La Cerlangue


La Cerlangue is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France.

Geography

A farming village in the Pays de Caux, some east of Le Havre, at the junction of the D112 and D910 roads. The canal de Tancarville and the A131 autoroute cut through the middle of the commune. The river Seine forms the commune's southern border.

Toponymy

The name of the locality appears as Cellengue around 1240, Latinized as Cervi lingua in 1248 and in the Norman dialectal forms Cherlengue or Chellengue from the 13th century to the 15th century. The name may be related to the presence, in the nearby wood, of the hart's-tongue fern called in Modern French langue-de-cerf, but Old North French *cerlangue "deer's tongue", compare dent-de-lion "dandelion", called liondent as well.
The parish of Saint-Jean-d'Abbetot was annexed to La Cerlangue in 1824. Abbetot was written as Abetot around 1060. It is a medieval toponymic formation using the -tot suffix, preceded by a man's name, either Abbo from Western Germanic, or Abbi from northern Germanic, old Norse or old Danish, a nickname of Ábiǫrn, whose second element -biǫrn is from old Norse biǫrn "bear". The Norman Baron Urse d'Abetot, was probably from this hamlet. Latin ursus means "bear" in English.

History

The village of Saint-Jean-d'Abbetot was merged into La Cerlangue in 1824, which is why there are two ancient churches in La Cerlangue.

Places of interest