Talk:Thames

Pronunciation?

According to Wikipedia, the Connecticut river is pronounced differently, as /θeɪmz/. 81.142.107.230 14:19, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the Connecticutian river is pronounced Theimz, while the London river is the Temz. —Stephen 07:03, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

In history, it appears that the present pronunciation without the fricative was close to the original. Andrew H. Gray 22:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC)Andrew

Etymology

The meaning of the River TAMBRE[4] in Spain is alleged to be 'dark' also. If there were a connection it would confirm its Pre-British origin[7]. By contrast compare the Somerset River TONE[4] <Celtic *DON-OS[3] (brown) > Gaelic DONN[8] and English DUN[7]. So it is just possible that the dental became unvoiced over the ages and be ultimately related to Middle Irish TEIMEN[3] (dark grey); Old Irish DEIM[4] (dim); and, remotely to Welsh DDIM[3], that is, if the Proto-Indo-European root *DhEM[6], did in fact not exist. In such a case, English DIM would not have had a Germanic root[3]; and all the cognates would have been carried through from Old European. This is quite unlikely, because of the semantic resemblances between them. However, it is possible that a remote connection exists between the River THAMES and TAMAR[4], (between Devon and Cornwall); but, please see Tamar2 for more detail. Andrew H. Gray 22:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC) Andrew (talk)

[0] means 'Absolutely not; [1] means 'Exceedingly unlikely'; [2] means 'Very dubious'; [3] means 'Questionable'; [4] means 'Possible'; [5] means 'Probable'; [6] means 'Likely'; [7] means 'Most Likely' or *Unattested; [8] means 'Attested'; [9] means 'Obvious' - only used for close matches within the same language or dialect, at linkable periods.

Thanks @Werdna_Yrneh_Yarg. It seems you've mulled this over before. The original entry was a copy-pasted mess from Wikipedia, and really needed a clean-up.

1. Do you have any sources for the Timbre river meaning "dark"? Heck, I can't even find a river called Timbre in Spain.
2. I've always seen Welsh Tafwys as descending from the Latin form. Could you point me to a sources saying otherwise?
3. I actually don't have a copy of Mallory (1997), so I can't speak for what's actually written. That said, my preference would be just to cut the whole Proto-Celtic *Tamesas reconstruction, and replace it with Proto-Celtic *temos (“dark”), pointing to its cognates, Welsh tywyll, Old Irish temel, etc.
4. A connection to a Proto-Celtic *demyā, *demis (“dim, dark”) feels a bit forced to me. I think there's probably a good chance that Middle Irish deim is actually a borrowing from Germanic as we have no example of it in OI or any other Celtic cognate. Even less compelling to me is connection to Welsh dwn and Old Irish donn, from Proto-Celtic *dusnos (“dark, brown”), but if there are sources citing that, I don't see why we can't include it as an alternative.
5. Tamar certainly seems a possible cognate, though I don't know how they arrive at the meaning of "great river".

--Victar (talk) 23:06, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

OK, I added Tambre (not Timbre), Tamar, Tâmega and Támoga to the possible cognates list with sources. --Victar (talk) 04:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

@Victar Thank you. Nor could I find that river name in Spain; I reckon that Kenneth Cameron misspelt the name on page 33 of 'English Place Names' and it should have been "Tambre". One's interest has been centred in the illusive etymologies. Nor can it be actually proved that the cognates of dim are in fact Germanic. One's own hypothesis here is that they are not even from Celtic but have all infilterated through from the origin of the Iberian names you have presented! Most of the Old English words are certainly Germanic, but there are far too many assumptions as to Germanic roots. Take for example: anneal; the first syllable is obviously Germanic, but the assumptions that the Danish and Swedish forms of the latter syllable are Germanic are quite unfounded; and there is no connection with the presented P.I.E. root whence German eiten to kindle, et cetera. To return to the point though, there is no relation whatever between "Thames" and Welsh dwn and Old Irish donn, from Proto-Celtic *dusnos (“dark, brown”); I just posed that to demonstrate what the semantically similar Celtic forms are, by way of contrast. I suppose as to Tamar, they were conjecturing 'mar' as a possible source for mawr "great", et cetera. The Welsh Tafwys seems too ancient to be borrowed from Latin; but if Welsh tywyll is akin, then it really seems to confirm one's hypothesis as to its stock root. Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 08:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Andrew (talk)

Welsh Tafwys isn't attested in any form in either Middle Welsh or Old Welsh. My guess is the original Welsh form was displaced. Also, any Cornish Tañvis, Tañves form is utterly lacking.

I think the Proto-Celtic *temos (“dark”) etymology, or some form of it, is probably correct. We find a parallel in Proto-Celtic *dubros (“dark”) also taking on the meaning "water, river", yielding Middle Welsh dwfr, dwr (“water”) and Old Irish dobur (“water, river”), Middle Irish dobur (“black, unclean”). --Victar (talk) 09:18, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

It is actually Proto-Indo-European *dʰub-rós ‎(“dark”) for that meaning whence Proto-Celtic *dubros ‎(“water”), I believe you will find; hence the origin of Dover. We cannot take everything as reliable etymologically that we read; and some of the most modern etymological dictionaries produced wilder paths than the well known Oxford Etymological Dictionary multi-volume books, or Century dictionary of which I have seen very little. The Proto-Celtic *temos ‎(“dark”) etymology needs to be regarded separately from {{cog|c}elpro|*dubros||dark} as being two separate roots. I have seen at least two river names in Switzerland of pre-historic origin, or that of Uralian. River names are usually where - if at all - the most likely remnants of the earliest languages in a country are found, hence one's conjecture as to the Iberian origin of this river name. Andrew H. Gray 19:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Andrew (talk). The paragraphs which you repositioned are alright there since those do not clutter up the talk page like this one might! Andrew H. Gray 09:12, 11 February 2017 (UTC)Andrew talk