21. The name of the Isle of Thanet*l Abstract The name of the Kentish island Thanet, near the mouth of the Thames, has no generally accepted etymology. In view of the history of the place and the criteria by which the Phoenicians selected the locations for their trading strongholds, an ety­ mology is defended suggesting that the island was named by the Phoenicians after the foremost city deity of their western capital, the goddess Tanit of Carthage. - Attention is also payed to the Roman name of Richborough, Rutupis, and to the old name of the Thames, TamesalTamesislTamese, both of which have Mediterra­ nean counterparts suggesting a Semitic connection. Introduction The name of the Isle of Thanet at present lacks any generally accepted etymology. Since the name is recorded in antiquity, it cannot be Ger­ manic. Two Celtic etymologies favourably repeated in the place-name dictionaries were recently shown untenable. An etymology reaching even farther back in time was characterized as implausible and impos­ sible in the same study. I trust therefore that a fresh investigation of the problem will be welcome. 21.1. Thanet and Tanat: Attestation and interpretation Ekwall (1960: s.v. Thanet) has the following entry about the name of the Isle of Thanet, the easternmost part of Kent: 3 Thanet (than-) K"ITanatus 3!rd century] Solinus , Tanatos c 730 Bede, Tenid 679, Tl£nett 949 BM, Tenet c 890 OEBede, 943 BCS 780, Tanet DB, Tl£nate 1205 Lay!. The name is identical or cognate with the river-name TANAT. It may mean 'bright island' or 'fire island' (from a beacon or lighthouse). 392 The name o/the Isle o/Thanet The entry for the river Tanat reads as follows: Tanat RliverJ Sa4 [Tanad 1263 Brut, Tanar 15 WWorcl, A Brit[ish) river-name identical with Olld] W[elsh] fanef in pers, ns. [personal names] and meaning 'brilliant river', OW tanet is derived from tan 'fire', r3«l Ekwall does not explain why it is believed that the names, Thanet and Tanat, are of Welsh origin, nor does he give reasons for assuming that the Isle of Thanet should be called 'brilliant island' or 'fire island' and the river Tanat, 'brilliant river' ,5 In the case of the river, no attempt is made at all to account for its presumed brilliance (or fieriness). In the case of the island, a guess is offered that the name may derive from a beacon or lighthouse; but this sounds very much like a learned folk­ etymology, because it is exclusively based on the meaning the form of the name has in Old Welsh and not on material evidence.6 The proposal also raises the question what the island was called before it was named for its beacon or lighthouse, and it does not offer parallels for such a renaming process whereby an area is called 'brilliant' or 'fiery' for a beacon or lighthouse.? 21.2. Thanet: The most recent account The entry Isle of THANET in Watts 2004 is considerably more detailed than that in Ekwall 1960 but provides little toward a better explanation. After identifying the place it begins by stating that the translation of the name is "uncertain", Among the "Latin and Greek forms" the most significant addition is the Ptolemrean form ToAtans v~aos (with variant ToA{ams) 'the island Toliatis', with TOAI thought to represent misread TON, thus Tondtis. 8 As to the etymology of the name, Watts writes: British *Tanneton either from the root *tenos, *tenet- as in Irish teine 'fire' (OIr. tene, genitive sing. tened), Wlelshj tan, Co[rnish] Breton tan; the reference may have bcen to the lighthouse or fire beacon: or Gaulish *tatm 'oak-tree' as in Breton tann, O[ldl Fr[enchl tan (whence English tan, tannin etc.) + suffix -etum and so 'oak-wood'. With normal early Anglo-Saxon substitution of r for e and consequent i-mutation this became Olld] E[nglish] Trenid, Tenid,later Tanet, Tenet. The modern form with Th- seems to be due to a learned but false connection with Greek thanatos 'death', first proposed by r347 Isidore of Seville following a hint in Solinus, Etymologies 14: Tanatos, an island of the ocean separated from Britain by a narrow channel [... J called Tanatos from the death of serpents; for while it has none of its own, soil taken The name of the Isle of Thanet 393 from it to any place whatsoever kills snakes there. ,9 Nennius H[istoria] B[rittonum] 32, c.800, offers an alternative name for this island which Vortigern handed over to Hengest and Horsa, insulam quae in lingua eorum vocatur Tenet, britannico sermone Ruoihm 'the island called in their, sc. the Germans', tongue T, in British R', a tradition repeated by Asser c.894, who gives the name as Ruim. Agreeing with Watts I reject the etymology based on Ok. Bavaros as a learned folk-etymology. However the two etymologies presented by him without criticism I do not find satisfactory either. The former, 'place of fire [i.e. of lighthouse or fire beacon)', which is the same as that given by Ekwall, merely relies on the sound-shape of a Celtic word; but neither is there any reason to believe that the name is Celtic in origin nor has evidence for such a material structure been found. The latter, *Tanneton or rather *Tanneton 'oak-wood', which was proposed by Forster (1941: 579) and cited by Jackson (1953: 331f.) in support of the sound-substitution replacing Late British i! by southern Pre-Anglo­ Saxon i, Anglo-Saxon i (in Trenid, Tenid) , tikewise fails to be made plausible, or supported by evidence.1O Note also that the two etymologies cancel each other out; they cannot both be valid. But they can both be false, and I think they are. In short, it appears to me that the name of the Isle of Thanet has no satisfactory etymology in the most recent topo­ nymic dictionaries. 11 To be precise: I would have no quarrel with the two meanings as­ signed to it in Brittonic if the reconstructed forms of the name were COf­ rect. Such combinations of sound, meaning, and referent as the above are certainly possible. But I am convinced that they would be possible only as the result of popular etymology. f348 As popular etymologies, both proposals would be worthy of further analysis with the goal of de­ termining the correct one, i.e. the one entertained by the Britons them­ selves. However, my interest is not in the way the name was adopted and understood by the Britons but in the original name given the island and reflected in its attested forms. More importantly, however, the re­ constructed forms are themselves not correct, according to Coates (2000b: 33f.).12 My own attempt will only accommodate the name of the island and leave the name Tanat of the river in Shropshire unaccounted for. There is no reason for assuming that they reflect the same etymon. 13 Since several languages were spoken in England during the periods in which the names were given, languages of which at least Pre-Celtic languages, Celtic languages, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon have to be considered in the cases at hand, I even have to reckon with the possibility that they derive 394 The name of the Isle ofThanet from different languages, which would render their seeming homo­ phony accidental. Therefore I do not consider this etymological separa­ tion of Thanet from Tanat disadvantageous for the etymology of Thanet supported here, because it is not a priori likely that an area of land bears the same name as a river without a geographical connection to that area of land. 14 21.3. The comparative approach to place-names I believe that the etymology of a place-name cannot normally be found simply by an inspection of dictionaries but that the geography and hu­ man use of the place have to be considered. It is therefore not enough to compare the place-name to appellatives and other sorts of names of various languages; the named place has to be compared first of all to other places whose names appear similar and whose geographical set­ tings are comparable. A case in point is the etymology proposed by Coates (1988a) for the name of The Solent, the strait separating the Isle of Wight from the English mainland, whose main characteristic feature is the island's coastal cliffs serving as a landmark for sea traffic. Coates compares this place to several other places with similar names and finds that they are likewise marked by cliffs. Since for those other places, situated on the coast of Northwest Africa and of the Mediterranean Sea, r349 an ety­ mology based on the Semitic root siC 'rock, cliff' is on record, Coates suggests that the English toponym may be based on the same Semitic root and mean something like 'place of cliffs'. This etymology has been extended to Solund, an island (or group of islands) off the coast of Norway, and to the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall (cf. Venne­ mann 1999a: §§ [16.]4.1.2-3). Another case in point is the etymology proposed by Coates (l988b) for the name of (North and South) Uist. He equates the name with that of the Phoenician island of Ibiza. Coates cites an expert opinion ac­ cording to which the Semitic name of the island was ai-b-{-m, to be read as ~i-basim, ~f-bosem or ~i-besim; the name either means 'isle of pines' (in which case the name of the Western Balearic islands, Pityousoi, is to be compared) or, more likely, 'isle of balsam'.