house names

it must confuse the postman if house names keep changing.

Just heard that the Bumblebees idea was just a rumour, just an idea the new neighbour had but in fact is keeping the old name, so that's all right!

Just heard that a new neighbour is going to rename her house 'Bumblebees'
am now wondering if she means to keep bees, hhmmmn not sure if I like the idea or not, good for the pollination etc but don't really want swarms in my garden! maybe she just likes the name.

Thanks

granjura - apparently all syllables mean 'hill' !
It's in Cumbria.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill

No- does Torp come from 'peat turf' (as in German)? What does the word mean and where is it?

Heard of Torpenhow Hill?

'ton' on the other hand is Saxon (so of German origin). One name near us always made me laugh as it doubled the meaning 'Houghton-on-the-Hill'

Haut town = high town- so the on the hill is really not necessary

BTW my mothertongue is French.

Although I trained to teach French and German (in the UK as an adult, went back to Uni when our youngest started primary school) I also did Environmental Studies as part of my B.Ed.Hons Degree, just for interest.
As we lived right on the Danelaw border- it was really interesting to study place names and how they indicate the origin of first settlers. Lots of names in East Leics end in 'by' (Bushby, Thurnby, Ingarsby, etc) indicating Viking settlement. Also the common ending 'thorpe' meaning 'daughter' (Tochter in German)- indicating a secondary settlement, where the daughter and new husband moved nearby to initial village to start new settlement.
Our village was called 'Scraptoft'- toft meaning a farm- which belonged to Scrappy. Language is so fascinating, and about a lot more than just language.

Watching The Bridge [ Swedish and Danish] it's amazing how some words are so similar to the English [come in and sit down] so much so that I have to replay bits of the programme as I am spending too long in comparing language and not enough on the plot!

Re Scottish dialects, I went hitchhiking on Norway in the 60s with an old friend born in Dundee - came back on a ship - went ashore at one point on the way down to Bergen - and got lost.
When we asked for the ship, my friend could understand the Norwegian directions!

Mamie, when I was having physiotherapy in here ,there was a very cheerful man in his eighties who would chat away to everyone. I couldn't understand what he was saying and asked the girl treating me. Shw replied that she hadn't the faintest idea.

When I was taking a TESOL course, our tutor gave us a crash course in Swedish to show us how it should be done. It was interesting how many words had cognates in Scottish dialects. Not that I can remember many of them now! Clearly these were a legacy of the invasions by the Vikings of the North.

Mostly the Normans gave us words in English to do with law, government, education and other high falutin' things so it is interesting that some everyday vocabulary came with the servants (I presume).
When I have adult learners I always start by explaining how many words we have in common in French and English, but point out that if I write, "Parliament reunites in October", they can probably work it out, but "the pig is in the barn", will cause a bit more of a problem.
I will try and get my neighbours to write down some patois words as I have huge problems getting past the thick Norman accent of the patois speakers. We had a nice young man come to inspect our septic tank once. He spoke perfect English and when I said how we struggled with understanding some of the "old boys" in the village he said that he couldn't understand them either.

Granjura thanks for so much info on the Normans, language is a strange and ever evolving thing.I knew they were fairly recent settlers in France and had Viking roots, didn't they only settle there for about 150 years before the invasion of England? There, we have never REALLY been beaten by the French, and that proves it, ha-ha!
It explains why we have 2 words quite often for the same thing.....
sheep [in the field] mutton [mouton] on the table
pigs in the field, pork [porc]on the table
cows, cattle in the field, beef[boef] on the table etc.

Wonderful, thank you, I love seeing how languages evolve.

Wow, what a tour de force. Fascinating, thank you.

Bio = beau. My neighbour always says of my OH and the organic garden, "il est bio (beau) et il est bio.
The real patois words are obviously a bit vulgar and accompanied by shrieks of laughter.

les petiots = the little ones (children) is used all over France. Not sure about the 'bios' though.

Cross post! I can't remember what the words were that we found in common, but I think we were talking about butter churning ( the way you do round here...)

Um, don't know. I do remember reading Graham Robb's The Discovery of France and being gobsmacked by how late it was before people started speaking French here.
This is interesting:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_language
I know they say les petios sont bios (no idea how to write it) round here; but not sure how much that is true patois? People are always trying to teach me though...

I just love language- and learning new things. So as my Quebec friend says, I'll go to bed tonight less stupid.

I had no idea about the Norvegian word for 'to slide' = to ski. Wonderful.

History
Further information: Old Norman

When Norse invaders from modern day Denmark and Norway arrived in the then-province of Neustria and settled the land that became known as Normandy, they gradually adopted the Gallo-Romance speech of the existing populations – much as Norman rulers in England later adopted the speech of the administered people. However, in both cases, the élites contributed elements of their own language to the newly enriched languages that developed in the territories.

In Normandy, the new Norman language inherited vocabulary from Norse. The influence on phonology is more disputed, although it is argued that the retention of aspirated /h/ and /k/ in Norman is due to Norse influence.

Examples of Norman words of Norse origin:
Norman English Old East Norse French Modern Norwegian
bel court, yard (cf. bailey?) bǿli cour (cf. bal) bøl
bète bait (borrowed from Norman) bæita appât beta
kanne can kanna cruche kanne
guernotte, guénotte, jarnotte earth nut, ground nut, pig nut, peanut jorðnotr terre-noix jordnøtt,peanøtt
gradile, gradelle, gadelle (black)currant gaddʀ cassis, groseille vinbær
greyer prepare græiða préparer greie
griller, égriller slide, slip skriðla glisser skli
hardelle girl hóra (whore) fille (cf. hardi) hore (prostitute)
hèrnais cart (cf. harness) járnaðʀ (shod (horse)) charrette (cf. harnais, harnacher) jernet
hommet/houmet islet (diminutive of hou) hulmʀ îlot holme
hou islet ( cf. holm, mainly in placenames) hulmʀ îlot holm
hougue mound ( cf. howe, high) haugʀ monticule haug
mauve seagull mávaʀ (pl.) gaviote (Pre-Norman) /
mouette (Post-Norman) måke,måse
mielle dune mjalʀ dune dyne
mucre damp (cf. muggy) mygla humide mugg (mildew)
nez headland or cliff (cf. Sheerness, etc.) næs falaise (cf. nez) nes
viquet wicket (borrowed from Norman) víkjas guichet (borrowed from Norman) vik

In some cases, Norse words adopted in Norman have been borrowed into French – and more recently some of the English words used in French can be traced back to Norman origins.
A bar named in Norman

Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Norman language spoken by the new rulers of England left traces of specifically Norman words that can be distinguished from the equivalent lexical items in French:
English Norman French
fashion < faichon = façon
cabbage < caboche = chou (cf. caboche)
candle < ca(u)ndelle = chandelle, bougie
castle < castel (now catè) = château, castelet
cauldron < caudron = chaudron
causeway < caucie (now cauchie)[4] = chaussée
catch < cachier (now cachi)[5] = chasser
cater < acater = acheter
cherry (ies) < cherise (chrise, chise ) = cerise
mug < mogue/moque[6] = mug, boc
poor < paur = pauvre
wait < waitier (old Norman) = gaitier (mod. guetter )
war < werre (old Norman) = guerre
warrior < werreur (old Norman) = guerrier
wicket < viquet = guichet (cf. piquet)

Other words such as captain, kennel, cattle and canvas introduced from Norman exemplify how Norman retained a /k/ from Latin that was not retained in French.

Norman immigrants to North America also introduced some "Normanisms" to Quebec French and French in Canada generally. Joual, a working class sociolect of Quebec in particular exhibits a Norman influence. Some expressions that are currently in use in Canada are: abrier for [y faut s'abrier, y fait frète!], barrure for [barre], ber for [berceau], bers for [ridelles d'un chariot ou berceau], bleuet for [myrtille], boucane for [fumée], boucaner for [fumer ou quereller] (also used in modern French), champelure (Norm. campleuse) for [robinet], croche for [tordu], fricot for [festin], gourgannes for [fêves de marais], gourgane for [bajoue de porc fumée], gricher (Norm. grigner) for [grimacer], grafigner for [gratter légèrement et sans cesse], graffigner for [égratigner], ichite or icite for [ici], itou for [aussi], jouquer or juquer for [jucher], maganer for [malmener], mitan for [milieu], marganner for [déganer], maganer for [maltraiter ou malmener], mi-aout for [quinze août] (also available in modern French), pigoche for [cheville], pognie for [poignée], pomonique for [pulmonique], quasiment for [presque] (also used in modern French), racoin for [recoin], ramarrer for [rattacher], ramucrir, for [devenir humide], mucrerancer for [avoir la respiration gênée et bruyante, lever, pousser avec un levier], ressoudre for [réveiller, activer], relever,roteux,euse for [qui rote, roteur], tasserie for [lieu où l'on tasse la récolte des gerbes de blé, d'orge, ou d'avoine], train for [être ivre], train de for [être occupé à] (also available in modern French), sacraer for [sacrer (arrête de sacrer!)], v'lin for [venin], vlimeux for [velimeux], v'lo for [voilà], y for [il, ils, elles (qu'est-ce qu'y fait ?)] zius for [yeux].[7]
See also

Will have to do some reading around the subject again Mamie- but I remember reading that their French was considered 'weird' and so was their accent. Norman = Norse man = Viking.

Harold and William were cousins from the same Viking line, were they not?

I call mine 'The Hovel'...