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Placenames in the German language area can be classified by the language from which they originate, and by era.
Prefixes can be used to distinguish nearby settlements with an otherwise same name. They can be attached or stand alone. Both settlements that are to be distinguished can have opposing prefixes (e.g. Niederschönhausen and Hohenschönhausen), but it is also common to attach the prefix only to one of them (e.g. Stettin and Neustettin ).
Prefixes can also have a descriptive character. Examples are Lichten- or Lichter- ("open range", e.g. Lichtenhagen), Schön- or Schöne- ("nice", e.g. Schönwalde), Grün- or Grüne- ("green", e.g. Grunwald).
Prefixes can also be used to indicate an (earlier) possession of the site. Examples are Kirch- ("ecclesial possession", e.g. Kirch Jesar), Bischofs- ("a bishop's possession", e.g. Bischofswerda), Grafen- ("a count's possession", e.g. Grafenwöhr), Königs- ("the king's", e.g. Königs Wusterhausen, Königsberg), Kron- (possession of the crown, e.g. Kronstadt, Rügenwalde (once belonging to the princes of Rügen).
The prefix Bad ("bath") indicates the place is an officially acknowledged spa. See Bad Kissingen, Bad Pyrmont, etc. Some places, like Aachen, do not use it although they could.
Often the name of the village founder or of the first settler constitute the first part of the place name (e.g. Oettingen, the founder was Otto; Gerolfingen, the founder was Gerolf, Rappoltsweiler, the founder was Ratbald or Ratbert). Mostly in the former Ostsiedlung area, the locator's name was sometimes included as the first part of the name (e.g. Hanshagen, the locator was Hans).
Some settlements have the name of a river or the province attached to their name to distinguish it from an (even distant) one carrying the same name. The distinguishing word can be added in parentheses, or connected to the name with prepositions an der/am ("at"), ob der ("upon"), auf ("on") or in/im ("in"), or separated by a slash. Examples are:
Often, attachments or prepositions are abbreviated in the official names, e.g. Berg b.Neumarkt i.d.OPf. ("Berg bei Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz"), or compare Landau in der Pfalz and Landau a.d.Isar, or Langenfeld (Rheinland) and Stolberg (Rhld.)
Sometimes, a descriptive word is attached to a new settlement, that was once budding of another one and except for the attached word has the same name.
The old Germanic Gaue districts were established by Charlemagne; earlier derivations were Gowe" and "Gouwe. One can still find the old Gouwe (Gau) for example in Haspengouw (Dutch name of Hesbaye) or Gäu as in Allgäu.
They usually follow the established patterns.
| Standard Danish | South Jutlandic | German |
|---|---|---|
| Meden | Mejn | Meyn |
| Bilskov | Bilskau | Billschau |
| Agtrup | Achtrup | Achtrup |
| Jydbæk | Jybæk | Jübek |
| Sønderup | Synnerup | Sünderup |
In many other cases the Germanised versions are out of etymological context. Examples include the Danish ending -næs (peninsula) being replaced by -nitz, an unrelated Slavic ending which is common in eastern Germany. Such arbitrary translations were often made by the central Prussian government after the whole of Slesvig was ceded to Prussia after the war of 1864.
The South Jutlandic name of the town of Schleswig (Slesvig), from which the region derives its name, was Sljasvig with the stress on the second syllable.
The Sorbian languages are the Upper Sorbian language and Lower Sorbian language, two closely related and partially mutually intelligible languages spoken by the Sorbs, a West Slavic ethno-cultural minority in the Lusatia region of Eastern Germany. They are classified under the West Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages and are therefore closely related to the other two West Slavic subgroups: Lechitic and Czech–Slovak. Historically, the languages have also been known as Wendish or Lusatian. Their collective ISO 639-2 code is wen.
Wends is a historical name for Slavs who inhabited present-day northeast Germany. It refers not to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it was used. In the modern day, communities identifying as Wendish exist in Slovenia, Austria, Lusatia, the United States, and Australia.
The toponymy of England derives from a variety of linguistic origins. Many English toponyms have been corrupted and broken down over the years, due to language changes which have caused the original meanings to be lost. In some cases, words used in these place-names are derived from languages that are extinct, and of which there are no known definitions. Place-names may also be compounds composed of elements derived from two or more languages from different periods. The majority of the toponyms predate the radical changes in the English language triggered by the Norman Conquest, and some Celtic names even predate the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the first millennium AD.
Metathesis is the transposition of sounds or syllables in a word or of words in a sentence. Most commonly, it refers to the interchange of two or more contiguous segments or syllables, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:
Dacian is an extinct language generally believed to be a member of the Indo-European language family that was spoken in the ancient region of Dacia.
A gord is a medieval Slavonic fortified settlement, usually built on strategic sites such as hilltops, riverbanks, lake islets or peninsulas between the 6th and 12th centuries in Central and Eastern Europe. A typical gord consisted of a group of wooden houses surrounded by a wall made of earth and wood, and a palisade running along the top of the bulwark.
Polabian Slavs, also known as Elbe Slavs and more broadly as Wends, is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic tribes who lived scattered along the Elbe river in what is today eastern Germany. The approximate territory stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae in the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes in the south, and Poland in the east.
An endonym is a common, native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their homeland, or their language.
Bulgarian placename etymology is characterized by the linguistic and ethnic diversity of the Balkans through the ages and the position of the country in the centre of the region. While typical Bulgarian placenames of Slavic origin vastly dominate, toponyms which stem from Iranian, Turkic, Arabic, Hebrew, Celtic, Gothic, Greek, Thracian and Latin can also be encountered.
Danish language exonyms for non-Danish speaking locations exist, primarily in Europe, but many of these are no longer commonly used, with a few notable exceptions. Rom (Rome), Lissabon, Sankt Petersborg and Prag (Prague) are still compulsory, while e.g. Venedig is more common than Venezia (Venice). In the decades following World War II, there has been a strong tendency towards replacing Danish exonyms with the native equivalent used in the foreign country itself. Possibly this is because many of these Danish forms were imported from German.
Wolkwitz is a family name, or surname, of German/Yiddish/Western-Slavic origins.
The Nemetes E.g. Frederick Kohlrausch "History of Germany. From the Earliest Period to the Present Time". D.Appleton and Company, New York, 1880. were a tribe settled along the Upper Rhine by Ariovistus in the 1st century BC.
The ethnonyms for the Poles (people) and Poland include endonyms and exonyms. Endonyms and most exonyms for Poles and Poland derive from the name of the West Slavic tribe of Polans (Polanie), while in some languages the exonyms for Poland to derive from the name of another tribe – the Lendians (Lędzianie).
Germanic given names are traditionally dithematic; that is, they are formed from two elements, by joining a prefix and a suffix. For example, King Æþelred's name was derived from æþele, for "noble", and ræd, for "counsel".
Ostsiedlung is the term for the Early Medieval and High Medieval migration of ethnic Germans into the territories in the eastern part of Francia, East Francia, and the Holy Roman Empire and beyond; and the consequences for settlement development and social structures in the areas of settlement. Generally sparsely and in some inland areas only relatively recently populated by Slavic, Baltic and Finnic peoples, the most settled area was known as Germania Slavica. Other regions were also settled, though not as heavily. The Ostsiedlung encompassed multiple modern and historical regions such as Germany east of the Saale and Elbe rivers, the states of Lower Austria and Styria in Austria, Livonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, and Transylvania in Romania.
Aach is a widespread Upper German hydronym, from an Old High German aha "running water" . The word has also been reduced to a frequent suffix -ach in Alemannic and Austro-Bavarian toponymy. The word is cognate with Old English ǣ, Old Frisian ē, Old Saxon aha, Low Franconian Aa, Old Norse á, Gothic aƕa, all meaning "river; running water".
The Duchy of Kopanica was a Slavonic principality in Central Europe in present-day central and eastern Brandenburg. Its capital was Kopnik.
Oikonyms in Western, Central, South, and Southeast Asia can be grouped according to various components, reflecting common linguistic and cultural histories. Toponymic study is not as extensive as it is for placenames in Europe and Anglophone parts of the world, but the origins of many placenames can be determined with a fair degree of certainty. One complexity to the study when discussing it in English is that the Romanization of names, during British rule and otherwise, from other languages has not been consistent.
Porevit, Porovit or Borovit is a Slavic god with unknown functions mentioned in only two sources: Gesta Danorum and in Knýtlinga saga. The only historical information about this god is a description of a statue depicting him that had five faces and no weapons.
