area of Grannona (either near Granville or Port-en-Bessin-Huppain), which is still unknown today; this region was also referred to as litus Saxonicum, a coast inhabited by the Saxon tribesmen.[5“

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachsenk%C3%BCste

Also, the onomast (place name linguist) Jürgen Udolph has examined what Germanic name types show up where and came to the conclusion that the imported to Britain Germanic place name types do not have their corresponding sources in Jutland and Schleswig-Holstein but in more continental Germania and among that pretty much in Flanders and in Northern France.

Maybe you can access this article of his in English:

https://benjamins.com/catalog/cilt.321.02udo

I have it in German as a PDF file. Another pic is this showing the distribution of wik place names.

Interesting. So I guess there would've been two large waves of migration from Mainland Europe to Britain, both would've been: Schleswig-Holstein > Rhine Mouth > Saxon Shore > Britain. But the second wave wouldn't have been as Roman influenced, and I think should have been on a smaller scale unlike what the article above states. 🤔

So in the Wikipedia article you cited, they seem to be right about the cultural divide mainly in the southern coast of England, but toponymic and runic linguistic evidence shows that most of England's early settlements are connected to the mouth of the Rhine rather than deeper in the mainland or Schleswig-Holstein:


I got the above image from here, it has lots of interesting discussion on the topic with a focus on Frisians:
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/6655463...2_Frisians.pdf

Tribal Angles doubtlessly existed. They likely made up one of two important sources of the new tribe of Thuringians. When Charlemagne ordered to write up the tribal law of Thuringians (there had been a serious uprising in Thuringia against the Frankish rule after in a marriage context the Thuringian law had been not applied in favour of the Frankish law - it was likely just a pretext for the uprising but nevertheless) this was done and one old copy of the „Lex Thurgingorum“ does wear the title „Lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum“. You also have place names that refer to the Angles tribe name in Thuringia like Westerengel and Kirchengel.

Thanks for the info.

This comparison does not prove a relative linguistic distance to (Low) Saxon, because you here do compare „Anglo-Saxon“ to itself and, of course, that relation is always closer.

What?!

Mainland Saxons (modern speakers of Low Saxon) should be the same as the Saxons of Anglo-Saxon England just like the Frisians of modern Frisia are the same as the Frisians of Anglo-Saxon England. But the modern Saxon language is more distantly related to modern English than modern Frisian is, which shows the Old Saxon influence on the development of Old English was weak.

It’s commonly accepted among scholars that the Frisians essentially are not derived from the antique Frisii but from later Germanics that are considered tribally Saxons.

From the English Wikipedia article (emphasis by me), and the last contradicting sentence I just quote as well as for completeness:

„Final demise of the ancient Frisii

The emperor Constantius Chlorus campaigned successfully against several Germanic peoples during the internecine civil wars that brought him to sole power over the Roman Empire. Among them were the Frisii and Chamavi, who were described in the Panegyrici Latini (Manuscript VIII) as being forced to resettle within Roman territory as laeti (i.e., Roman-era serfs) in c. 296.[23] This is the last reference to the ancient Frisii in the historical record. However, they appear once more, now in the archaeological record. The discovery of a type of pottery unique to 4th century Frisia known as Tritzum earthenware shows that an unknown number of them were resettled in Flanders and Kent under the aforementioned Roman coercion.[24]

If there were any Frisii left in Frisia, they fell victim to the whims of nature, civil strife and piracy. After several hundred years of favorable conditions, the natural environment in the low-lying coastal regions of northwestern Europe began to deteriorate c. 250 AD and gradually worsened over the next 200 years. Rising sea levels and storm surges combined to flood some areas. Many deserted village sites were silted over. The situation was probably aggravated by a shift to a cooler, wetter climate in the region as well as by the introduction of malaria and other epidemic diseases.[25][26][27][28][29]

In the 3rd and 4th centuries the population of Frisia steadily decreased, and by the 5th century it dropped dramatically. Archaeological surveys indicate that only small pockets of the original population stayed behind (e.g. in the Groningen coastal marshes).[30] The coastal lands remained largely unpopulated for the next one or two centuries. As soon as conditions improved, Frisia received an influx of new settlers, mostly from regions later characterized as Saxon, and these would eventually be referred to as 'Frisians', though they were not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii. It is these 'new Frisians' who are largely the ancestors of the medieval and modern Frisians.[5] Their Old Frisian language, however, was more intricately related to Old English spoken by their relatives settling abroad, than to the Old Saxon language spoken by the people staying behind in Germany.

Arguing against the replacement theory, recent excavations in the coastal dunes of Kennemerland show clear indication of a permanent habitation.[31][32] „

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisii

It's being debated still, read the last line I colored in green from your own source. I also heard that there was a significant degree of population continuity in West Friesland (modern North Holland) compared to other regions of Friesland.

Regardless, I agree there was 'Anglo-Saxon' migration to modern Frisia, but the pre-migration people of Frisia may have already spoken an Ingvaeonic language since they neighbored other Ingvaeonic tribes before the migrations even if there is little to no continuity.

And as I said before, 'Saxon' was used very loosely, so I wouldn't say they're tribally Saxons, maybe closer to Saxons than to the original Frisii, maybe not. The original Frisii, modern Frisians, and Saxons were all North Sea Germanics/Low Germans anyways with no important linguistic differences until centuries later.

---

A bit off topic, but related to the Frisians and Saxons of North Germany, do you know why the Saxon-speaking Frisians of East Frisia identify as Frisian when they speak a [Low] Saxon dialect? Why didn't they lose Frisian identity and adopt Saxon identity after their assimilation into Saxon culture?

[Mingle]

Referring to the ending "wik" you mention:
Braunschweig = Brunswick is in Lower Saxony btw.

This is an Anglicisation of the German name by the way, it should be Brunswich in English. -wich is the English equivalent as seen in names like Norwich, Woolwich, Greenwich, Harwich, etc. It's the same as the Vik in Viking (called Wiching in Old English).

[rothaer]

A bit off topic, but related to the Frisians and Saxons of North Germany, do you know why the Saxon-speaking Frisians of East Frisia identify as Frisian when they speak a [Low] Saxon dialect? Why didn't they lose Frisian identity and adopt Saxon identity after their assimilation into Saxon culture?

To my perception they don't really identify as Frisians but as Ostfriesen as the inhabitants of Ostfriesland and a regional identity within the Lower Saxon speakers. Still (Lower) Saxons are a too big entity for being referred to by all of its inhabitants. Although tribal Saxons, also Oldenburger, Ditmarsians, Holsatians and Westphalians f. i. do identify primarily as belonging to these entities rather than referring to being Saxons (which is no contradiction). The Ostfriesen were picked as the ones in Germany that you do make stupidity jokes of, implying that they are very stupid. I've no clue how this came and I also see no stupidity-related reason. Maybe they behaved in a proud way that gave others the motivation to start teasing them. I really don't know. However, this "attack" on them may have forced them to relate to being Ostfriesen and by that have contributed to strengthen their respective self-awareness.

Maybe #Oda# , an Eastphalian that does not even expand her primary identity to the whole of Eastphalia, can contribute and/or correct me.

[#Oda#]

This is an Anglicisation of the German name by the way, it should be Brunswich in English. -wich is the English equivalent as seen in names like Norwich, Woolwich, Greenwich, Harwich, etc. It's the same as the Vik in Viking (called Wiching in Old English).

There's also an almost forgotten ancient Germanic first-name Wichmann.

[#Oda#]

To my perception they don't really identify as Frisians but as Ostfriesen as the inhabitants of Ostfriesland and a regional identity within the Lower Saxon speakers. Still (Lower) Saxons are a too big entity for being referred to by all of its inhabitants. Although tribal Saxons, also Oldenburger, Ditmarsians, Holsatians and Westphalians f. i. do identify primarily as belonging to these entities rather than referring to being Saxons (which is no contradiction). The Ostfriesen were picked as the ones in Germany that you do make stupidity jokes of, implying that they are very stupid. I've no clue how this came and I also see no stupidity-related reason. Maybe they behaved in a proud way that gave others the motivation to start teasing them. I really don't know. However, this "attack" on them may have forced them to relate to being Ostfriesen and by that have contributed to strenghen their respective self-awareness.

Maybe #Oda# , an Eastphalian that does not even expand her primary identity to the whole of Eastphalia, can contribute and/or correct me.

Well, I also don't have really a clue and maybe you are right with your explanation, however, I guess there must be something more about it.

[rothaer]

This kind of logic can be applied to almost any tribe if you go back far enough, Saxons included. They started off as generic words and over time became ethnic-tribal identities.

Angle/Engle - Fish-hook
Saxon - Knife
Jute - Giant
Frank - Axe

In Old English; they used the words Angelcynn, Angeltheod ('English Nation'), and Angelfolc. And they called their language Englisc. All these words point to English being an ethnic identity (which would've emerged out of a tribal one) regardless of the etymology of the word.

By the way, the earliest source I can find distinguishing the nations of post-Germanic Britain is from Procopius in the mid-6th century and he doesn't mention Saxons as living in England.

"The island of Britain is inhabited by three very populous nations, each ruled by a king. And the names of these nations are the Angiloi, Frisians, and, after the island, Britons."

It's interesting he mentions Frisians over the others when they're traditionally considered the smallest Germanic tribe of England. Quite a contrast with what Bede wrote two centuries after Procopius.

Here's a quote from a historian on the Roman misusage of 'Saxon':


To be clear, I think Saxons were a real tribe just like the Angles. It's just that their name was misused by the Romans for West Germanics in general (a tradition later adopted by Insular Celts from the Romans).

I’ve no real objections towards that thought and the Procopius quote was unknown to me.

Your thoughts can be supported by that the Roman Saxon Shore was on both sides of the English Channel, i. e. also in Britain, and that this termonological fixation already may have introduced the Saxon name in Britain as a general name for Germanics.

Another thing is that the Saxon tribe anyhow was a new tribe and nobody knows how it at all emerged and found together. There was not even a common king among (Low) Saxons. Only in periods of war a common leader was installed. Prior known tribes as Chauki, Frisii, Angrivarii, Brukteri and Tubanti etc. likely merged to a new tribe of Saxons. Whether there earlier had been a small core of tribal Saxons is unclear. Nothing is known of such a tribe and the early and singleton mentioning at Ptolmy is likely no mentioning of them. Translated from the German Wikipedia article on Saxons:

„Ptolemy probably originally wrote "ΑΒΙΟΝΕΣ" (pronounced Aviones), which was changed to "ΣΑΞΟΝΕΣ" (pronounced Saxones) by later transcribers. In the majority of manuscripts, the word Saxony is also not found, but an intermediate form "ΑΞΟΝΕΣ" (pronounced Axones)[6].“

It has to be considered that also the Alemanns, the Thuringians, the Bavarians and the Franks were previously not existing Germanic tribes that had emerged through re-groupings and mergings of other tribes.

I think that we even have to expand our imagination to the point where it’s not a matter of fact if some folks are Saxons, but a matter of opinion or common sense. And such views may have been uncertain for quite a while. I read the text that allegendly was spoken when the Frankish king Chlodowech I was baptised. In spite of that the Franks had exited for quite a while there was said „bow your head, Sugambrian“. I was astounded when I read that a long time ago and looked it up and the Sugambrians was one of the smaller tribes that had merged to become Franks. But in the view of traditional and knowledgeable social classes the Frankish king was remembered to have emerged out of Sugambrian family, hence being in fact a Sugambrian.

Resembling conditions may have been regarding the understanding who was a Saxon and who not. Tribal Angles may have been part of the new tribe of Saxons like they were a part of the new tribe of Thuringians. By emigration they left the political sphere of the continental Saxon tribal confederation which may have re-made them Angles. Like among recently emigrating to Germany Turks after Turkish-Kurdish conflicts more and more exhibited themselvs as Kurds resulting in that there are abt. 500.000 Kurds in Germany in spite of that they immigrated under the Turk label.

Interesting. So I guess there would've been two large waves of migration from Mainland Europe to Britain, both would've been: Schleswig-Holstein > Rhine Mouth > Saxon Shore > Britain. But the second wave wouldn't have been as Roman influenced, and I think should have been on a smaller scale unlike what the article above states.

So in the Wikipedia article you cited, they seem to be right about the cultural divide mainly in the southern coast of England, but toponymic and runic linguistic evidence shows that most of England's early settlements are connected to the mouth of the Rhine rather than deeper in the mainland or Schleswig-Holstein:


I got the above image from here, it has lots of interesting discussion on the topic with a focus on Frisians:
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/6655463...2_Frisians.pdf

Thanks, very interesting and I read almost all.

I agree to much, in particular also to that there may have been a not really tribally defined continuum of North Sea Germanic speakers.

Completely new to me was that the North Frisians are said to be strongly diveded between those on the big islands and those on the halligs and at the coast. I never heard of that before. To my information it was undisputed that they all are later immigrants from Frisland in the Netherlands.

That were interesting thoughts whether one of the groups in fact was a remnant of such continental „Anglo-Frisians“. In contrast to what is said in the article, the fact that the Jutlanders did not also exhibit common linguistic innovations is no hurdle to that idea. Because the Jutlanders linguistically are immigrated (in the 6th century) North Germanic speaking Danes from the Danish islands and Scania. They linguistically replaced likely West Germanic speaking Jutes. This is why you have no Germanic dialect continuum at the German-Danish border.

Interesting is also the find of where runic inscriptions were found in Britain and how that geographically stunningly is concordant with the claimed settlement area of Angles and Jutes.

The author’s question mark on the essentially only late runic inscriptions in the Alemannic area in spite of that they had been there since centuries without such inscriptions is very legit. Just some days ago I by chance read about that and it was told by scholars that there is assumed a connection with the Thurigian empire having beed destructen and conquered by Franks (and likely Saxons) in 531/534 AD and that that event removed a prior barrier. As the Franks acted unusually harschly towards the Thuringians, I also consider the possibility of Thuringian refugees. And if you consider that prior tribal Angles are said to have been one of the main components of Thuringians the showing of of runes is not that surprising anymore.

As I earlier said, the Angles and the Warini are said to be the core Thuringians. Both had been connected to the southern Jutland peninsula, however, archaeology suggests so, and they had been living in Holstein (Angles) and Mecklenburg (Warini) before they moved to Thuringia.

Mainland Saxons (modern speakers of Low Saxon) should be the same as the Saxons of Anglo-Saxon England just like the Frisians of modern Frisia are the same as the Frisians of Anglo-Saxon England. But the modern Saxon language is more distantly related to modern English than modern Frisian is, which shows the Old Saxon influence on the development of Old English was weak.

I tend to the aforementioned understanding that Anglo-Frisians where just a part of what operated under the Saxon label. So if we today look at Old Saxon, then this is just the more remote from the sea part of what once acted under the label of Saxons. The (new) Frisians are another part. Resembling what I stated regarding today’s Ostfriesen, the new Frisians at that time likely essentially were also Frisia-land Saxons. But maybe of another tribal main ancestry than the inland Saxons.

What we both say - you say the Saxon label in a close post-Roman era war applied to all Germanics in a Britain context and I say that the Saxon tribe confederation likely even first also contained all those folks - is compatible with that.

It's being debated still, read the last line I colored in green from your own source. I also heard that there was a significant degree of population continuity in West Friesland (modern North Holland) compared to other regions of Friesland.

Regardless, I agree there was 'Anglo-Saxon' migration to modern Frisia, but the pre-migration people of Frisia may have already spoken an Ingvaeonic language since they neighbored other Ingvaeonic tribes before the migrations even if there is little to no continuity.

Agreed to that assumption.

And as I said before, 'Saxon' was used very loosely, so I wouldn't say they're tribally Saxons, maybe closer to Saxons than to the original Frisii, maybe not. The original Frisii, modern Frisians, and Saxons were all North Sea Germanics/Low Germans anyways with no important linguistic differences until centuries later.

I agree and can sign that.

[rothaer]

There's also an almost forgotten ancient Germanic first-name Wichmann.

But that wich comes from wig (fight). Like in Hedwig/Hedwich, Hartwig/Hartwich, Ludwig/Clodowech etc., cf. also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Viggen

In contrast to this the Germanic wik means settlement, via an old IE commonality related to Latin vicus.

The Viking name is likely derived from another word, a North Germanic word vik, that means bay. In earlier times the big bay south of Olso was called simply Viken (the bay) and also in Sweden there is a lake that has a shape that caused it to get the name Viken. http://www.skaraborgsleder.se/kanotn...ng__viken.html

[Andullero]

Wales comes from Old Saxon: "Weelas", meaning foreigners.

Used to mean Latin speaker too.