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Dale (landform)
Open valley
Open valley
A dale is a valley, especially an open, gently-sloping ground between low hills with a stream flowing through it.{{cite web |access-date=18 September 2024
It appears in various contexts, such as “up hill and down dale”, “over every hill and dale”, and “up all hills, down all dales”.
Etymology
The word dale comes from the Old English word dæl, from which the word "dell" also derived. It is related to Old Norse word dalr (and the modern Icelandic word dalur, etc.), which may have influenced its survival in northern England. The Germanic origin is assumed to be **dala-*. Dal- in various combinations is common in placenames in Norway. Modern English valley and French vallée are claimed to be related to dale. A distant relative of dale is currency unit dollar, stemming from German thaler or daler, short for Joachimsthaler coins manufactured in the town of Joachimsthal in Bohemia.
The word is perhaps related to Welsh dol (meadow, pasture, valley), Russian dol (valley, reverse side) and Serbian/Croatian/Bulgarian/Russian dolina (basin, doline is a geological term for certain surface depressions in karst areas). The uses are semantic equivalents to many words and phrases, suggesting a common Indo-European affinity. Vale and thalweg are also related.
| Word/phrase | Language |
|---|---|
| dal | Afrikaans/Dutch |
| dal | Chechen |
| Tal (prior spelling: Thal), Delle | German |
| dal | Norwegian/Swedish/Danish |
| *даліна* (*dalina*) | Belarusian |
| *долина* (*dolina*) | Serbian/Croatian/Bulgarian/Russian/Ukrainian |
| vale, dolină | Romanian |
| dolec, dolek | Slovenian |
| údolí, důl | Czech |
| dolina | Polish |
| údolie, dolina | Slovak |
| دره (dære) | Persian |
| دۆڵ (doll) | Kurdish |
Uses
The following are several examples of major dales that have the name dale. The river name is usually appended with "-dale". There are also many smaller dales; this is not an exhaustive list (see dale (place name element) for more).
- Airedale (Yorkshire)
- Annandale (Scottish Lowlands)
- Coquetdale (Northumberland)
- Ennerdale (Cumberland)
- Eskdale (Cumberland)
- Eskdale (Scottish Lowlands)
- Eskdale (Yorkshire)
- Lauderdale (Scottish Lowlands)
- Lonsdale or Lunesdale (Lancashire-Westmorland)
- Rochdale (Greater Manchester)
- Teesdale (Durham)
- Tweeddale (Scottish Lowlands)
- Tynedale (Northumberland)
- Weardale (County Durham and Yorkshire)
- Wensleydale or Yoredale (Yorkshire)
- Yorkshire Dales The name Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia) is similar in form.
References
References
- ''DK illustrated Oxford dictionary.'' Oslo: Teknologisk forl. 1998. {{ISBN. 8251205506.
- ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''
- Bjorvand, Harald (2000). ''Våre arveord''. Oslo: Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning. {{ISBN. 8270993190.
- De Caprona, Y. (2013). ''Norsk etymologisk ordbok: tematisk ordnet''. Oslo, Kagge.
- Falk, Hjalmar (1991). ''Etymologisk ordbog over det norske og det danske sprog.'' Oslo: Bjørn Ringstrøms antikvariat. {{ISBN. 8252525482.
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