Water body names on -bach

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Bach , with its variants listed below, many of which are derived from the Middle Low German Beke , is the most common appellative for smaller, mostly non-navigable, flowing waters in German-speaking countries and also the oldest. It is also used as an appellative and as a determinant for settlements - usually in a causal context.

etymology

Even in the earliest documented evidence of river names, forms of - bach can be proven. The origin is common Germanic . There are other attempts at explanation, but none of them meet the rules of sound shifting and vowel weakening . The difficulties of the etymological derivation of the name may be that the word was adopted by the Germanic peoples from the vocabulary of the indigenous population of Germany. The older forms of Bach are Old High German bah , Middle Low German beke , Old Saxon beki , Old Norse bekkr and Dutch beek . The Low German forms are bek , beck, beek, becke, büke, bicke, be (e) ke, bäke or bieke .

Sandhi -forms are good tasting and micke . The b was assimilated by a preceding nasal of the determinative word. The word origin was later forgotten, which led to the fact that this form was understood as a subsidiary form of becke and is used as a basic word in modern names. The short forms -m (c) ke, -eke, -ke sometimes appear to be a mere suffix , with -ke being primarily found in settlement names . One consequence of the palatalization in Frisian is the transition from k to ts and tz. This must be proven in bitze , bitsdie . Probably there is a contact with Slavic here - bizi is of Slavic origin.

Where a settlement has a name that is identical to a body of water, it is almost without exception that the name of the body of water has been transferred to the settlement. From the beginning, natural places such as mountains, streams or forests have been there and given names. Human settlement followed later. In many cases it replaced a period of nomadism . Sedentariness only occurs in an even later cultural epoch, and only then does it become necessary to give names to human settlements. In some cases, the place name was formed after a certain point of an otherwise named or nameless stream. The name of the place Wattenbach, located on the Zandtbach , points to a brook that must or can be waded through - apparently a path led through the not particularly deep brook here. Assignment by name is sometimes not immediately conclusive. The name Breitenbach (or Bredenbeck) by no means describes a wide body of water. Rather, the name indicates a broadening that does not even have to affect the stream as such. Partly the place is simply in a place where the valley through which the stream flows widens.

The grammatical gender can hardly be predicted. While Bach is clearly masculine, the older and Low German forms contain both masculine and feminine. The büke and becke feminine , which are widespread west of the Weser , and the bek and beck masculinum , which are widespread further east . The word "Bach" is also used feminine in parts of today's Middle Franconian dialect area up to and including the Electoral Palatinate .

Determiners

Animal names as a defining word indicate rather less to the particular frequency of the animal at this brook or the settlement created at the brook, rather they were used when not so frequently occurring animals were associated with the brook. Accordingly, fox brooks are comparatively rare, and the appearance of the fox was viewed as rather banal. The wolf , which has now become rare, is used much more frequently to form names , also in a mythical context (holy animal of Wodan ) - both for the names of streams and those of settlements and parcels . Donkey creeks are accordingly rare, and wild donkeys are rarely found in the Germanic-speaking area.

Often the determiner is easy to understand, but only partially helpful in understanding the name. Thus, gold - silver - and titanium -Bäche though often places of discovery of that mineral resource, but designate at least as often rather the color of the water - sometimes even in a certain section of the stream. Correspondingly, a Hell-Bach can denote both the color of the water and the sound of the flowing water. In compositions with -born simply -bach was added to the name of the spring, the name of which was formed similarly to that of the brooks.

Often the name of the stream has to be considered in connection with the landscape through which it flows. On the other hand, names after events there are less common - for example, a murder brook can be detected in the river system of the Unstrut - the murder must have taken place at the time the Middle High German language was used there or even earlier.

Recent developments

Overall, a development can be seen that was in full swing until the beginning of the 20th century and may continue to this day. -bach alternates with other basic words, the original is often suppressed. In some cases, the Low German names of bodies of water are being displaced in official use, even if the original name is retained in common parlance - partly also in ignorance of the existing meaning of the name tautologically added -bach.

Examples

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Franz Witt: Contributions to the knowledge of the river names of Northwest Germany . Printed by Schmidt & Klaunig, Kiel 1912.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Elfriede Ulbricht: The river basin of the Thuringian Saale . 1st edition. Max Niemeyer, Halle (Saale) 1957, DNB  455149968 .
  3. ↑ a b c Edward Schröder: Bach names and settlement names in their relationship to one another . In: News from the Society of Sciences in Göttingen . New episode • Volume III • No.1. Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, Göttingen 1940, DNB  365114146 , p. 15 .
  4. ↑ Bender, Joseph: The German place names . Siegen 1846, p. 116 .
  5. ↑ a b Felix Solmsen. Ed. U. edit by Ernst Fraenkel: Indo-European proper names as a mirror of cultural history . 1st edition. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1922.