Albion
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- This article is about the archaic name for Great Britain. For other meanings, see Albion (disambiguation)
White_cliffs_of_dover_09_2004.jpg
The name is perhaps of Celtic origin or older, from the Proto-Indo-European root that denotes both "white" and "mountain", but the Romans took it as connected with albus (white), in reference to the chalk "White Cliffs of Dover", and Alfred Holder's Alt-Keltischer Sprachschatz, (1896) unhesitatingly translates it Weissland ("whiteland"). The early writer (6th century BC) whose periplus was translated by Avienus at the end of the 4th century AD (see Massaliote Periplus) does not use the name Britannia; he speaks of nesos 'Iernon kai 'Albionon (island of the Ierni and the Albiones). So Pytheas of Massilia (4th century BC) speaks of Albion and 'Ierne. From the fact that there was a tribe called the Albiones on the north coast of Spain in Asturias, some scholars have placed Albion in that neighbourhood (see G. F. Unger, Rhein. Mus. xxxviii., 1883, pp. 156-196).
Avalon may be simply another spelling of the same name.
The pejorative sobriquet "perfidious Albion" takes its meaning from this old name for England.de:Albion (Name) es:Albión nl:Albion ja:アルビオン pl:Albion (Anglia)