Maurits Gysseling was a Dutch-Belgian linguist who, along with Hans Kuhn, was a proponent of the so-called “Nordwestblock” theory. The theory, very roughly, states that the Northwest “block” (somewhere in Belgium) of the continent consisted of peoples that were neither Germanic nor Celtic – at least linguistically but who became “Germanized” at the beginning of the Christian Era. In this respect, Kuhn speculated that the language may have had an affinity with the Venetic. Others thought it was Raetic or Illyrian/Old European or something between Germanic and Celtic. This is – roughly – in tune with Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann’s statement that there are portions of West Germany/Netherlands where there are no Germanic (meaning Nordic/Teutonic) place names.
Given our discussion about the Batavian Veleti, intrigued we thought this was of some interest and decided to have some fun. The results of that “fun” are below.
However, before we go there, let’s note that if you too want to learn about the toponyms of Western Europe, you can access here Gysseling’s Toponymisch Woordenboek van België, Nederland, Luxemburg, Noord-Frankrijk en West-Duitsland (vóór 1226).
Since this was strictly for fun we did not engage in a detailed study. Nevertheless, here are some things we looked up as plotted on the map below:
- names containing Wenden, e.g., Vendin-Le-Vieil or Vendin-Les-Bethune or Breden > former Wenden – these are marked with a blue square;
- two names (that’s for starters – someone should really go up and down the river) that we noticed on the River Lippe (Lippa) that is Werne an der Lippe > former Werina (Uuerina) and Kamen > former Camine – these are marked with a purple circle;
- names of a “forest” nature such as Lesquin > former Lechin/Lescin, Lessines, Lessy, Quœux-Haut-Maînil (also Maisnil) > former Lesin/Lisin, etc. – these are in red;
- other place names with the -in ending (for more of those see here, of course) – these are in navy blue squares/diamonds;
- finally, we could not resist to throw in Barlin and Moskou > see the yellow stars;
We are not, of course, suggesting that all or any of these are Slavic (e.g., Dublin, Michelin, Peppin or, for that matter, Rabin!) – nevertheless, this is an interesting exercise.
Here are Gysseling’s descriptions of the above – he also gives the current name and the source documents with approximate (or exact) dates. You can get more info (including the meaning of the non-obvious acronyms at the address above).
If you want to try something interesting, you can plot the following – we did and there were simply too many place names.
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