Laredo
Cantabria
From the Latin glaretum 'place of pebbles, river gravel bed', with the typical Romance evolution of old Castilian (gl- → l-, voicing of -t-). The town sits on the alluvial deposits of the river Asón.
Evolution of the name
- glaretum late Latin 6th — 9th century
- Laredo medieval Castilian from the 10th century
Reflections, to the letter
Laredo names the very ground the walker treads on arrival. Late Latin glaretum means 'river shingle, place of water-worn stones', from glarea, 'gravel'. The town rises on the sand spit the river Asón has laid down over millennia: to walk La Salvé beach out to the tip of El Puntal, the longest stretch of sand on the Cantabrian coast, is to tread the gravel that gave the name.
Glossary
- Sedimentary spit
- An elongated deposit of sand and gravel built by a river at its mouth, parallel to the coastline. The Laredo spit formed during the Holocene and continues growing westward.
- Voicing
- The shift of a voiceless sound (k, p, t) to its voiced counterpart (g, b, d) between vowels. A key phonetic shift of Castilian and other Romance languages: vita → vida, petra → piedra, glaretum → laredo.
- Intervocalic
- A consonant placed between two vowels; in Castilian it tends to drop or voice as the word evolves.
Sources
- Solórzano Telechea, J.A. — Laredo en la Edad Media
- Corominas, J. & Pascual, J.A. — Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico
- Menéndez Pidal, R. — Orígenes del español
If you have a correction or an observation about this information,
please write to us through the form at the foot of the site.
We will grow more precise thanks to your contribution.
Camino del Norte