Lhaw and its million different spellings
Are these English topographic names all variants of 'lhaw'?
Hoo
Hooe
Hoe
Ho?
How
Howe
Haw?
Hawe
Law
Lawe
Loo?
Lew?
Loe?
Low?
Knoll
Knowle
Know
Knock
Cannock
Knox
Nowell
Noll
Nol
Nole
Nall
Nal
Nell
Nel?
Nle?
Knob?
Knab?
Knap?
Cap?
Cape?
Cop?
Hill?
Hillock?
Hull?
Anyway, why so many different spellings and names for small hills?
Hummock
Tor
Bluff
Fell
Drift
Ridge
Rise
Down
Dun
Don
Den?
etc etc etc etc...
I think you may have misapprehended the fictional place-name Amon Lhaw in Tolkien, Coldheat. In Elvish, amon is "hill" and lhaw is a "pair of ears".
In terms of real languages, the toponym Knock is an Anglicised rendering of the Gaelic word cnoc, "a hill".
Don, down, town and the suffix -ton are forms of dun (all being derived from a Continental Celtic source *dunom).
A bluff and a fell have very different qualities and features from a hillock or a ridge, don't they ? ~ hence the great (and necessary) variety of hill words.
In Wales the word for a hill is "bryn" in the Welsh language......pronounced simply as "brin" which is a surprise really as many Welsh words are, to non Welsh speakers, not at all phonetic or pronounced as they are spelled....the same applies to Scottish Gaelic.
There is a town in South Wales called Brynmawr - which literally means "a large hill" - it is pronounced something like "BRIN- mah-ooorr" and NOT, as many English people choose to say it, "BRIN-moh".
AAMOI - there is a well known public school (or private school as the Americans prefer) in the USA which also bears the name "Brynmawr" and I daresay most if not all Americans use the version used by the English as I just said.
The school I think, but I'm not sure here without checking, is in Pennsylvania, and must surely have connections with Wales in some way...probably it was founded by a settler from Wales, and there might well have been a large hill in the vicinity.
I suppose the American Brynmawr school for girls is the equivalent of Roedean, in Sussex, England, one of the most famous of girls' private independent schools, another being Benenden, in Kent, England - which is where Princes Anne, the Princess Royal so called, was educated.
>>Pennsylvania, and must surely have connections with Wales in some way>>
Pennsylvania is coal country, Damian, so a lot of Welsh mining families emigrated there.
There is the short answer, although there was doubtless plenty of pasture land for the sheep and farmland for the leeks, don't you know.
The other aspect that had you curious, Damian, was the naming of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a town just west of Philadelphia. This American town (and famous college) of Bryn Mawr (it is two words) takes it name from a farm in Wales which had been owned by Rowland Ellis, a Welsh Quaker (in those days of William Penn, Welsh Methodism had not yet been created as a fuller expression of resistance to the Established Church).
It was near Dolgellau, in Wales, that Rowland Ellis lived on a farm called Bryn Mawr ("Big Hill"). He emigrated to America in 1686 along with some other persecuted Quakers, and later became a prominent political leader in Colonial Pennsylvania.
>>Pennsylvania, and must surely have connections with Wales in some way>>
I know a little old American lady come historian and local activist in London's East End with the surname Merrion who hails from Pennsylvania.
Anyway, Hlaw is the word with may spellings not Lhaw.
Bryn Mawr is in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. Tons of Welsh heritage thereabouts.
Torpenhow Hill - which means hill hill hill' hill! (Hillhillhill Hill)
tor(hill) pen(hill) how(hill) hill(hill)
Just like saying:
Torknaphaw or Hooknockdown or Knocklawknoll or Nollhoohull or Hullnellhill or Pendencop Torhawpen or Torhoopen or Torhowpen or Hootorpen or Hoohowhoe or Bluffdriftfell or Felldriftbluff or Coppenden or Copdenpen or Hillnallhull or Pentorhoo or Torpenburgh or Hillhullhooe or Donnallpen or Pendonnall or Howdownlaw or Knapknabknock or Risetorrigg or Hawlawtor or Torlawhaw or Knollnellnall or Humppenhillock or Dunpenknock etc etc etc