A dale is a valley, especially an open, gently-sloping ground between low hills with a stream flowing through it. [1] It is used most frequently in the North of England and the Southern Uplands of Scotland; the term "fell" commonly refers to mountains or hills that flank a dale. As with many other words, dale was preserved by Viking influence in Northern England. [1]
It appears in various contexts, such as up hill and down dale "over every hill and dale", and "up all hills, down all dales.
The word dale comes from the Old English [2] 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. [3] [1] 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. [4] [5] 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. [6]
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 | Dutch |
dal | Chechen |
Tal, 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 |
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).
The name Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia) is similar in form.
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A dene or dean used to be a common name for a valley, in which sense it is frequently found as a component of British place-names, such as Rottingdean and Ovingdean in England and Deanston and Hassendean in Scotland.
A dale is a valley. It was commonly used in northern England and Scotland to denote an open valley as a dale, contrasted with a gill or narrow valley.
The English language spoken and written in England encompasses a diverse range of accents and dialects. The language forms part of the broader British English, along with other varieties in the United Kingdom. Terms used to refer to the English language spoken and written in England include English English and Anglo-English.
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