Donk

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A Donk is a flat elevation in the swampy terrain in connection with the settlement ( moor settlement ). The word Donk is today only in old field names and other place names as well as derived from court and family name before.

introduction

The mostly sandy earth ridges, known as Donk (or Dunk) and barely 2–3 meters above the surrounding quarry landscape, were probably the starting point for settling the flat and humid lowlands west of the Lower Rhine to the east in the early Middle Ages of today's Bruges in Belgium. However, it is striking that the proliferation of locations with the part of their name 'Donk' well with the settlement of the Menapii at the time of incidence of the Romans in Gaul under Caesar matches (58 v. Chr.). However, a connection has not been proven. Name formations with the ending -donk still occur in the High Middle Ages : Wachtendonk , named after a castle built around 1100 AD on the Vogtendonk, where the settlement core of Wachtendonk is indeed on a flat elevation as described above (in the glacial valley of the Rhine lies, today between Niers and Nette). Further examples can be found at Hülsdonk .

Word origin

Donk is derived from Old High German tung "that (the dwelling) covering".

P. Cornelius Tacitus writes in chapter 16 of his work Germania : Solent et subterraneos specus aperire eosque multo insuper fimo onerant, suffugium hiemis et receptaculum frugibus, quia rigorem frigorum eius modi loci molliunt. Translated this means, for example: "They [the Teutons ] also tend to dig underground caves, which they cover on top with a lot of manure, as a place of refuge in winter and storage space for crops, since such places mitigate the severe cold."

Pliny the Elder is said to report something similar in his Historia Naturalis . "The Teutons also already have underground storerooms, a kind of cellar , in which they stayed in winter for the sake of warmth and where, according to Pliny, women were weaving ." (Translated from Engels). Comparable to this is Dunk "Webkeller" (plural: Dunker); until the 20th century house webern used, accessible via a trapdoor Weaver workshop in the basement under the living room. This level of meaning can be found in old Icelandic dyngja “woman's chamber ” and old English dung “prison”, as well as English dungeon “ dungeon ”.

These winter quarters, mentioned by Pliny and Tacitus, were called after what they covered: Old High German tung and Middle High German tunc , "the covering" - probably from Indo-European * dhengh . Today the word is dung for manure or manure , English dung , Swedish dynga that on the dung heap for fertilizer is refined.

In the humid lowlands of the lowlands with its numerous swamps , these half-buried dwellings will only have been built on slightly higher areas, as they not only had to protect against cold, but also against floods and rising groundwater .

Later the name for the dwelling was transferred to the elevation and the associated area. Today it is usually only found as a suffix .

variants

In the sequence dung, dong, dunc, donc, donck and finally donk develop .

Engels writes about Franconian place names: Both Franconian dialects [ Ripuarian and Salish ] are also -loo ( -loh ), -donk and -bruch or -broich (salisch -broek) .

Terms with a similar meaning:

distribution

The term Donk can be found mainly in the Lower Franconian language area ( Lower Rhine , Dutch , Flemish ). Numerous place names in the eastern part of the Belgian region of Flanders (provinces of Antwerp , Flemish Brabant , Limburg , East Flanders ), in the part of the Netherlands south of the Rhine-Meuse delta (provinces of Limburg , Noord-Brabant ) and on the left Lower Rhine (districts Kleve, Wesel, Viersen, Neuss, cities Mönchengladbach and Krefeld) contain or end in -donk.

See also

swell

  • Maurits Gysseling: "Toponymic Woordenboek van België, Nederland, Luxemburg, Noord-Frankrijk en West-Duitsland (vóór 1226)", Tongeren 1960
  • Leopold Henrichs: History of the Land Wachtendonk , KR-Hüls 1910 / Reprint 3rd edition Geldern 1977, ISBN 3-921760-02-X
  • Albert Steeger : Studies on the Lower Rhine Regional Studies , Kevelaer 1981, ISBN 3-7666-9239-9
  • Gudrun Loewe: Archaeological finds and monuments of the Rhineland , Bd. 3 Düsseldorf 1971, ISBN 3-7927-0141-3
  • Friedrich Engels: On the prehistory of the Germans, Franconian times , Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels - works. (Karl) Dietz Verlag, Berlin. Volume 19, 4th edition 1973, unchanged reprint of the 1st edition 1962, Berlin / GDR