Rivier

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Map of the main rivers, Riviere and Omiramba of Namibia
Pronunciation of rivier

Rivier ([ ˌʀiˈviːɐ̯ ], neuter ) refers to a temporarily water-bearing river ( dry river ) in the German language in Namibia . The term is used for episodic or ephemeral waters in Namibia (see the water regions there ). In Afrikaans , from which the word Rivier was borrowed, rivers are generally called rivier , which also includes dry rivers. Therefore, in South Africa, primarily in the Karoo , Namaqualand and Sandveld regions , the terms Riviere or dry rivers are common as a type for periodic and episodic watercourses with daily or hourly water flow.

term

Rivier is one of a large number of regionally specific terms for the global phenomenon of dry rivers - such as in the Arabian Wadi or in the Australian English Creek . Rivier is a German namibian loan word from Afrikaans and means ' river ' there; see. english river , french rivière and dutch rivier . A rivier that begins to carry water “comes off” and it “runs” when it flows, which is derived from Afrikaans (“ die rivier kom af ” and “ die rivier loop ”).

Omiramba in northeastern Namibia

There is agreement among German scholars that the inclusion of Rivier in the German vocabulary served to close a lexical gap . Hans-Volker Gretschel counts the word among the 50 to 70 words of German in Namibia that were formed by the unknown environment of Africa. Herbert Nöckler declared in 1963 that the German-speaking residents of Namibia had "become so nationally aware that it is simply impossible to remove the word from [their] 'language-conscious' vocabulary." Thomas Keil counts Rivier among the "important terms [n ] "Of the German language in Namibia, Marianne Zappen-Thomson from the University of Namibia on the" typical [n] "words," which 99.9% of German-speaking Namibians [ sic ] use ". According to the geographer Jana Moser, it is a "country-specific and commonly used" name.

In northeastern Namibia, the dry rivers are mostly named after the Otjiherero expression for ' valley ', Omuramba ( plural Omiramba ) (including Epukiro and Omatako ). In colonial times the term was still used in part for all periodic rivers in German South West Africa . The use of the terms in Namibia has remained uneven, pointed with local differences, what the geographer Jürgen Kempf in 2000: So are Omuramba Fluvialformen understood within flat Spülmuldentäler scientifically that contain a wide Schwemmbereich and barely incised rivers, while as Riviere usually deeper incised (dry) rivers from the highlands are called.

description

Swakop- Rivier in case of drought
Swakop -Rivier after rain

According to Hartmut Leser , all but three of the rivers in Namibia - Kunene , Orange and Fish River - are Riviere. The geographer Roger Swart describes the fish river as "the only almost constantly water-bearing river" in the interior of Namibia. The geographers Andrew Goudie and Heather Viles, on the other hand, refer to the continually water-bearing rivers of Namibia as the ( exorheic ) border rivers Kunene, Oranje and Zambezi that reach the sea and the inland ( endorheic ) Okavango (see Okavango Delta ) and Kwando / Linyanti / Chobe (see Linyanti) Swamps). All of these permanent rivers originate in relatively humid mountain regions in Angola , Zambia and South Africa , while all of the rivers in Namibia are non-permanent, most of them for most of the year. The Kuiseb does not flow every year (three times in the 20th century); some rivers like Tsondab and Tsauchab end in the current climatic conditions permanently in inland end pans, so-called Vleis , Tsondabvlei and Sossusvlei .

The rivers of Namibia are divided into three regions: the western rivers of the Namib Desert, which lead mainly after summer storms towards the Atlantic , the southern in the catchment area of the Orange River and the eastern, all endorheic towards the Kalahari . In contrast to most of the rest of the country, the rivers that run from north to south and flow into the southern border river Oranje are characteristic of southern Namibia. The rivers of the northwest all but the northernmost ( Khumib ) arise in the edge step . The Namib-Riviere and some other waters such as the Orange River in its lower reaches and some rivers in southern Angola have the peculiarity that - unlike almost all permanently water-bearing rivers - they have a convex instead of concave longitudinal profile, which is partly due to the region-specific uplift of plate tectonics and partly is explained by the greatly reduced drainage .

Among the largest Rivieren include Kuiseb, Swakop , Khan , Omaruru and Ugab in west-central Namibia and in the east of Nossob that - were equipped in pre-colonial times to a network of wells and the core area of the livestock holding - together with its many tributaries Hereros were formed. Many of these river beds are locally referred to as "the Rivier" (the only one far and wide) without a specific name.

In the Südwesterlied , riviers appear when describing the adverse living conditions in the Namibian natural area (“ Our country is as hard as camel thorn / and its rivers are dry”).

ecology

In Namibia's arid climate , the rivers are among the favored areas and are also known as “linear oases ”. Even when the rivers are drying out, plants with deep roots can grow there, which is why the rivers and their gallery forests often criss-cross the land like green veins. On rivers in the Namib Desert, for example, the Nara plant can be found, whose tap roots are over 30 meters in length and thus reach the groundwater. Often one can get to water by digging in the dry river bed. For the desert elephants in the north-west of Namibia these water reserves are vital. With their proboscis and tusks, they dig holes up to one meter deep in the river bed, creating temporary water points that are also used by other desert dwellers and ensure their survival.

The Desert Research Foundation of Namibia carries out internationally acclaimed water management projects ("Integrated Water Resources Management") in three rivier areas (Kuiseb, Cuvelai and Fischfluss ).

literature

  • Ulrich Ammon , Hans Bickel , Alexandra N. Lenz (Hrsg.): German dictionary of variants. The standard language in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, East Belgium and South Tyrol as well as Romania, Namibia and Mennonite settlements. 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-024543-1 , keyword "Rivier", p. 600.

Web links

Wiktionary: Rivier  - Explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Omuramba  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [ ʀiːˈviɐ̯ ] at Birte Kellermeier-Rehbein: Colonial linguistics from a university didactic perspective. In: Stefan Engelberg, Doris Stolberg (Hrsg.): Linguistics and colonial language contact: Linguistic encounters and disputes. Akademie, Berlin 2012, pp. 293–309, here p. 306 .
  2. ↑ Birte Kellermeier-Rehbein: Language in Postcolonial Contexts II. Varieties of the German Language in Namibia. In: Thomas Stolz , Ingo H. Warnke, Daniel Schmidt-Brücken (Eds.): Language and Colonialism: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to Language and Communication in Colonial Contexts. De Gruyter, Berlin, Boston 2016, p. 276 (e-book edition) ; Ulrich Ammon, Hans Bickel, Alexandra N. Lenz (Hrsg.): German dictionary of variants. 2nd Edition. Berlin / New York 2016, keyword "Rivier", p. 600.
  3. ↑ Bernd G. Längin : The German colonies. Locations and fates 1884–1918. Mittler, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-8132-0854-0 , p. 98 f.
  4. ↑ Traugott Molter: Water balance and irrigation agriculture in the Cape . Franz Steiner Verlag , Wiesbaden 1966, pp. 15, 26, 29, 35, 80
  5. ^ Livia Pack, Peter Pack: Namibia (= Stefan Loose Travel Handbooks ). 7th edition. DuMont, Cologne 2016, p. 470 . Many of these terms are compiled by Alisha L. Steward, Daniel von Schiller, Klement Tockner, Jonathan C. Marshall, Stuart E. Bunn: When the river runs dry. Human and ecological values ​​of dry riverbeds. In: Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Volume 10, 2012, No. 4, pp. 202-209, p. 206, table 2, doi : 10.1890 / 110136 (PDF) .
  6. ^ Leszek Jaworowski: The former colony of German South West Africa. Cultural and linguistic relics of German in Namibia. Diplomica, Hamburg 2014, p. 65 ; Sheena Shah: German in a contact situation. The case of Namibian German. In: eDUSA. Volume 2, 2007, No. 2, pp. 20–39, here p. 37 (PDF) . For an early discussion of the term, see Ferdinand Gessert: Is the nationalization of the south-west African river valleys justified? In: Journal for Colonial Policy, Colonial Law and Colonial Economy. Volume 11, 1908, pp. 16-20, here p. 16 f. ; Karl Dove : Rivier. In: German Colonial Lexicon . Volume 3. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, p. 179.
  7. ↑ Ulrich Ammon : The position of the German language in the world. De Gruyter, Berlin, Munich, Boston 2015, p. 368 ; Sheena Shah: German in a contact situation. The case of Namibian German. In: eDUSA. Volume 2, 2007, No. 2, pp. 20–39, here p. 39 (PDF) ; Livia Pack, Peter Pack: Namibia (= Stefan Loose Travel Handbooks ). 7th edition. DuMont, Cologne 2016, p. 470 .
  8. ^ Hans-Volker Gretschel: Südwester Deutsch - A critical balance. In: LOGOS. Volume 4, 1984, No. 2, pp. 38–44, here p. 39. For example, Thomas Keil: The postcolonial German literature in Namibia (1920–2000). Dissertation, University of Stuttgart, 2003, p. 119 f. (PDF) .
  9. ^ Herbert Nöckler: Mixture of languages ​​in South West Africa. Max Hueber, Munich 1963, p. 77.
  10. ↑ Thomas Keil: Postcolonial German Literature in Namibia (1920-2000). Dissertation, University of Stuttgart, 2003, p. 122, fn. 107 (PDF) .
  11. ^ Marianne Zappen-Thomson: Mixture of languages ​​in Namibia - the problem affects us all. In: Namibia Magazin. No. 3/1999, pp. 20–28, here p. 22 (PDF) .
  12. ↑ Jana Moser: Studies on the history of cartography in Namibia. The development of mapping and surveying from its beginnings to independence in 1990. Dissertation, Technische Universität Dresden, 2007, p. 9 (PDF) .
  13. ↑ Dag Henrichsen points out that omuramba stands for rivers with a loamy river bed, while those with a sandy bed are called ondondu (plural: ozondondu ). Ders .: Rulership and everyday life in pre-colonial central Namibia. The Herero and Damaraland in the 19th century. Basler Afrika-Bibliographien, Basel 2011, p. 4 .
  14. ^ Karl Dove : Omuramba. In: German Colonial Lexicon . Volume 2. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, p. 680.
  15. ↑ Jürgen Kempf: Climate geomorphological studies in central Namibia: A contribution to morpho-, pedo- and ecogenesis. Dissertation, University of Würzburg, 2000, p. 309 (PDF) .
  16. ^ Hartmut Leser: Namibia, South West Africa. Cartographic problems of the new topographic maps 1: 50,000 and 1: 250,000 and their perspectives for regional development (= communications from the Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Volume 26). Basler Afrika-Bibliographien, Basel 1982, p. 24 f.
  17. ^ Roger Swart: An earth science review of the Orange-Fish River Basin, Namibia. Desert Research Foundation of Namibia, 2008, p. 19.
  18. ↑ Andrew Goudie, Heather Viles: Landscapes and Landforms of Namibia. Springer, Dordrecht 2015, ISBN 978-94-017-8020-9 , p. 12 .
  19. ↑ Andrew Goudie, Heather Viles: Landscapes and Landforms of Namibia. Springer, Dordrecht 2015, ISBN 978-94-017-8020-9 , p. 12 .
  20. ↑ Götz Ossendorf: Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer of southwestern Namibia. Dissertation, University of Cologne, 2013, pp. 38 and 44 (PDF) . On the western rivers in general, see Mary Seely, Kathryn M. Jacobson, Peter J. Jacobson: Ephemeral Rivers and Their Catchments - Sustaining People and Development in Western Namibia. Desert Research Foundation of Namibia, 1995, ISBN 978-99916-709-4-2 (excerpt, PDF) .
  21. ↑ Andrew Goudie, Heather Viles: Landscapes and Landforms of Namibia. Springer, Dordrecht 2015, ISBN 978-94-017-8020-9 , p. 18 ; Jürgen Kempf: Climate geomorphological studies in central Namibia: A contribution to morpho-, pedo- and ecogenesis. Dissertation, University of Würzburg, 2004, Chapter 4.2.2: The fluvial relief of the rivers crossing the Namib (digitized version) .
  22. ^ Dag Henrichsen: Rule and everyday life in pre-colonial central Namibia. The Herero and Damaraland in the 19th century. Basler Afrika-Bibliographien, Basel 2011, p. 4 . For visualization, see the map Hydrography of Namibia I: Rivers, basins, pans and lakes. In: University of Cologne , Atlas of Namibia Project, 2002.
  23. ^ Hartmut Leser: Namibia, South West Africa. Cartographic problems of the new topographic maps 1: 50,000 and 1: 250,000 and their perspectives for regional development (= communications from the Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Volume 26). Basler Afrika-Bibliographien, Basel 1982, p. 41.
  24. ↑ Brigitta Schmidt-Lauber: "Walking on the pad". Travel into nature as a way of ethnicising German Namibians. In: Rolf Wilhelm Brednich , Annette Schneider, Ute Werner (eds.): Nature - Culture. Folklore perspectives on people and the environment. Waxmann, Münster et al. 2001, pp. 189–196, here p. 191 .
  25. ↑ Götz Ossendorf: Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer of southwestern Namibia. Dissertation, University of Cologne, 2013, p. 39 (PDF) . See also Hartmut Leser: Geo-ecological conditions of the plant communities in the savannahs of the Sandveld around the Black Nossob and around Epukiro (Eastern South West Africa, Western Kalahari). In: Dinteria. No. 6, August 1972, pp. 1-40 (PDF) .
  26. ↑ Thibault Datry, Núria Bonada, Andrew J. Boulton (Eds.): Intermittent Rivers and Ephemeral Streams. Ecology and Management. Elsevier Academic Press, London et al. 2017, ISBN 978-0-12-803904-5 , p. 303 and especially p. 306 ; Gabriella Kiss: Elephants dig for water. In: Africa Geographic , May 30, 2016 (English); Bente Vold Klausen: The rare desert elephant of Namibia. In: Travel with all senses , July 3, 2017 (English).
  27. ^ Mary Seely, Carole Roberts: Namibia's 'dry' rivers attract international attention on water management. In: Conservation and the Environment in Namibia. Born in 2008/09, online in: Travel News Namibia (English).