Valdesalor
CáceresExtremadura
Compound toponym. Val, apocopation of Castilian valle (Latin vallis), frequent in toponyms of the western Peninsula. De Salor, a pre-Roman hydronym that names the Salor river, a tributary of the Tagus, with the base sal- linked to the liquid element in Paleo-European hydronymy. It means 'valley of the Salor'.
The Salor river is one of the best-preserved pre-Roman hydronyms —in the sense that it maintains the original base almost without modification— of inland Extremadura. Peninsular onomastics groups it with other hydronyms in sal- that appear scattered across the European Atlantic façade: the German Saale, the Portuguese Salonia, various minor streams of the Atlantic quadrant. Hans Krahe included the base in his systematisation of Paleo-European hydronymy, linking it to the liquid element without precise semantic reconstruction. The use of the apocopated Val- (reduced noun valle) is characteristic of western peninsular toponymy: we already saw Valverde, Valbuena, Valdemoro, Valcarce. The Cáceres hamlet is tiny —it belongs to the council of Cáceres and sits exactly on the Salor floodplain— but it is a documented stop on the Camino since the Middle Ages. The modest parish church of San Sebastián marks the hamlet. The pilgrim crosses it after Aldea del Cano, on the final climb toward Cáceres.
Evolution of the name
- vallis + Salor Latin + pre-Roman before the 10th century
- Valdesalor medieval Castilian from the 12th century
Glossary
- Apocope
- Loss of one or more phonemes at the end of a word.
- Hydronym
- A place name derived from the name of a river, lake or watercourse (Carrión, Eo, Sella, Deba, Cueza).
- Onomastics
- The linguistic discipline that studies proper names — of persons, places and institutions. "Onomastic readings" are competing etymological hypotheses about a name.
- Palaeo-European
- Pertaining to the oldest Indo-European linguistic strata of Europe, prior to Celtic and Italic. Hans Krahe identified a Palaeo-European hydronymy (roots such as *dewa-, *alb-, *lut-) shared by Atlantic European rivers.
- Pre-Roman
- Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
Sources
- Diputación de Cáceres — Inventario de patrimonio
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