Ancient place names in Iberia

[Taranis]

Since the discussion recently came up, I would like to elaborate the situation on the Iberian penninsula in Antiquity a bit, especially on the aspect of linguistic heterogenity. Note that the analysis below excludes the Basque-Aquitanian and Iberian areas in the east and southeast of Iberia, and only includes town names thus far. The rest (north, northwest and west) I did divide into seven areas, and I cathegorized the names into Celtic- or Celtic-compatible, Latin/Roman, and Other/Unknown (as well as 'known' other such as Iberian and Phoenician as the need arose):

North (20 towns)
Celtic or compatible with Celtic: 14 (70%)
Latin/Roman: 3 (15%)
Other/Unknown: 4 (20%)

Celtiberia Proper (34 towns)
Celtic or compatible with Celtic : 17 (50%)
Latin/Roman: 6 (17.6%)
Iberian: 1 (2.9%)
Other/Unknown: 10 (29.4%)

Southwest (15 towns)
Celtic or compatible with Celtic: 5? (33.3%)
Roman/Latin: 3 (20%)
Phoenician: 3 (20%)
Other/Unknown: 4 (26.7%)

Central Duero (20 towns)
Celtic or compatible with Celtic: 6 (30%)
Latin/Roman: 4 (20%)
Other/Unknown: 10 (50%)

Lusitania Proper (40 towns)
Celtic or compatible with Celtic: 11 (27.5%)
Latin/Roman: 10 (25%)
Other/Unknown: 19 (47.5%)

Gallaecia (50 towns)
Celtic or compatible with Celtic: 12 (24%)
Latin/Roman: 19 (38%)
Other/Unknown: 19 (38%)

Inland Southeast (30 towns)
Celtic or compatible with Celtic: 4 (12.9%)
Latin/Roman: 7 (20.6%)
Iberian: 2 (5.8%)
Other/Unknown: 17 (56.6%)

The cathegories above can be further split into the following cathegories:

1) Celtic Names
Celtic town names are abundant on the ancient Iberian penninsula. The most common name element, by far, is the suffix '-briga' ('mountain', 'height', but perhaps more accurately translated as "castle", as it's a cognate with Germanic '-burgh'). However, as we will see this suffix is not restricted to Celtic town names. Celtic or Celtic-influenced town names are most common in the north, with Celtiberia proper as the second-most frequent area, and they decrease in their frequency from there.

Celtic names include:

- Brigantium (identical town names existed in France, Switzerland and Austria)
- Cambitum
- Celiobriga
- Cetobrix or Cetobriga
- Ebura ('eburo-' = 'yew')
- Morica ('moro-' = 'sea', compare 'Aremorica)
- Nemetobriga ('holy/sacred castle')
- Numantia
- Segisamum
- Segovia
- Segobriga ('victorious castle')
- Turiasso
- Uxama Argaela (Ups- -> Ux- 'highest', Par- > Ar- 'before/upon')
- Uxama Barca
- Vindelia ('windo-' = 'white)
- Visontium

There is also a few town names that make sense as Celtic if they were transmitted erroneously:
- Ambisna ('Ambi-' = 'around', second element unclear)
- Deobrigula and Diobriga from "Divobriga" ('divine castle')
- Mediolum form 'Mediolanum'

2) Roman Names
The Roman empire established a considerable number of towns on the Iberian penninsula. In much of the penninsula, Roman town (including those with mixed Roman/non-Roman) names make up between a sixth and a fifth of the town names.

Examples include:
- Aemiliana
- Aqua Calidae ('hot springs')
- Aqua Flavia
- Augusta Emerita
- Bravum
- Concordia
- Confluenta
- Laminium
- Lucus Augusti ('grove of Augustus')
- Mantua
- Pax Julia
- Porta Augusta
- Rusticana
- Valeria

3) Mixed Roman-Other Names
A typical phenomenon, not only on the Iberian penninsula but elsewhere inside the Roman Empire were mixed Roman/non-Roman names.

Examples of this include:
- Augustobriga (second element Celtic)
- Segisama Julia (the first element is Celtic)
- Juliobriga (second element Celtic)
- Flavia Lambris (second element unclear)
- Forum Gigurrum (second element is a Gallaecian tribal name)
- Ocellum Duri ('eye of the Duero')

4) Mixed Celtic/Non-Celtic Names
These names are also quite freqent throught the Iberian penninsula. These names often include the first name element as non-Celtic and the second as Celtic '-briga'. The largest concentration of these names is found in the southwest of the Iberian penninsula, where these names make up the bulk of the Celtic-compatible names.

Examples include:
- Arabriga
- Arcobriga
- Caladunum
- Glandomirum
- Laccobriga or Lancobriga
- Merobriga
- Mirobriga
- Sarabris (possibly)
- Talabriga
- Tongobriga or Tuntobriga
- Volobriga

5) Unclear/Non-Celtic names subject to Celtiberian sound laws
A unique feature about the Celtiberian language, which makes it distinct from all other Celtic languages, is the merger of /s/ and /d/ in certain positions in words into a ð-like sound, usually transliterated as "z" from the Celtiberian inscriptions and variably rendered as 's' or 'd' in Latin inscriptions, and this of course affects Celtiberian town names as well, even those with (apparently) originally non-Celtic names. Naturally, these town names are found only in the proximity of Celtiberia Proper.

Examples include:
- Bilbilis/Bilbiliz
- Bursada/Burzao
- Condabora/Consabura

6) Gallaecian-Lusitanian Names
These can be found almost exclusively in the northwest of the Iberian penninsula (where they make up a bulk of the local names), although a few can be found in the inland southeast (Carpetania and Oretania). Their main feature is the disobedience to Celtic sound laws, most importantly they retain the *p from Proto-Indo-European, which is in contrast to the loss of the *p in Proto-Celtic.

- Caepiana
- Capara
- Capasa
- Complutum
- Complutica
- Ispinum
- Lupparia
- Paelontium
- Pallantia
- Petavonium
- Pinetus
- Pintia
- Segontia Paramica (compare with Celtic Ar-, Are-)

7) Iberian Names
The (eponymous) Iberians, a non-Indo-European people, were most densely present in the east of Iberia (modern-day Catalonia, Valenican Country and eastern Andalusia), however a few Iberian names can be found further west in the inland. Evidence for Iberian names includes the prefix 'il(i)-' (which may be a cognate with Basque 'hiri', 'town'), as well as the gentilix suffix '-sken' found in Iberian mint.

Examples include:
- Ilarcuris
- Illurbida
- Uresca

8) Phoenician Names
Most Phoenician settlements were in Andalusia, but there were also a few in the southwest, such as Balsa (compare Ba'al) and Ossonoba.

9) Other Non-Celtic and Non-Roman Names
There is a considerable number of other place names that will be addressed as follows which do not fit in anywhere else, but occur throughout the penninsula. Amongst the list below, the recurring stem 'Sal-' is of mention. It might be Celtic etymology ('salt', 'brine'), but note that cognates of this word can be found in most other branches of Indo-European and hence the stem 'Sal-' is by no means an indicator for Celtic languages.

- Ammea
- Biatia
- Burdua
- Burum
- Chritina
- Eldana
- Egelesta
- Laccuris
- Lama
- Lavarae
- Libora
- Libiosa
- Libunca
- Manliana
- Mentesa
- Metercosa
- Rigusa
- Salacia
- Salari
- Salica
- Salionca
- Tacubis
- Tunde
- Varada

So, the underlining conclusion is that the Iberian penninsula was not only a diverse but also heterogenous place. The different types of names that I cathegorized here occured side-by-side in the same general area.

[callaeca]

bz............................

[Taranis]

Sorry, but this list is erroneous:
First. The Callaecian is not the same that lusitanian. The callaecian is intagreted into the celtic languages called hispano-celta
1.- Pinetum and Petavonium are latin place-names
2.- Complutum belong to Celtiberia as Complega. not lusitanian nor callaecian
3. - Pallantia belong to Celtiberia
4. Ispinum is not indo-european
6. Arabriga, is celtic: from root ie *aro-
7. Nemetobriga belong to Callaecia, there are two place-names with this name
8. Brigantium, Cambetun and Caeliobriga are Callaecian place-names
9. Ebura, one place-name is in NW Callaecia and the other in Lustiania.
10. Arcobriga is an celto-hispanic word (same place-names in Celtiberian, vettonia, lusitania): means 'montain'
11. Caladunum is a celtic compoust or 1) Cala (strong)-dunum (fortress) or 2) Caletonum (with tipical western lenition)
12. Glandomirun is celtic. In Hispania de consonatic group nd > nd, not in nn like Gaulish: cf. Bendogabrum. Glando- is the same word that irish glan. Mirum from ie *mei-ro-
13. Mirobriga, Merobriga..celtic ie. *mei-ro-,
14. I don't know a placename Sarabris. If it is correct..it is callaecian or asturian (protocelt. bhºrghs > brix > bris). The first word from root ie. *ser-/*sor-/sºr-: celtic in Hispania (not alteuropäisch)
15. Talabriga is celtic like gaulish Talabriga. Tongobriga, celtic gaulish tongo-, irish tong 'to swear'
16. VALABRIGA (VOLOBRIGA is bad transcription), celtic..irish fal, gaulish vala-
17. PAELONTIUM latin, no -ontio in Hispania, but -antia, -entia
18. Paternania, latin from paternus
19. Segontia Paramica is a celtiberian town, not lusitanian nor callaecian
20. Sisapo is no an indo-european word, then not lusitanian
21. Turuptiana is a latin 'mansio'.
22. Caepiana is latin.
23. Capara...-ara is an celtic sufix in Hispania and Gaul.
24. AMMea is celtic, from *ambia-
25. Burum is celtic, from *bhor-
26. Lama is celtic from *(p)la-ma, like latin palm, irish lam 'palm'

the rest is a strange mixing with indoeuropeans and not indoeuropeans place-names

Thank you for your and corrections. However, some of them are in turn incorrect as well:

2) Complutum, even if actually rendered as Complega cannot be Celtic due to retaining *p.

3) Same with Pallantia. Cognate with Germanic Fel.

7,8,9) are nonetheless all Celtic etymologies.

11) 'Cala-' cannot be hard. If the word was Celtic in etymology, it was 'Caleto-' (compare Caledonii, Caleti, etc.). Third possibility is that it's actually 'Celadunum' (compare 'Celamantia').

12) I never doubted that 'Glando-' was Celtic in etymology, but I doubt that the second part ('Miro-') is.

19) Segontia Paramica is not Celtic due to retaining of *p. If the town name was Celtic, it would be 'Aremica' (compare 'Arevaci').

23) Capara cannot be Celtic due to retaining of *p.

[callaeca]

bz................................

[Taranis]

Do you doubt that the Celtiberian is a Celtic language too???????

No, obviously Celtiberian is a Celtic language, because PIE *p > Ø and PIE *gw > *b.

However, Celtiberian has a few innovations not found in other Celtic languages such as:

- Proto-Celtic *nm > *lm
- Proto-Celtic *s, *d > *ð at non-frontal, intervocalic positions (similar behaviour for clusters involving ds, ss).

By the way, there was no Gaulish tribe named 'Pleuxii'. I hate to say it, but you made that one up.

[callaeca]

bz....................................

[Asturrulumbo]

Based on this, do you think the Cantabrii were Celtic or Non-Indo-European? I personally would say Celtic...

[Taranis]

Based on this, do you think the Cantabrii were Celtic or Non-Indo-European? I personally would say Celtic...

I think they were mostly Celtic, at least judging from place names. Wasn't it you who brought up the point in the other thread about the rough terrain in Iberia promoting linguistic heterogenity?

EDIT: In the table I made at the start of the thread, Cantabrian towns are included with 'north'.

[Asturrulumbo]

I think they were mostly Celtic, at least judging from place names. Wasn't it you who brought up the point in the other thread about the rough terrain in Iberia promoting linguistic heterogenity?

EDIT: In the table I made at the start of the thread, Cantabrian towns are included with 'north'.

Indeed I was, and of course there was obviously much contact with their Basque neighbours, but there is a degree of controversy about their ethnicity nonetheless

[callaeca]

bz.....................................

[Taranis]

Indeed I was, and of course there was obviously much contact with their Basque neighbours, but there is a degree of controversy about their ethnicity nonetheless

Asturrulumbo the basques was not there in the roman times. The basques perhaps had they settlements in the north of Navarra and Aragón, in the Pirineos.

Yes and no. If you look at the ancient place names, there was a shift of the Basque-speaking area during the Dark Ages, with areas of Biscay, Arava being probably Celtic, but at the same time the Basque/Aquitanian-speaking area did extend much farther north in Antiquity.

A germanic tribe client of the Nervii? it is unusual.

Hardly. Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine during that time, such as the Tungri or the Suebi. This was actually one of the factors that led to the Gallic War.

[Asturrulumbo]

Asturrulumbo the basques was not there in the roman times. The basques perhaps had they settlements in the north of Navarra and Aragón, in the Pirineos.

I meant the Celts that area in general, not the Cantabrii

[callaeca]

bz.....................................

[callaeca]

bz.....................................

[Taranis]

Really was not there a Gaulish tribe Pleuxii?
Yes Taranis, the pleumoxi or pleuxii, belongs to the Nervii, as Centrones, Grudii, Levaci, and Geiduni.

Yes. I found a "Pleumoxii" tribe, mentioned in Caesar's 'Bello Gallico'. However, this is Gallia Belgica, which was an area which, although mostly Celtic, also had a few Germanic tribes in them by 1st century BC. It's more likely to assume that the tribal name is Germanic in etymology (compare Parmaecampi, Paemani). Since Germanic retains PIE *p (and later shifts it to *f, as well as shifting PIE *b to *p) it's far more plausible to assume that the tribal name is Germanic in etymology, rather than the (silly) assumption that a sound law was in free variation.

[callaeca]

bz.......................................

[Asturrulumbo]

What I really don't know is wether the same applied on the other side of the Pyrenees...

[callaeca]

bz...........................................

[Asturrulumbo]

I don't understand...

Whether there were Celts on the Aquitanian coast

[callaeca]

bz..............................................

[Asturrulumbo]

I fear that aquitanians were not Celtic, but they were strongly influenced by the Gauls

Oh yes, that I know, I meant linguistically... By what you say it seems not to be the case

[Taranis]

I fear that aquitanians were not Celtic, but they were strongly influenced by the Gauls

The Aquitanian language was, from what little is known, essentially the same as what has been reconstructed as 'Proto-Basque' or perhaps more appropriately Old Basque.

If that is confusing you: Basque may be an isolate language, but it too changed over time.

[callaeca]

bz.............................................

[Asturrulumbo]

Well...I think that basques are not europeans natives.
It is very strange that we can not see some western and north hispanic typical genetic caracteristcs in the basque population, like E- M81. This marker is the neolithical colonization in the pre-megalithic times, introducing the domestic goats and grains (wheat), like the deposit of O Rieiro (Coruña, Galicia), 7000 bP old.

The Galician population most common phenotype, in contrast with the Basques, is the european GM*3 23 5* haplotype that represents 73% and the most common KM phenotype is KM (-1) (79.6%) and its corresponding KM*3 allele reached at frequency of 89.2%, which is within the range of European values. Galician population belongs to cluster C3 (like Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and half Western Iberia). The basques to the cluster C and have not correspondences in Europe.

Not presence of G2a in basques (0,2%-0,5%) nor Helgason indo-european mt-DNA (0,3%). Also we can found in basques the marker 22, with irrelevant percentages in Western Iberia and Central Europe. The mutation in the marker 47a have 3500 years old and coincides with de arguments of Klyosov (2010):

"It is very unlikely that their ancestors had encountered Neanderthals in Europe or had been associated with the Aurignacian culture (34,000-23,000 ybp), nor did they make sophisticated cave paintings in South of France, Spain, and Portugal. Arguably, the Basque ancient and unique language was brought to Iberia around 3600 ybp by the M269 bearers from their place of preceding location(s) and/or their origin, presumably in Asia".

It coincides too with the archaeological entry of the urnenfelders in the NE Peninsula, that means the end of the indo-europeisation in this area.

I don't agree. If it were so, then Basque would be spoken in all of Western Europe, as not only is M269 predominant in Euskadi. Also, if Basques had come to Iberia as early as 3600 BP, why is Basque a language isolate? And why has it not left a mark in place names anywhere?

[Taranis]

I don't agree. If it were so, then Basque would be spoken in all of Western Europe, as not only is M269 predominant in Euskadi. Also, if Basques had come to Iberia as early as 3600 BP, why is Basque a language isolate? And why has it not left a mark in place names anywhere?

First off, I agree that Basque is likely to have been longer than Urnfield times. There's also the fact that Iberian, which after all may have been related with Basque, did in fact extend towards the south (all the way into central-western Andalusia).

However, regardless of this, it is a very interesting theoretical question: how long does it take for two languages to be no longer recognizable as being related with each other? It's very hard to say, but we have a few good examples for that:

Proto-Indo-European was probably spoken some time in the early Chalcolithic, and even though the oldest IE languages only date from the Bronze Age (Hittite, Mycenean Greek, etc.) it's still possible today to link the various branches of IE to a common ancestral language. So we are talking about some 5000-6000 years here.

The Afro-Asiatic language family is even older (the oldest attested languages are Old Egyptian and Akkadian) and Proto-Afro-Asiatic was probably spoken at the start of the Neolithic. So we may be talking about more like 9000 years here.

The Uralic languages are also certainly Neolithic in age, though their vocabulary is compatible with the Mesolithic. This may be a bit of a confusion because the 'Neolithic' Comb Ceramic Culture (the likely speakers of Proto-Uralic) were not farmers, but pottery-making hunter-gatherers.

So, for a language which is (apparently) non-related with other languages, we can speculate if the time frame must be even greater. There is of course the additional problem that we have isolated languages. In two of the above described cases (Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic) we have a large corpus of languages, including a few rather old ones. Another problem that it's impossible to reconstruct what ancient Basque (say, in the Neolithic) would have looked liked. Even with internal reconstruction, we can only imagine what Basque looked like approximately 2000-2300 years ago. If you take many modern IE languages (the Celtic languages are a prime example, actually) you get only a poor idea of what the ancient languages really were like, and reconstruction as a result would be erroneous.