Nevis
From Hull AWE
Nevis is a place-name. It is a homograph used by two places on different sides of the Atlantic, which derive it from two different etymologies, and pronounce it two different ways.
- The older Nevis, simply the name of a locality, is in Scotland. There are a River Nevis, a Glen Nevis, a Loch Nevis, and the mountain Ben Nevis. These are all connected. These Nevises are pronounced, with the stress on the first syllable, which has the vowel of 'get' and 'left': 'NEVV-iss', IPA: /ˈnɜ vɪs/. The name is derived from the river, whose name is derived from the Celtic nebh ‘water’. "It has been suggested," says Everett-Heath, "however, that the name comes from the Gaelic nemess ‘malicious’ or ‘nasty’, a reference to its malevolent reputation; this derivation is unlikely."
- The other Nevis is in the Caribbean. It forms one of the Leeward Islands, and forms ,with the neighbouring island Saint Kitts, the state of the Federation of St Christopher and Nevis,less formally the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. So it is not only a geographical name, but a political one too.
- St Kitts is of etymological interest: Columbus, who visited and 'discovered' the island in 1493 (his second voyage to the Americas), named it after his patron saint and namesake Saint Christopher. English settlers who arrived in 1623, to found the first successful English colony in the West Indies, shortened the name to St Kitts (see further Conventional abbreviations for forenames).
- Nevis was first called las nieves ('the snows') in Spanish, by Columbus, who thought that the island’s summit, often wreathed in cloud, looked snow-covered; in the next century this was elaborated into Nuestra Señora de las Nieves ('Our Lady of the Snows'). The modern pronunciation of the Caribbean Nevis, in English, reflects this: the first, stressed, vowel is that of 'leave', or the first in 'even': 'NEE-vis', IPA: /ˈniː vɪs /.
- If etymological coincidence amuses you, you might like to see Leave (irregular verb), where the Scottish 'Nevis' (/ɛ/) and the Caribbean one (/iː/) echo the past forms and the base form respectively..
