Grandas de Salime

Camino Primitivo

Principado de Asturias

Compound toponym in two layers. Grandas is the substantivised plural of Asturian granda, 'high, flat, stony land covered with low scrub, suitable for grazing but not cultivation', a pre-Roman word attested across the Cantabrian range. Salime, the second element, is a pre-Roman hydronym of opaque meaning that names the river Navia on this stretch and, today, the reservoir.

Granda is one of the most characteristic terms of the geographical lexicon of the peninsular northwestern quadrant. The word designates a very precise kind of terrain: high plateau, stony and poor soil, low scrub vegetation —⁠heather, broom, gorse⁠—⁠, suitable only for extensive grazing and the occasional mowing. Onomatologists agree on its pre-Roman character. Some relate it to a Celtic base granta- ('stone, harsh'), with parallels in European place names like Grantham (England) or Granville (France); others, to a broader Paleo-European base present in continental hydronyms and oronyms. The word survives as a common noun in rural Asturian and Galician, where a granda is still exactly that: a high plateau of harsh grazing above the forest. The plural toponym —⁠Grandas⁠— designates the set of plateaus at the headwaters of the river Navia, on which the village sits. The complement de Salime particularises the place through the river's name: the Salime is one of the historical variants of the Navia, a pre-Roman hydronym of lost meaning. The construction of the Salime dam in the 1940s —⁠among the largest hydraulic works of the Franco regime⁠— turned the old river into a forty-five-kilometre reservoir, without changing the valley's toponym.

Evolution of the name

  1. granda (sustrato prerromano) Celtic or Paleo-European before the 1st century BC
  2. Grandas de Salime Asturleonese from the 10th century

Reflections, to the letter

The village name describes the landscape the pilgrim has just crossed: a granda is, in rural Asturian and Galician, a high stony plateau covered with low scrub —⁠heather, broom, gorse⁠—⁠, suitable only for grazing. The plural commemorates the set of plateaus around the headwaters of the river Navia. The complement de Salime particularises the place through the old name of the river, today dammed into a forty-five-kilometre reservoir. The village, formerly settled on the bank, was relocated in the 1940s to allow the flooding. The name stayed; the landscape did not.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Attested
A form or word documented in writing in historical sources; opposed to "reconstructed" (forms proposed by comparative inference but not actually documented).
Granda
Pre-Roman word still alive in rural Asturian and Galician: a high, flat and stony land covered with low scrub (heather, broom, gorse), suitable only for extensive grazing. It names dozens of toponyms in the peninsular northwest.
Hydronym
A place name derived from the name of a river, lake or watercourse (Carrión, Eo, Sella, Deba, Cueza).
Onomatologist
A specialist in onomastics, the linguistic discipline that studies proper names — of persons (anthroponyms), places (toponyms) and institutions.
Oronym
A proper name of a land elevation (mountain, range, hill, height). Oronyms are one of the oldest toponymic categories: mountains tend to preserve names earlier than the dominant language of their region.
Pre-Roman
Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
Substantivised plural
A device by which an adjective or noun in the plural is fixed as a place name without the noun that governed it: fontanas = "[lands of the] springs", ferreiros = "[place of the] smiths". Frequent in medieval repopulation.

Sources

  • García Arias, X.Ll. — Toponimia asturiana
  • Concello de Grandas de Salime — Archivo histórico municipal

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Camino Primitivo

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Soutomerille
  3. Castroverde
  4. O Cádavo
  5. Vilabade
  6. A Fonsagrada
  7. Acevedo
  8. Grandas de Salime
  9. Berducedo
  10. Padrón
  11. Hospitales del Palo
  12. Pola de Allande
  13. Pintoria
  14. Borres
  15. ··· toward the start