Fenn (geography)

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Fenn (also Venn, Fehn, Vehn or Feen ) refers to a swampy, swampy area or a moor in the Low German area, just like Faing (also Faigne or Feing ) in the former Lorraine . Place names ending with -fehn or -faing give references to such areas .

Word origin

The field name Fenn or Fenne , after Hermann Teuchert, denotes a boggy or peaty inland lake or pond without solid ground and, according to Agathe Lasch and Conrad Borchling, swamp, moorland, swampy pastureland overgrown with grass or reeds.

According to the prevailing opinion, Fenn is a Dutch word ( Fehn [Veen]) that was adopted with the fen culture developed there . The large dictionary of the German language of Google is the keyword Fehn , the only in the composites Fehnkolonie and Fehnkultur is suggested that the etymological explanation "Dutch. veen = morass; see. Fenn " . For the Dutch noun veen , the Van Dale Nieuw Handwoordenboek of the Nederlandse Taal gives three meanings: “1. grondsoort the grotendeels is seed gesteld uit gedeeltelijk verkoolde plantestoffen; grondstof the dead turf is canceled… - 2nd streek, stuk land waar de bodem vnl. uit genoemde grondsoort bestaat; - 3rd land waar turf dug or excavated wordt; veenderij; turfland… “ In Germany, the noun Fehn as a terminus technicus is restricted to the term Moorsiedlung , both in the standard language and in the dialects of the region. The Low German word Veen , also Ven, corresponds to German moor and marks typical moor settlement . The term goes in Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt on the settlement of the Fläming by Flemish back, already in the second half of the 12th century to the colonization of the newly founded Brandenburg from the first Margrave Albrecht the Bear and his son and successor Otto I to Country had been called.

But already in Middle Low German documents of the 15th century (before the "invention" of the fen culture in the neighboring Netherlands), feen / veen appears in East Friesland as a name for a moorland in which peat is dug as fuel. In a document from Grimersum from 1426 it says: “… enen waghenlast torves to halende van elken huse besunderlingx uppe den veene” , and in a border determination between Diele and Brual from 1463 there is talk of land, dat tho den torffeen hears . In addition, the noun is used as a defining word in the East Frisian settlement names Fehnhusen (Gemeine Südbrookmerland AD 1387: Fenehusen ) and Veenhusen (Gemeine Moormerland AD 1439: Faenhusen ) as early as the Old Frisian period. The Old Frisian or Middle Low German noun fên for moor was down-to-earth in East Frisia as early as the Middle Ages and did not need to be borrowed from Dutch. With the appropriate technology, only the new word content "Moorkolonie mit Kanal" was adopted as a loan meaning in the 17th century.

There is also the form Fahn , which is not only documented in the already mentioned settlement name Faenhusen (= Veenhusen) and in Phanhusen (= Fehnhusen), but also as an appellative : Ostfries. Document book No. 246 en stuecke phanes, dar men eede uppe graven mach (AD 1415), No. 341 enen waghenlast torves uppe den vane (AD 1426), No. 846 elven demet thunlant husthuner unde den faen right dar baven (AD 1466) . The same form can be found in Saterland Foan "Moor, Hochmoor" and in the settlement names Bunkfahne, Fahne, Fahnhusen, Heyefahn † and the street names Fahntje and Kleenfahntjer Weg in Collinghorst, Fahnweg and Zum Rogfahn in Holte, Fankeweg and Unterfanke between Schirum and Popens, Van Dell north of Wiesens. Since the West-Lauwersch -Frisian form Hearrenfean (= Heerenveen / NL) goes back to Old West Frisian * fân (in documents faen ), there must have been a minor form in Old Frisian without umlaut (cf. Gothic fani "mud" ) to fen .

Field names

Spelling "Fen"

  • Fens , moorland in eastern England
  • Fenwick, hamlet in England

Spelling "Fehn"

As the ending -fehn in place names :

Spelling "Fenn"

Spelling "Venn"

Spelling "Venne"

Spelling "Ven" / "Veen"

  • Amstelveen , city in the Netherlands
  • Großes Veen , nature reserve between Hamminkeln and the Wesel district of Diersfordt on the Lower Rhine
  • Heerenveen , place in the nl. Friesland Province
  • Hoogeveen , city in the Netherlands
  • Maria Veen , Reken community , Borken district
  • Stadtveen , nature reserve in the Lower Saxon town of Haselünne in the Emsland district
  • Veendam , a town in the Netherlands that was created as a settlement by peat cutters
  • Veenhuizen, place near Stadskanaal in the Netherlands
  • Veenhusen , place in East Frisia
  • Venlo , city in the Netherlands ( toponymy uncertain)
  • Venrath , village of the city of Erkelenz on the left Lower Rhine
  • Venray , place in the Netherlands
  • Veen, village of the municipality of Alpen (municipality) , near Xanten on the left Lower Rhine
  • Vledderveen, place near Stadskanaal in the Netherlands
  • Waddinxveen , city in South Holland

Spelling "Vehn"

  • Vehn Castle, Castle near Ahrweiler
  • Tief Vehn , nature reserve in the Emsland
  • Vehne , river in the Oldenburg region
  • Vehnemoor , high moor area in Ammerland and large areas south of it (name is tautological)

Spelling "Fain (g)"

In the former Lorraine and Burgundy from Northern France - Belgium to Switzerland, there are numerous place and field names with the "Fenn" synonyms "Faing" or "Feing" or "F (a) in" and "Fagne", " Faigne "or" Feigne ":

Other spellings

  • Fensdorf , municipality in the Westerwald
  • Gfenn , district of the city of Dübendorf in a former swamp area (mouth of the Chimli stream )
  • Venusberg , district of Bonn (the name is derived from Fenn-Berg, as it is a former raised bog area)

literature

  • Jürgen Udolph: onenological studies on the Germanic problem (=  supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanic antiquity . Volume 9 ). Walter de Gruyter, 1994, ISBN 3-11-014138-8 , p. 300–317 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

Wiktionary: Fenn  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fehn ( Faing ). In: Brockhaus Encyclopedia . 21st edition. 2006, Volume 9, p. 41.
  2. ↑ both quotations reproduced here from: Gerhard Schlimpert : Brandenburgisches Namenbuch, Part 3, Die Ortnames des Teltow. Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., Weimar 1972. Quotes on the term "Fenn" p. 74, also on Fenn p. 38
  3. ↑ Duden , Mannheim-Wien-Zürich, 1977, vol. 2, p. 812
  4. ↑ Van Dale Nieuw Handwoordenboek the Nederlandse Taal. Utrecht-Antwerp 1984, page 1093.
  5. ^ E. Friedländer: Ostfriesisches Urkundenbuch No. 340 ; HG Ehrentraut: Frisian Archive, Reprint Wiesbaden 1968, Volume II, p. 364
  6. ↑ East Frisian Document Book , No. 791
  7. ↑ cf. LE Ahlsson: Studies on the East Frieze . Middle Low German . Uppsala 1964, p. 21
  8. ↑ MC Fort: Sater Frisian Dictionary. Hamburg 1980, p. 101