Salmantica
Meaning
- femininesingulara town of the Vettones in Lusitania situated on the southern bank of the Durius, now Salamanca
Declension
| form | singular | plural |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | Salmantica | — |
| genitive | Salmanticae | — |
| dative | Salmanticae | — |
| accusative | Salmanticam | — |
| ablative | Salmanticā | — |
| vocative | Salmantica | — |
| locative | Salmanticae | — |
Origins
From a pre-Roman place-name, possibly of Proto-Indo-European origin: * according to Tovar, derived from an earlier hydronym or theonym *Salmantia, containing the ancient European hydronymic root *sal- (“water, flowing or agitated water”), which he relates to salum (“the open sea”), and an element *-mant- interpreted as expressing possession or abundance. The name may therefore originally have denoted the river now called the Tormes or a divinity embodied by it, with Salmantica meaning approximately “the settlement beside the Salmantia”. * Alternatively, Ruipérez interprets the initial element *sala- as a Pre-Roman hydronym meaning “ford, shallow river crossing”, comparing other names such as Salas in Galiza, referring to a crossing of the Tormes, although the remainder of the name is unexplained under this proposal.