Bourne Eau - Linguistic Derivations

Linguistic Derivations

The use of the French-seeming Eau as the name of a Fenland river is not unique. It appears to have arisen in the eighteenth century. The earlier term was Ea, which arises from an Anglo-Danish word for river. Compare the Danish aa, nowadays written å. This Danish, one-letter word is pronounced as a French o but shortened by a glottal stop or as a curt English aw as a pure vowel rather than a diphthong. The eighteenth century engineers and map-makers seem to have been more familiar with French than with Danish. However, in the German-speaking parts of Schleswig-Holstein, rivers which across the border in Denmark, fit this nomenclature are called Au, which is not widely different from the English pronunciation of Eau.

The following is extracted from the Wikipedia article on Aachen. "The Romans named the hot sulphur springs there, Aquis-Granum. For the origin of the Granus several theories were developed, but it is now widely accepted that it derives from the Celtic god of water and health. The hot springs have been channelled into baths since Roman times, and these are still in use. The element ‘’âh’’- is an Old German cognate with Latin ‘’aqua’’, both meaning "water". In French-speaking areas of the former Empire the word ‘’aquas’’ was turned into ‘’aix’’, hence Aix-en-Provence is an old Roman spa in Provence." Thus, the use of the French word for water, eau is not after all, so inappropriate.

A bourne is a stream flowing from a spring. Thus, although the town in which it rises is called Bourne and this apparently gives rise to the river's name, the Bourne Eau is clearly the bourne in question. Bourne is the southern English cognate of the burn of northern English. However, in later use, each has begun to lose its association with the spring, burn the more so.

Wheeler gives the name Bourne Old Ea to what is now the Bourne Eau and Bourne Ea or Brunne Ea to that part of the Glen downstream of Kate's Bridge. He then quotes Dugdale, and an act of Queen Elizabeth I:

Brunne, River of, Brunne Hee,Burne Alde Ee. In Dugdale the Brunne Ee is describhed in the margin as 'now the Glene'...'Which had its course through the midst of the town of Pincbec.' The 'Ware' Dyke is described as extending along 'the river of Burne Ee to Godramscote' in a commission of Sewers held at Hempringingham in Queen Elisabeth's time.