The Britain that You don’t Know.docVIP

The Britain that You don’t Know 　　As products of social interactions between people， place names always represent parts of history and culture of the geographical entities for they are created by using specific national languages. Therefore， we should look beyond the names themselves and dig for the information behind them. 　　The first kind of place names is with the vocabulary components of the Celts. From about 500 BC， the Celts invaded European continent and then occupied Britain. They spoke Celtic language， which was the only early language can be found in British with the historical records. Today， only a number of place names and river names still reserve parts of Celtic vocabulary components. For instance， “the Thames”， “the Avon”， “the Derwent” are all rivers named by Celts. In “Duncombe”， “Winchcombe” and “Cumberland” such place names， the Celtic “cumb” （=deep valley） is contained. And “Torcross”， “Torquay” also include the Celtic vocabulary “torr” （=high rock or peak）. The names of famous British cities “Dover”， “York” originate from Celtic as well. Thanks to the reservations of these names， people can retrace and study the Sealy culture of Britain. 　　The second kind of place names relates to the invasion of Romans. From 43 AD， the Roman emperor Claudius led his troops to conquer England gradually. And then Britain had been occupied by the Romans for 400 years， during which the culture and customs of Roman were taken into Britain. Naturally， the place names were influenced by Latin. For example， many British towns’ names end with a word having the similar meaning with “castle”， such as “Doncaster”， “Winchester”， “Gloucester”， “Leicester” and so on. These towns were built on the basis of old castles or ruins of cables. The word “castrum” in Latin is as “castle” in English. The town names ending with “-minster” offer us another trace of the fact that Latin were greatly affected by Anglo-Saxons. “-minster” means “monastery”. A good case in point is “We