Hydronym
As hydronyms (from Greek ὕδωρ HYDOR , water '[in discharges ὕδρο- hydro ] and aeolian / Dorian ὄνυμα ónyma , Name' (*) ) is called in the name of research , the water names , so for example, the names of rivers, lakes and springs.
Hydronymy
The Hydronymie deals with the study of hydronyms. Research focuses on the origin, meaning, history and regional distribution of hydronyms and the creation of corresponding systematics.
Importance of hydronyms
Hydronymes as a linguistic unit are usually very permanent; peoples who move behind often retain the original name of a river, a lake or a stretch of sea. Mississippi, for example, is the native Indian name for this river. Hydronymes are therefore often of interest to linguists, among other things, because they represent a particularly old language level.
Among the Indo-European languages , hydronyms from different languages can share a common origin. The river names Danube , Don , Düna , Dubna , Dniester , Dnepr and Donets all go back to the Urindo-European * danu- ( river ).
Another example are several rivers whose names can be traced back to * es or * is meaning "(flowing) water". See under Etymology of the Name Isar .
See also
literature
- Manfred Faust (Ed.): Tributaries on the right bank of the Rhine between the mouths of the Main and Wupper. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1965.
- Albrecht Greule : Overview of the history and types of German water names , In: HSK 2.2, 1985, pp. 2142-2148.
- Albrecht Greule: German water names book. Etymology of the water body names and the associated area, settlement and field names . De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-034482-0 .
- Hans Krahe : Our oldest river names. Wiesbaden 1964.
- Theodor Lohmeyer: Our river names. In: German history sheets. 6th vol., Issue 2, 1905, pp. 29–43 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- Burkhard Schaeder (Siegen) (Hrsg.): Gewässernamenkunde. In: Helmut Glück (Hrsg.): Metzler Lexikon Sprache. Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-476-01519-X , p. 250.
