Talk:Etymology of London

message: In Alistair Moffat's The Sea Kingdoms (which I've read but don't own) he says London could have derived from the Celtic God Lugh. He claims a similar derivation for Ludgate and Lyon.
81.159.232.216 (talk) 11:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the hint. That's very interesting, because in this paper Michael Witzel casually mentions Lugdunum 'town of the god Lug' as the form that London is supposed to derived from, however, without giving a source, unfortunately. I've been wondering where that idea comes from, and I still don't get how he can take London < Lugdunum (without asterisk!) 'town of the god Lug' for granted even though Londinium is the attested ancient name of the city. That derivation isn't exactly obvious. Why did he feel no need to cite that opinion or give any hint towards the provenance of the idea? For, as far as I know, it is hardly the standard explanation, it was total news to me (independent of the fact that it is not mentioned in this article), it conflicts with the attested name, it is incompatible with the known sound developments, and I'm at a loss how, in the face of all those problems, which – while perhaps not absolutely excluding the explanation – make it quite unexpected and surprising, Witzel saw no need to address those points and acted as if the derivation given was the communis opinio. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:39, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

text: Also, the original (Insular) Celtic form would have been *Lugudūnon. I suspect that Witzel simply doesn't know his Celtic well ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Lugh's relevance to Lyon is well known, but I think the other suggestions are unfounded speculation. --ColinFine (talk) 23:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. Goes to show that you can't even take an eminent scholar's word for granted when it comes to questions even slightly outside their field of expertise. I can see such a casual remark being used as a "reliable source" – brr. But you can't just follow sources blindly! Expert knowledge is indispendable and cannot be replaced by simply listing opinions found in presumably reliable sources. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Lugh

message: I feel like it's worth mentioning that the French, Spanish, and Portuguese name for London is Londres. Is it possible that the etymologies are intertwined? Anyone have any resources on possible etymologies for that name? fr:Londres doesn't seem to have one--or at least, an attempt to find "etym" failed. D. F. Schmidt (talk) 04:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The etymologies are certainly the same; e.g. Spanish Londres will descend from Londinium by essentially the same change by which nombre "name" descends from Latin nomen, nominis.  Anyway this throws no light on the Londinium question. 4pq1injbok (talk) 10:53, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Londres 

message: I know this doesn't just involve these two articles but still, this is where I noticed it. I noticed in the articles London and England, Etymology of London and Toponymy of England, the terms used are, Toponomy for England and Etymology for London, is there a reason why these are different, why is the same term not used. I am mainly curious as I am writing an article on a small place in London, and wondered whether I should use the word Etymology or Toponomy for the section on the origin of that place name, I looked at these articles to see what the bigger better articles use, now I'm just confused as some use one and others the other one. I skip read the articles on Etymology and Toponomy and as I thought the first is origin of words, any words I presume, and the second is the origin of place names, so either could be said to be right, but which one should one prefer?  Carlwev  20:34, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Toponomy or Etymology?

message: Nowhere do I find a wordlist or dictionary that says Proto-Indo-European *lendh- has the meaning "to sink, to subdue". It is certainly not in Pokorny, nor can I find it anywhere else. So far as Londinium is concerned, *lendh- meaning "heath, open land, wild land' is sufficient to explain matters. And it may be that an adjective *londos arose out of the "wild land" sense. Can anyone show a serious source that says that *lendh- has a form that means "to sink or subdue"?  Arrecife (talk) 21:42, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to check the source cited, Peter Schrijver's book. Dudley Miles (talk) 23:00, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''*lend<sup>h</sup>-'' 

message: For this kind of article non-english words or suffixes really need translations. Plowonida for example. or the suffix -on-jon whatever that may mean. Firestar47 (talk) 22:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing translations