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The River Stour ( or )〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=History )〕 is a river in East Anglia, England. It is 47 miles (76 km) long and forms most of the county boundary between Suffolk to the north, and Essex to the south. It rises in eastern Cambridgeshire, passes to the east of Haverhill, through Cavendish, Bures, Sudbury, Nayland, Stratford St Mary, Dedham and flows through the Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It becomes tidal just before Manningtree in Essex and joins the North Sea at Harwich. ==Etymology and usage== The name is of ambiguous and disputed origin. On one theory, the name ''Stour'' derive sfrom the Celtic ''sturr'' meaning "strong".〔Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names (2003)〕 However, the river-name ''Stour'', common in England, does not occur at all in Wales;〔O.G.S. Crawford, "Celtic place-names in England", ''The Archaeological Journal'' (British Archaeological Association) 2nd ser. 27 1920: p. 144〕 Crawford noted two tributaries of the Po River near Turin, spelled ''Stura''. In Germany the ''Stoer'' is a tributary of the River Elbe. According to ''Brewer's Britain and Ireland'' the ''Stour'' is pronounced differently in different cases: the Kentish and East Anglian Stours rhyme with ''tour''; the Oxfordshire Stour is sometimes rhymes with ''mower'', sometimes with ''hour'', and the Worcestershire Stour always rhymes with ''hour''.〔Ayto, John and Crofton, Ian: ''Brewer's Britain and Ireland'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005, ISBN 0-304-35385-X, p.1059.〕 Locally, the River Stour dividing Essex from Suffolk does not have a uniform pronunciation, varying from ''stowr'' to ''stoor''. As against that, ''stour'' is a Middle English word with two distinct meanings and derivations, still current enough to appear in most substantial dictionaries.〔(Wiktionary definition ), accessed July 2009.)〕 As an adjective, with Germanic roots, it signifies "large, powerful". As a noun, from medieval French roots, it signifies "tumult, commotion; confusion" or a "armed battle or conflict". Wiktionary also adds "blowing or deposit of dust", the primary definition in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which adds that this is a northern English and Scottish usage of uncertain derivation.〔''Concise Oxford Dictionary'', 10th edition, Oxford, 2001, ISBN 0-19-860438-6, p.1415〕 Recently it has been suggested that an Old European river-name was taken for an Old English adjective and that ''stour'' came to represent one pole of a structural opposition, with ''blyth'' at the opposite pole, allowing Anglo-Saxons to classify rivers on a continuum of fierceness.〔Richard Coates, "Stour and Blyth as English river-names" ''English Language and Linguistics'' 10 Cambridge University Press (2006:23-29).〕 The Victorian etymologist Isaac Taylor, now long discredited on many counts, proposed a very simple solution: that ''Stour'' derives from ''dŵr'', the Welsh word for water.〔(Taylor, Isaac: Words and Places, London, 2nd edition, 1921, p.143, accessed July 2009 )〕 It is quite possible that the various Stours do not share a common origin and that they need to be considered in their own terms rather than as a single problem. Certainly there is currently no universally-accepted explanation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「River Stour, Suffolk」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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