874: york Apr 30, 2017

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Plenty of place-names now adopted into English came about when the Romans would simply generalize an area with a name that did not match that of the locals, such as with 'Belgium', though other times this was reversed, such as with the Germanicized 'Switzerland'. The city of York in England was called 'Eboracum' in Latin when the Romans originally settled. The name did not come from out of nowhere, and it is thought that this comes from Common Brythonic, though no one knows the precise language that was spoken in that area at that exact time. The meaning is only reconstructed from similarities between other Celtic languages including the Irish 'iúr', Scottish Gaelic 'iubhar', and Welsh 'efwr' that the meaning in Latin 'land of the yew-tree' is understood. Celtic words for 'yew' also appear in France, such as with the city, 'Ivry le Temple' in the Northern part of the country.

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