[Spellyans] valley in Cornish

[Craig Weatherhill]

I have my doubts that rosh means "valley".  I think that it is a variant 
of ros, which, in toponyms, has a whole variety of translations, 
depending upon location (and none of these is "heathland", by the way).  
Ros originally meant "promontory", then "uncultivated coastal slope".  
The "promontory" meaning extended to "hillspur, point of elevated land 
where two valleys meet" and then also to include "uncultivated 
valleyside", in line with the "uncultivated coastal slope" meaning.  Ros 
was also applied to an area of uncultivated roughland surrounded by 
farmland (which is my "roughland" translation).  I think that references 
to rosh might be "uncultivated valleyside", rather than "valley".

When producing my "Place Names in Cornwall and Scilly" book, I had to 
take a good look at each site with a Ros- name in order to work out 
which meaning of the word applied.

Craig


nicholas williams wrote:
> In his Gerlevran Neil gives under 'valley':  (usu) rôsh (Lh,WG) var 
> rôz (WG cv PN rose)-ow. Is rosh a variant of ros and does it mean 
> 'valley'?
> If it is attested only in LNN we cannot be sure that it was still a 
> living item in speech.
> After all, Chipping 'Market' occurs in several English toponyms, but 
> nobody speaks of the International Money Chippings.
>
> Nicholas
>
> *
> *
> On 29 Jul 2008, at 07:25, Craig Weatherhill wrote:
>
>> Of course, we need not restrict ourselves to nans or valy. 
>
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