Southern Europe

The difference between physical-geographical and toponymic regionalization is the main feature of southern Europe. There are a lot of factors of toponymy of the Mediterranean, which distinguish it from the background of toponyms of Northern and Central Europe.

This is due to resettlement of people, the influence of ancient civilizations, historical processes and, most importantly, with a long rule over these lands of the Roman Empire. Toponymy of this region is characterized by the antiquity, as well as the influence on the formation of the Latin language.

Toponymy of the countries of the Balkan Peninsula is complex. This is not only the history of the national composition of the population, but also a very complex history of settlement.

Close contact of different peoples led to significant lexical borrowing. For example, in Slavic languages of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the abundance of romance language. In all countries of Balkan toponymy consists of many layers. Only Greek toponymy is relatively more homogeneous. Slavic names powerful layer spread in the Northern part of the Balkan Peninsula and Romanian lowlands, assimilating some places of the Aegean names, Illyrian, Thracian, Albanian, Turkish (datarescue).

The Bulgarian language is similar in vocabulary to the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, but contains a certain percentage of Turkic elements. Famous Bulgarian topone-mist V. Georgiev argues that the major rivers of Bulgaria (with a length of over 100 km) is dominated by pre-Slavic (Thracian) name, comprising about 70% of the total number (Iskar, Struma, Lom, Vit, Tundzha), and only 15 % of the Bulgarian (Topolnitsa, Provadiiska), and the other names come from other languages — romance, Celtic, Turkish. In omonimii Bulgaria is dominated by Slavic names: Triglav, Golyama Planina, Maliovitsa, Bronnitsa, Rathbone, Brisnik, Baba.

Slavic names Smyadovo, Sredets, Zlataritsa, Tvarditsa, Pernik, Novosil'tsi, Bozidar interspersed with such Turkic names as Kazanlak, Kaynarca, Kardzhali.

Extensive development in Bulgaria has been renamed. But in recent years the Bulgarian authorities renamed the towns to return their old names.

A lot of the names on the territory of the former Yugoslavia date back to ancient times, and to establish their origin is almost impossible. Along the coast is dominated by Latin names (Durmitor, Visitor, Cipater). Widely represented and Slavic place names, especially hydronyms (Neretva, Sava, Lucica, Krasica, Piva, etc.). Examples of Slavic oranimal are Plesevica, Zlatibor, Triglav, Prokletije, Pohorje, Osceola, Jastrebac, Shar Planina, Stara Planina. It is easy to find a Slavic based names: Novi Sad, Ljubljana, Novohrad, the Belgrade-Ivangrad, Dubrovnik etc. Some of the terms included in oranimal become in geographical literature, a household name: Planina, Polje, karst. Albanian language is among the languages of the world a separate place. There are a lot of Slavic and romance words (in common with Romanian). It is possible that the Albanians took on their current site, a number of Illyrian names, and assimilate them. Examples of Albanian names can be Puke, Kukes, krume, Moore, Drina etc. Typical Albanian names often include words such as Uy (water), det (sea), gui (Bay), lum (river), liken (lake), Playa (mountain range), Pul (forest), Barda (white), zi (black), ri (new), vieter (old), mad (large), vogel (small) etc. Despite the homogeneity of the composition of the population in Albania is quite a lot of foreign names. Widely represented Slavic names (Bezigrad, Undermountain, Pogradec, Radomir).

Toponymy of Greece is characterized by deep antiquity. Due to the huge impact that had this country in the development of world culture, individual names not only became common but also became sayings, winged words and expressions. Such, for example, Olympus, Parnassus, Sparta, mount Athos, Thebes, Athens, Arcadia, etc. Many of these names are widely represented in other countries — USA, Canada (the so-called pseudoclassical names). Along with the modern Greek language is of great importance for the understanding of the toponymy of Greece is Greek, but he does not answer etymological meaning of many geographical names of the country.

Spanish and Portuguese belong to the romance group. They are both pretty close. The Spanish language is derived from Latin with some borrowings from the indigenous language of the local Celtic peoples and the Germanic languages of the Goths and vandals. In the toponymy traces more significant than in the literary language, and hydronyms more visible traces of the Arabic language.

In modern Spanish there are some fairly sustainable dialects (Catalonia, Galicia, Asturias), but in the toponymy they are weak. Different from the standard Spanish language Basque (euskara). It is widely distributed in the Eastern part of the Cantabrian mountains, in the Western Pyrenees and South West France.

Portuguese compared to Spanish shows only some features of phonetics. A dialect close to Portuguese, spoken by the people of Galicia — Northwest of Spain.

In Spain there are several toponymic layers: 1) Dukelsky (Iberian); 2) ancient Celtic (in the North); 3) Roman (best pronounced on the Mediterranean coast); 4) German; 5) Arabic (most clearly pronounced in the South of Spain and Portugal; 6) the modern Spanish and Portuguese reservoirs.

Ancient Iberian are the names of many rivers in Spain: the Duero, Tagus, Esla and other Celtic names with the formant -brig meaning "strong points, which were the reference points for the promotion and settlement of the Celts": Segobriga, Mirobriga, mun-dobrila, Arabiga. Celtic are the names with the formant -Tala: Calabria, Talavera, Talamanca and many others. Names in -brig (bridge) are confined to the banks of the Duero and Tajo. Belonging to the Roman era are the names to the - anum. They are especially numerous in Catalonia. These names mean "the yards owned by either the Romans or the customers of Roman citizens". The same with them the names of Cadiz, Seville, Valencia, Tarragona and others. Germanic (Visigothic) names are preserved everywhere in the Iberian Peninsula. These include Godos, Goda, Godin, Gothones, Svigos, Alanis, etc. on the Peninsula up to 2000 names of German origin.

Arabic toponymy is also well pronounced in Spain and Portugal. To it belong many of the names with the word Medina which means "city" of Medina – del - Campo. Alcala Arabic means "fortress". The hydronyms with the term comes from the Arabic guada Plaza (Wadi), which means "course"— the Guadalquivir, Guadarama (sandy river), Guadalete, Guadiana (duck river).

Many names of hybrids with elements of different languages. An example is the name of Valladolid, which contains a Arabic root, a Latin suffix, and Spanish own name: "the land belonging to N. (own name)". Typical terms in the Spanish geographical names are: Alto (high) Bajo (low), Blanco (white), Val (valley), Verde (green), Cabo (Cape), for example: in the Atlantic Cape Verde Islands, but the name of the country on the Islands of Cape Verde; Casa (farm, house), Castillo (castle). Among the many Spanish surnames Castillo. Well represented terms: Lago (lake), Largo (broad, long), Monte (mountain) Negro (black), Passo (pass transition), rock (rock), San (Saint), Meseta (plateau, upland). Names with the term "San" in Spain more than in any other country, for example: San Martin is repeated 210 times, San Pedro — 179, San Miguel — 138, San Antonio — 69.

Portuguese names are slightly different from Spanish. Typical forms in the Portuguese language are the names on the -ish, -ush, -eura (-euros): Lagos, Sagres, Albufeira, Messines, Kolos, Vidigueira etc.

The proliferation of names of migrants of Spanish and Portuguese very widely in South and North America.

In toponymic terms, the territory of Italy is quite diverse. It is characterized by the abundance of ancient Latin names. Italian belongs to the romance group. Formed in the homeland of the Latin language, he is the closest to classical Latin that influenced the formation of Italian toponymy. Many of the names of Italy became common and are used now in the form of a synthesis of geographical terms: the volcano (the volcanic island of Vul-Cano), staroaleiskoe Piedmont from Piedmont, which means "foothills". In Italy there are four place names ical layers: 1) golacinski name Umbro — etrus-descent. To golacinski (Etruscan) are the oldest names of rivers and many settlements; 2) names of Latin origin (of the era of Roman rule); 3) names of Germanic origin; 4) neo-Latin (Italian) names.

In oronyms of Italian names everywhere from the foothills of the Alps to Sicily. Examples of Italian names can be: Gran Paradiso, Monte Viso, Monte Rosa, Gran Sasso, Monte Amiata etc.

In hydronymys of Italian names is also widespread: tal-amenta, Livenza, Adige, Ticino, Sillaro, Cesana, Lemon. Settlements also carry Latin names. The names of many cities emerged in the era of Rome and earlier. These include: Rome, Naples, Brindisi, Messina, Reggio Calabria, Siracusa, Catania, Bologna, Palermo, Bari, Ancona, Ravenna, Pisa, Genoa, Verona, Adria, Parma, Florence, and several others. For two thousand years in the names of a number of cities occurred only minor changes: Brundisium Brindisi, Panormo — Palermo, Bono-Nha — Bologna.

In Sicily there are 328 Arab names, many of the Greek names that were changed in the transformation process. They are especially abundant in Calabria.

German names are few, they are confined to the mountainous part of the Alps — the Brenner pass, Ortler group mountains etc. In border areas some objects have duplicate names — Italian and German: Bitter — Luttach, Brunico — Brunnen.