Hydronym

A hydronym, literally "water name" is the formal term to describe how bodies of water receive and perpetuate their names through history. As linguistic items, they are very conservative, with successor peoples often retaining the name given a body of water. It can apply to rivers, lakes, even oceanic elements.

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There are numerous examples found North American water-names: only one is necessary to illustrate the phenomenon of English-speakers retaining that of the previous native Americans, that of the Mississippi River.

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In Europe, the Danube, Don, Dniester, Dnieper andDonets Rivers all contain Proto-Indo-European (*danu), (IEW 175), meaning "river".

Related Topics:
Danube - Don - Dniester - Dnieper - Donets - Proto-Indo-European - IEW

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