Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 5. Old Northumbrian in the Scottish Borders

Evidence from place-names

Abstract

Recovering the Earliest English Language in Scotland: Evidence from place-names (REELS) is a research project funded for three years by The Leverhulme Trust at the University of Glasgow: http://berwickshire-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk/. The project team is using a place-name survey of the historical county of Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders, the heartland of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Scotland from the seventh to eleventh centuries, to investigate the Northumbrian dialect of Old English and its development into Older Scots. The place-name data are being analysed for evidence of the lexis, semantics, morphology and phonology of Old Northumbrian, a language variety poorly attested in other (written and epigraphic) sources. This chapter presents some discoveries from the ongoing project, alongside a discussion of the strengths and limitations of place-name evidence in this context.

Abstract

Recovering the Earliest English Language in Scotland: Evidence from place-names (REELS) is a research project funded for three years by The Leverhulme Trust at the University of Glasgow: http://berwickshire-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk/. The project team is using a place-name survey of the historical county of Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders, the heartland of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Scotland from the seventh to eleventh centuries, to investigate the Northumbrian dialect of Old English and its development into Older Scots. The place-name data are being analysed for evidence of the lexis, semantics, morphology and phonology of Old Northumbrian, a language variety poorly attested in other (written and epigraphic) sources. This chapter presents some discoveries from the ongoing project, alongside a discussion of the strengths and limitations of place-name evidence in this context.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Chapter 2. Adapting the Dynamic Model to historical linguistics 5
  5. Chapter 3. An account of the use of fronting and clefting in Cornish English 35
  6. Chapter 4. How does causal connection originate? 57
  7. Chapter 5. Old Northumbrian in the Scottish Borders 75
  8. Chapter 6. From eadig to happy 97
  9. Chapter 7. Distributional changes in synonym sets 119
  10. Chapter 8. The taking off and catching on of etymological spellings in Early Modern English 143
  11. Chapter 9. Speech acts in the history of English 165
  12. Index 181
English Historical Linguistics
This chapter is in the book English Historical Linguistics
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.359.05hou

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Chapter 2. Adapting the Dynamic Model to historical linguistics 5
  5. Chapter 3. An account of the use of fronting and clefting in Cornish English 35
  6. Chapter 4. How does causal connection originate? 57
  7. Chapter 5. Old Northumbrian in the Scottish Borders 75
  8. Chapter 6. From eadig to happy 97
  9. Chapter 7. Distributional changes in synonym sets 119
  10. Chapter 8. The taking off and catching on of etymological spellings in Early Modern English 143
  11. Chapter 9. Speech acts in the history of English 165
  12. Index 181
Downloaded on 15.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/cilt.359.05hou/html
Scroll to top button