Bocage is a Norman word..?

[Jack]

Now according to wikipedia Bocage is a Norman word. That may be correct but I study place names especailly from the medieval period but I have never come across any reference's in English place names to the 'Bocage' - here is what wikipedia says:

 

Bocage is a Norman word which has entered both the French and English languages. It may refer to a small forest, a decorative element of leaves, a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture, or a type of rubble-work, comparable with the English use of 'rustic' in relation to garden ornamentation.

 

Has anyone come across or know of any place names that would relate to this? Maybe in the Sussex/Weald region :confused:

 

Best wishes.

 

Jack.

[Tony B]

Qui bocage est Jerrais !There is also a requirment in Jersey for Land Owners to cut the verges of their property that adjoin a road three times a year at times posted, on pain of fine, this is known as the Broncaghe.

[AlienFTM]

Sorry Jack I don't see what you're getting at. Of course Bocage is a Norman word. Why wouldn't it be? It describes a landscape feature unique to Normandy. Why wouldn't the French have a word for it, and why would anyone else need to make up a word when the one that exists is perfectly apt? Certainly given French track history, if anyone else made up a word for it, they'd make up their own anyway to protect and preserve their own language.

 

;o)

[Tony B]

Ah but Norman French, or Jerriais is NOT French. It is as to French as Chaucer's English is to modern. To start with the pronaciations are diffrent , easiast is Qui pronunced Waaaay. It also has unique vocabulary, descended from Scandanavian languages. Never call a Norman, French they get most upset.

[Stormin]

Never call a Norman, French they get most upset.

 

I'd get most upset if I was called a Frenchman. :angry:

 

Have I missed something? How does this subject relate to military vehicles?

[Tony B]

Maybr Jack wants to buy a Sherman and re do the Battle of Normandy?:-D

[79x100]

I think that I know what Jack is asking and I think that he's correct in his underlying assumption.

 

My impression is that the Normans had relatively little impact on English rural place names and the underlying basis is generally Saxon or older but even so I can't think of any suggestion of the word 'bocage' in any English names, either of settlements or landscape features. I would assume that 'bocage' entered the language of the Normandy region some time after the tyrants lost their influence in Britain and perhaps only became known in English after the second world war ?

 

Did the French have some equivalent of the British enclosures which altered the landscape and gave rise to a new vocabulary ?

 

The landscape of Normandy probably differs from the rest of France because they didn't see the need to plant rows of poplars to keep the sun off advancing foreign armies that far west !

[Jack]

I think that I know what Jack is asking and I think that he's correct in his underlying assumption.

 

My impression is that the Normans had relatively little impact on English rural place names and the underlying basis is generally Saxon or older but even so I can't think of any suggestion of the word 'bocage' in any English names, either of settlements or landscape features. I would assume that 'bocage' entered the language of the Normandy region some time after the tyrants lost their influence in Britain and perhaps only became known in English after the second world war ?

 

Did the French have some equivalent of the British enclosures which altered the landscape and gave rise to a new vocabulary ?

 

The landscape of Normandy probably differs from the rest of France because they didn't see the need to plant rows of poplars to keep the sun off advancing foreign armies that far west !

 

 

That is pretty much it. I was doing some WW2 research and ended up in the Bocage. It then accured to me that I have never come across that name/reference to in the English language. Strangely, in Dorset we have many Norman names but no references the Bocage.

[HotBed]

wot o jack, i was brought up in a small village in sussex and my first memories of the word bocage is reading BATTLE magazine in the early 70s and the story D DAY DAWSON. but as to wether my family or locals used the word bocage the answer is no we used spinney (small wood, thicket ) or copse (small wood of underwood and small trees grown for periodical cutting (coppiceing )

 

regards

Edited September 24, 2008 by HotBed

[79x100]

There's a 1920s dictionary at my parents. I'll have a look to see if the word is there. (Unless someone has an older version ?)

[79x100]

I've been prompted to reach for the Chamber's. They give the alternative spelling 'boscage' and suggest that it is from the same source as the Germanic 'busch' and English 'bush'

 

It would seem that if Shepherd's Bush were to become gentrified, we could end up referring to it as 'Shepherd's Bocage'

[Tony B]

Philology is a fascinating subject. As for place names they do see to be very localised. What 44k6 cals a spinney in Wiltshire would be a tump, and in Dorset you have a Combe but in Wales a Cwm. Spell diffrent, totally diffrent language but pronunced almost the same.