Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest of Taiwan's cities.
Taipei City and New Taipei City is a form of the original T'ai-pei or 'north of Taiwan'.
Kaohsiung is thought to come from the early Siraya language and means 'bamboo forest'.
Miaoli takes two Hakka Chinese words meu 'cat' and li 'raccoon dog'.
Taitung simply tells us it can be found in 'eastern Taiwan'.
Penghu used to be called Ilhas dos Pescadores or 'fishermen islands'.
Kinmen comes from the Chines for 'golden gate'.
Keelung is from the Chinese from 'rooster cage'.
Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.
Showing posts with label gate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gate. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 May 2020
Friday, 28 June 2019
Montenegro Place Names Explained
Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest Montenegro cities.
Podgorica has a simple name describing the area. Here the 'region below Gorica', a hill name meaning 'little hill', refers to the small hills overlooking the city marked by cypress trees.
Herceg Novi is the Montenegrin version of the Italian Castelnuovo and the Greek Neokastron, all meaning 'the new castle'.
Bar is a shortened form of Antivari, itself owing to its location across the Adriatic from Bari in Italy, itself an Arabic personal name where Al-Bari means 'the creator'.
Cetinje takes its name from the River Cetina on which it stands. The river name is possibly from a Phrygian word zetna meaning 'carries' and a reference to the silt it moves.
Kotor can be traced back to its Greek beginnings when the city was known as Dekatera, from the Greek deka thira, meaning 'ten gates' and can only refer to the number of access points to the fortification.
Ulcinj has two possible origins. Some suggest this is from the Albanian ukas meaning 'wolf', however more likely is the Greek name of Colchinium or 'founded by settlers from Colchis'. This was the name given to an area of Georgia known to the inhabitants as Egris, Colchis coming from the Uratian Qulha and likely a proper noun.
Tivat is ultimately from the Greek Thiodhos or 'way of God'.
Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.
Podgorica has a simple name describing the area. Here the 'region below Gorica', a hill name meaning 'little hill', refers to the small hills overlooking the city marked by cypress trees.
Herceg Novi is the Montenegrin version of the Italian Castelnuovo and the Greek Neokastron, all meaning 'the new castle'.
Bar is a shortened form of Antivari, itself owing to its location across the Adriatic from Bari in Italy, itself an Arabic personal name where Al-Bari means 'the creator'.
Cetinje takes its name from the River Cetina on which it stands. The river name is possibly from a Phrygian word zetna meaning 'carries' and a reference to the silt it moves.
Kotor can be traced back to its Greek beginnings when the city was known as Dekatera, from the Greek deka thira, meaning 'ten gates' and can only refer to the number of access points to the fortification.
Ulcinj has two possible origins. Some suggest this is from the Albanian ukas meaning 'wolf', however more likely is the Greek name of Colchinium or 'founded by settlers from Colchis'. This was the name given to an area of Georgia known to the inhabitants as Egris, Colchis coming from the Uratian Qulha and likely a proper noun.
Tivat is ultimately from the Greek Thiodhos or 'way of God'.
Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.
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