Tournefeuille, on the left bank of the Garonne, is located in the linguistic area of
Gascon Occitan of the eastern variant, of essentially oral expression linked to a rurality dependent on the domination of Toulouse of Languedocian culture. The French toponym Tournefeuille is put in Occitan in graphic correspondence with:
Torna Fuèlha in Languedoc,
Torna Huelha in local Gascon, without semantic relevance. Tournefeuille would be rendered by
Vira Fuèlha in Occitan.
Torna Auelha /
Oelha means "bring back sheep". The verbs
tornar and
virar, related to tourner and virer, do not have the same meanings in Occitan.
tornar means to return, to turn over, to bring back, and tourner is
virar. As for the second element, it would be a phonetic confusion between the Gascon words
huelha "leaf" and
auelha/
oelha "sheep", homophones in case of elision of the initial "H" of the connected determiner. ==Geography==