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Attempting to uncover the ancient origins of English place names has long kept academics and hobbyists busy, with each name often attracting multiple conflicting ideas. Now, artificial intelligence offers a way to analyse the names’ similarities to a host of other European languages, revealing hints about their roots.
Michael Dalvean at the University of Western Australia took a list of 18,799 place names from England and 84,687 from Ireland, Scotland, Wales,…