Traces of a Bilingual Town in England
Read at the Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1853
It is well-known that the termination -by as the name of a village or town is a sign of Danish occupancy. At the present time it means town in Scandinavia; and Christiania or Copenhagen is called By, or Byen, = the town, capital, or metropolis. The English form is -ton. When an Angle said Newton, a Dane said Newby. The distribution of the forms in -by has already commanded much attention; so that it is not the intention of the present writer to say much about it.
Along, however, with this form go others: e. g.
| The English | Ship | becomes in Danish | Skip | as in | Skipton |
| —— | Fish | —— | Fisk | —— | Fiskerton |
| —— | Worm | —— | Orm | —— | Ormsby |
| —— | Church | —— | Kirk | —— | Ormskirk |
&c. &c.
In like manner the Roman castra becomes—
In English chester or cester, in Danish caster and caistor. Contrast the forms Tadcaster, Lancaster &c. with Chester, or Bicester and this difference becomes apparent.
Now the river Ouse in the parts about Wansford separates the counties of Huntingdon and Northampton—in the former of which no place ending in -by is to be found, and all the castra are chester; as Godmanchester. In Northamptonshire, on the other hand, the Danish forms in -by are common, and the castra are caistor, or caster. All the Danish is on one side. Nothing is Danish on the other. The river has every appearance of having formed a frontier. On it lay the Roman station of Durobrivis—with, probably, castra on each side. At any rate, there are, at the present moment, two villages wherein that term appears. On the Huntingdon side is the village of Chesterton (English). On the Northampton side is that of Caistor (Danish).