New Post
Search
Help[Facts] Re: The name "Tweed"
in reply to a message by Tweed
Suggestions that Tweed means border or was named for being between England and Scotland are anachronistic. Neither England nor Scotland existed when the Tweed was probably named so, and the kingdoms which existed in the Anglo-British era (Bernicia and Northumberland) extended far north of the Tweed, beyond Edinburgh.
1
Replies
The etymology of the name Tweed is Twith/Twixt, meaning Between. It was a border. It was the river between 2 pieces of land, whether or not these pieces of land were named at the time.
1
And whether or not anyone spoke old English as well apparently. Give it up. It was not the border of anything. It ran through the middle of Bernicia , a British kingdom which became Anglicized c.700. There is no satisfactory solution to the origin of the name. It can't be Gaelic as the language of the area was British, then Saxon then Scots English. Everybody keeps repeating it was the historic border between England and Scotland, except it wasn't and isn't except for a short stretch of it's length, at a late period. It was not the border between anything else either.
1