Help needed: 4 dead Galician appellatives now preserved as toponyms/oronyms

Cossue

Cossue

Senior Member
Galiza
Galician & Spanish
As I say in the title, there are a number of Galician place names that are repited once and again and which have no clear etymology (as long as I know!). Since they are sometimes preceded by an article, they should have been appellative words alive perhaps 1000+ years ago. Also, either there is no study on them (again, as long as I know), or any study on them ends in the conclusion that their etymology is unknown. These are four that I think are related to high places / hills / hillocks. Their probable etymological origin should be, in order o likelihood, Romance > Celtic / Para-Celtic / Para-Italic / West IE > "Indoeuropeanized" non-IE substrate > Germanic > Arab (this is the habitual order of likelihood when studying Galician toponyms).

1st - Oural / O Oural (30+ places/oronyms) - Attested as Aural since the 10th century (Galician oldest monastical documents date to the 8th century, but only since the 10th century there is a sizeable number): for example

'et inde in prono in directo ad petra nadiua, que est sculta et scripta, et inde ad Aural ubi iacet petra nadiua, que est esculta et scripta, et inde ad molendinum de Uimara Baltariz' 968 (see CODOLGA)
My intuition is that they come from a Latin *(mons) *auralis "Windy (mountain)", but Latin aura 'breeze' left no (other?) trace in Galician, as long as I know.

2nd - Altiboa / Altiboia / Altibó (10+ places) - Oldest attestation is 1447 'o Altiuõo' / 'Altabõo'. Likely from *altVbona, which could be explained as a composite 'high-good', but which make no sense and, as a composite, looks alien in Galician. Also, in opaque, older place names: Latin altus > pre-Galician outo: altarium > outeiro 'hillock'.

3rd - Peroxa / A Peroxa (20+ places) - Oldest attestation in 985 'per aqua de Perogia et descendit sic in Mineo' (in spite of the appearance, it is not an hydronym).

Suspected relation with Latin petram 'stone', frequently reduced to per- , par- in local toponymy (Pereira < Petraria); but we have also place names as Pedraio < *Petravium 'carrefour(?)', likely from a Lusitanian-like substrate language.

4rd - Ceán / Seán / Ceao / O Ceao / O Seán / O Ceán (20+ oronyms) - From an older form *Ceão, attested in a Latin charter as celanum: 'per ipsam lumbam inter Raniam et Caluelle et inde ad campum de Aurabe et per ipsum celanum usque ad supradictas petras nigras', which implies an etymon *celāno- which is probably related to Latin colina, English hill, etc... But I would really like to come to the PIE etymon and language family implied through its evolution.

Thanks in advance. Any idea or question is welcomed.
 
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    • Cossue said:
    1st - Oural / O Oural (30+ places/oronyms) - Attested as Aural since the 10th century (Galician oldest monastical documents date to the 8th century, but only since the 10th century there is a sizeable number): for example

    'et inde in prono in directo ad petra nadiua, que est sculta et scripta, et inde ad Aural ubi iacet petra nadiua, que est esculta et scripta, et inde ad molendinum de Uimara Baltariz' 968 (see CODOLGA)
    My intuition is that they come from a Latin *(mons) *auralis "Windy (mountain)", but Latin aura 'breeze' left no (other?) trace in Galician, as long as I know.
    Click to expand...
    Surely it won't make sense but the first that came to my mind was: couldn't be oural an ancient variant of current Galician áureo. Was there gold in the area?

    Cossue said:
    2nd - Altiboa / Altiboia / Altibó (10+ places) - Oldest attestation is 1447 'o Altiuõo' / 'Altabõo'. Likely from *altVbona, which could be explained as a composite 'high-good', but which make no sense and, as a composite, looks alien in Galician. Also, in opaque, older place names: Latin altus > pre-Galician outo: altarium > outeiro 'hillock'.
    Click to expand...
    Gonzalo Mateo Sanz in Topónimos y apellidos españoles de origen ibérico o pre-latino asks himself if it could mean high lake (alt-ibon-a) but that's all what he says so just an hypothesis.

    Cossue said:
    Perogia
    Click to expand...
    La similitud fonética con Perugia es evidente. Quizá la etimología del nombre de la ciudad italiana pueda dar alguna pista.

    Cossue said:
    4rd - Ceán / Seán / Ceao / O Ceao / O Seán / O Ceán (20+ oronyms) - From an older form *Ceão, attested in a Latin charter as celanum: 'per ipsam lumbam inter Raniam et Caluelle et inde ad campum de Aurabe et per ipsum celanum usque ad supradictas petras nigras', which implies an etymon *celāno- which is probably related to Latin colina, English hill, etc... But I would really like to come to the PIE etymon and language family implied through its evolution.
    Click to expand...
    No sería descartable un origen vasco: Cía
     
    Thank you!

    Circunflejo said:
    Surely it won't make sense but the first that came to my mind was: couldn't be oural an ancient variant of current Galician áureo. Was there gold in the area?
    Click to expand...
    Actually, it makes lots of sense: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29749867. The main problem I see is that: a) Oural is almost always a high place, when in Galicia many gold sources are secondary (rivers), and b) its infrequent that a Roman Gold mine (reportedly, there are 800 known Roman gold mines in NW Iberia) is called Oural; many of them are locally known with the Germanism groba 'dig, excavation', the substrate term toca, or simply as A Mina, or so. I mean, I don't see a correlation.

    Right now, reading the aforementioned article, I see that Spanish orear 'to air' is ultimately derived from Latin aura, so it makes Aural = 'Windy' more probable, I think.

    Circunflejo said:
    Gonzalo Mateo Sanz in Topónimos y apellidos españoles de origen ibérico o pre-latino asks himself if it could mean high lake (alt-ibon-a) but that's all what he says so just an hypothesis.
    Click to expand...

    Thank you very much! I shall look into the geography of these places.

    Circunflejo said:
    La similitud fonética con Perugia es evidente. Quizá la etimología del nombre de la ciudad italiana pueda dar alguna pista.
    Click to expand...

    From Perusia, from Etruscan. If it was an isolated toponym we can say, "well, we were part of the Roman Empire, so, why not?", but it is a relatively frequent toponym normally used with a definite article, so...
    Again, thanks!

    Circunflejo said:
    No sería descartable un origen vasco: Cía
    Click to expand...

    Thanks!
    I don't think so... They cite Galician Ceán not knowing its evolution or history ( < celanum). Too many times I see this kind of things with Vasconic / Arabic etymologies, even mistreating Galician appellative word with perfectly settled etymologies ("Rabal, obviously Arabic" versus, "Attested as Rapanale in 915", things like that).
     
    Uf!!! Gonzalo Mateo in "Topónimos y apellidos españoles de origen ibérico o pre-latino" commit some terrible etymological crimes... first of all not researching the history of the place names he mentions, or even consulting any online dictionary:

    * "Albariza (O C Lu) : las peñas del valle fluvial (albar-aiz-a)": Alvariza is a Galician appellative meaning ''apiary", from Latin alvearium and suffix -riza preset in Vacariza (vaca "cow"), Cabalariza (cabalo "horse"), Ovellariza (ovella "sheep")...

    * "Alboreda (C): las zonas fluviales (albur-eta)": alboreda "copse", from Latin arboretum "place with trees"
     
    Circunflejo said:
    Well, they quote zeiano. I'm not a linguist so I don't know how likely a /l/ to /j/ change is.
    Click to expand...

    Thanks! I don't want to be misunderstood: I'm absolutely grateful to you, I'm just saying that they didn't take into account the history of the place name they cite.
     
    Cossue said:
    suffix -riza preset in Vacariza (vaca "cow"), Cabalariza (cabalo "horse"), Ovellariza (ovella "sheep")...
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    And, out of Galicia, in Porcarizas, in El Bierzo. :) I'm better putting places at a map than knowing about their etymology. Let's see if someone else knows something.
     
    Olaszinhok said:
    Why should a Galician place have a name whose origin is Etruscan? It was called Perusia in Latin.
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    Actually there is a a pretty competent archaeologist / toponymist that proposed some kind of Etruscan colonization of Galicia under Rome: https://www.fundacionlmonteagudo.co...ronimia_gallega_fundacion_luis_monteagudo.pdf.

    His works on that proposal became that uncle nobody speaks about loud.

    In any case, these Peroxa places are too numerous to be some form of colony or something ("New Perugia").
     
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    Cossue said:
    I'm just saying that they didn't take into account the history of the place name they cite.
    Click to expand...
    So no markets there. Irigoyen must be relatively well-known in the Basque world because I've stumbled with quotes to his works several times and it was the only comment that I thought had some options to have some real base.
     
    Circunflejo said:
    Irigoyen must be relatively well-known in the Basque world because I've stumbled with quotes to his works several times and it was the only comment that I thought had some options to have some real base.
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    I'm reading one of his works and it sounds as one would expect when coming from a competent scholar... I guess he simply proposed a possible relation of Galician Ceán and the place names he were studying.

    I would say, nope, but I would like to read the correct paper.
     
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