HARALD BICH LMEIER

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften

Research fields: Old European hydronymy, Indo-European, Celtic, and Germanic etymology, historical phonology and morphonology, Mycenaean, and Old Indo-Iranian syntax.

Greule Albrecht

GERMAN HYDRONYM DICTIONARY. ETYMOLOGY OF WATER NAMES AND THE ASSOCIATED REGION, SETTLEMENT, AND FIELD NAMES

With the collaboration of Sabine Hackl-Rößler.

Berlin – Boston: de Gruyter, 2014, 634 S., 2 Karten in den Umschlagdeckeln. ISBN 987-3-11-019039-7

With the German Hydronym Dictionary [DGNB] presented here, Albrecht Greule has for the first time provided a comprehensive overview of water names in the German-speaking world. A. Greule deserves thanks and recognition for this alone. The book was produced over several years of work, from 2006 to 2012 (p. 8), and may be regarded as the culmination of his earlier work on toponomastics in the broader sense.

It stands alongside the work on German place names published two years earlier, which was organized by Manfred Niemeyer (2012), but differs markedly from it in conception and development: The German Place Names Dictionary [DONB] could build on a series of predecessors and is a collaborative work by almost 90 authors. The entries discuss the

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Names of localities with a population of around 8,000 or more. Since, alongside established onomasticians and linguists (primarily Germanists), numerous historians contributed to the DONB, the linguistic explanations in quite a few entries, especially those dealing with pre-Germanic names (or name elements), are often outdated. Moreover, the DONB’s target audience consisted more of non-specialists in linguistics than of name researchers. The DGNB, by contrast, owes its creation to the diligence of one author in particular. It deals with some 3,000 hydronyms in the German-speaking area. This makes the work as a whole—and especially its linguistic standard—much more homogeneous than the DONB.

In this connection, it should also be pointed out that the DGNB is the first major onomastic work to address present-day toponyms in the broader sense and to attempt to incorporate the findings of modern Indo-European studies into its presentation. This deserves particular emphasis, given that the vast majority of representatives of that generation of researchers have remained at the level of Indo-European studies à la Hans Krahe and Julius Pokorny (and thus, ultimately, at the pre-war level).

The DGNB is divided into three parts: an introduction to hydronym formation and research (pp. 1–5), followed by general explanations concerning the book’s origins, the structure of the entries, technical terms, etc. (pp. 7–17). The main section is the “namebook” proper (pp. 21–619), and the work concludes with the bibliography (pp. 621–634). The latter is somewhat cumbersome to use: although an author’s titles are listed chronologically, they are cited in the “namebook” by title keywords, which are printed in italics in the relevant bibliographic entry.

In the first part, each entry in the “namebook” gives the hydronym in its standard-language form; for names formed with generic elements whose gender is not unambiguously fixed, it gives the definite article and thereby indicates gender; it also provides information on the river’s location and length and—though not consistently—on its (dialectal) pronunciation. This is followed by several important historical attestations of the name, usually including the earliest attestation. Etymological and linguistic-historical explanations are then provided, followed by citations of the most important literature. Hydronyms with the same phonetic form are grouped in a single entry, but may of course have different etymologies, which are then presented separately for each subentry. Where the etymology is the same, it is given only once, at the end of the entry, for all the names together.

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In general, the entries provide reliable information, but inconsistencies are also apparent, some of which can at least be explained by the work’s production process: A. Greule generally follows LIV² in his root reconstructions, but outdated spellings à la J. Pokorny also occur. Thus, “Proto-Indo-European *h₂em(H)-e- ‘pour, pour over’” (p. 125 s.v. Emme) appears alongside “Indo-European *ama- (>Germanic *ama-) ‘act energetically, tackle’” (e.g. p. 126 s.v. Ems; thus, for example, IEW 36), which surely refers to Proto-Indo-European *h₂emh₃- (LIV² 265f.), as becomes clear, for instance, on p. 127 s.v. Emsbach, where it says: “Proto-Indo-European *h₂emh₃- (> Indo-European *ama-) ‘touch, tackle’.” A. Greule thus inserts an intermediate Indo-European stage between Proto-Indo-European and the individual languages, one that largely corresponds to the phonological form reconstructed in IEW. It remains unclear whether A. Greule intends this as an actual intermediate stage or is merely accommodating readers who find the reconstruction with laryngeals difficult. For the latter root, which appears to be attested without an extension in Germanic only in Old Icelandic ama ‘plague, annoy’, ami ‘plague’, and the like (IEW 778; de Vries 1962: 8; not in EDPG), it is questionable on semantic grounds in any case whether it can indeed occur in this and several other hydronyms for which it has been proposed as the basis, or whether one should instead (always?) start from Proto-Indo-European *h₂em(H)- ‘pour, pour over’. This is all the more so since a Proto-Germanic lexeme *ami-, *ama- ‘watercourse’ (cited from DGNB 126) can be reconstructed, and this surely belongs more plausibly with the aforementioned “Proto-Indo-European *h₂em(H)-e- ‘pour, pour over’.”

These inconsistencies may be attributed to the lack of a further round of proofreading, but they may also result from the working method prescribed by the publisher (personal communication from A. Greule), according to which completed name entries were not to be supplemented, rewritten, or otherwise revised. This requirement also meant that later entries—that is, those farther along in the alphabet—are often more up to date scientifically and bibliographically than earlier ones. Given the six-year production period (collection of material and drafting of entries), much could no longer be incorporated. This is regrettable, since several studies have appeared in recent years that have brought about a kind of paradigm shift in the study of the oldest layers of hydronyms, a shift that can also be traced in A. Greule’s other works and to which he himself refers (Greule 2011: 125): the turn toward the methods and modes of presentation used in modern Indo-European studies.

The publisher’s requirements give rise to another problem, familiar also from the two latest editions of ‘Kluge/Seebold’ (EWdS²⁴, EWdS²⁵), which served as models for the DGNB (p. 8): in the etymological section, usually only one explanation of the name is provided, without a discussion or even

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Discussion of competing proposals is rare. Thus, in the explanations given, it is by no means always clear whether one is dealing with an etymology long generally accepted, perhaps merely modernized in its notation, or with a (new) proposal by A. Greule (which may well have originated with Greule himself and may already have been published earlier). Since the bibliographical references in each entry are very brief, no conclusions can be drawn from them either, unless one has the cited literature at hand and can consult it.

The entry Ems-Bach¹ (p. 127) may serve as an example: 795 Hemisa, 805 (12th-c. copy) Emisa, Heimese, 1420 Emse. The name is traced back to pre-OHG *Amisa; a Germanic explanation from the root ‘touch, seize’ is considered, as presented above for Ems, or a Celtic etymology from the root ‘pour, water’, which is also posited for the Swiss place names Oberems, Niederems (Valais), 1101–1300 Emesa, 1270 Hemesa, which are traced back to a Celtic hydronym *Amisā- (cf. LSG 660, 899). For the same stream (listed there, however, as “Emsbach”), Greule 1998: 11 = 2007: 48 still posits: “PIE *Amesā, s-derivation from PIE *am- ‘riverbed, ditch’. In view of the parallel names, this is an Old European name.”¹

The lack of discussion of competing proposals and the extremely brief bibliographical references may matter little to a lay reader, but they certainly make the work more difficult for those using the DGNB for scholarly purposes: inevitably, individual researchers will come up with ‘new’ ideas about hydronyms that others have had long before.

In many cases, one may also hold different views on the etymologies or the linguistic classification of etyma, particularly regarding their classification as Celtic versus Old European/Indo-European (pre-individual-language). Thus, the names Isar (a right-bank tributary of the Danube) < Isara (244f.), Isel (a left-bank tributary of the Drava) < 1312 Isel < *Isala (246), Isen (a left-bank tributary of the Inn) < Isana (246) are traditionally labelled “Venetic-Illyrian”; a Celtic explanation nevertheless remains possible—and has long been treated as self-evident in Celtic studies:² Finally, it has not yet been established with certainty whether an intervocalic laryngeal within a word, that is, in the penultimate syllable, was indeed vocalized as *a- in the ‘Old European’ layer of hydronyms,

¹ Cf. Bichlmeier 2015b on a number of hydronyms that are supposedly thought to contain precisely this root.

² Vgl. etwa Pokorny 1914: 293; DLG² 191; Delamarre 2012: 165.

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whereas this is established for Celtic.³ Moreover, the aforementioned adjective is also attested as an appellative in Celtic: the Old Irish word for ‘squirrel’, íaru, is a derivative of the reconstructed Proto-Celtic adjective with the individualizing on suffix, and is to be traced back to pre-Proto-Irish *isarōn- ‘the nimble one’, derived from the Proto-Celtic adjective *isaro- ‘nimble’ < PIE *h₁ish₂-ró-.⁴

Consequently, *Isa-l/r/nā- < PIE *h₁ish₂-l/r/néh₂- must in any case be Celtic; whether it could also be pre-Celtic must remain uncertain until examples of hydronyms can be presented that display the vocalization of PIE *KHK- > *KaK- and not lie in an area of later Celtic settlement or speech. In any case, the assignment of such names to a particular linguistic stratum is made more difficult by the need always to consider a suffix variant *-eró-, whether one explains it, following Hardarson 2011, as Vr̥ddhi formation from PIE *-ró- or otherwise. In the present case in particular, the presence of PIE *-h₂-e- > *-a- in the syllable would ultimately make it impossible to assign the names unequivocally to either of the two linguistic strata.⁵ Many such cases can be found.

In a work of such scope, it is inevitable that errors will creep in—errors that do not merely result from a researcher’s differing opinion on individual sound changes or the like, and thus lead to a different conclusion from A. Greule’s.

This is the case with the name Luhe (a left-bank tributary of the Naab; DGNB 328). On the basis of the attestation OHG Loua (a. 905 [12th-c. copy]) and the modern dialect form [lɔu], A. Greule posits Celtic *lōu̯ā- < Late PIE *pl̥ōu̯ā- (with typically Celtic loss of p) as a lengthened-grade formation from the PIE root *pleu- ‘flow’ (LIV² 487f.: ‘swim, float’). This derivation is impossible, since Proto-Celtic had no *ō; PIE *ō had developed into *ā medially and *ū in final position.⁶ As an alternative, it is proposed that the Upper Palatinate hydronym be understood as a Germanic formation, either from the PIE root *leu- ‘soil, dirty’ (LIV² 414): the basis would then be PIE *lōu̯-o- ‘soiling, dirt’ or *lou̯-ó- ‘soiling, one who soils’. A Vr̥ddhi derivation of PIE *lōu̯-o- from either of these formations, unproblematic for Germanic, would have meant either ‘provided with dirt, characterized by dirt’ → ‘dirty’ or ‘belonging to the one who soils’

³ Vgl. McCone 1996: 51f.; etwas abweichend EDPC 6: nur in erster Silbe?; Zair 2012: 193–201, zu *isarā- 197.

⁴ Cf. Ziegler 2001.

⁵ Vgl. dazu Bichlmeier 2011, 2015a mit weiterer Literatur.

⁶ Cf. McCone 1996: 54–65; EDPC 8, 9.

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‘belonging’, with the first being more probable; or, with the caveat that a semantic shift would have to be assumed, it may be supposed that a Vrddhi derivation of Proto-Indo-European *louh₃o/eh₂- > Proto-Germanic *lou̯a/ō- may also be involved in the formation with the o-grade *lóuh₃-o- ‘washing’ or *louh₃-ó- ‘washing, washer’ (from the Proto-Indo-European root leuh₃- ‘to wash’ [LIV² 418]).⁷

However, the examples cited most recently should not be understood as fundamental criticism of the DGNB. Rather, they show how great the need for research still is in Central Europe concerning the oldest layers of hydronyms. To overlook this need for research—and in part also to catch up—is to shut one’s eyes to reality. The studies by H. Krahe, W. P. Schmid, and J. Udolph on this topic, now largely outdated in their methodology (and therefore generally in their findings as well), urgently require revision in light of the current state of Indo-European studies (as the reviewer has repeatedly urged). With the DGNB, A. Greule has taken a major step in the right direction. His book will remain a standard work for years to come and can serve as a valuable basis for further research. What is now finally needed is a thorough and comprehensive investigation of at least the oldest layers of Central European hydronyms by Indo-Europeanists, including a discussion of earlier proposals, in a multivolume work. The DGNB provides a very good foundation for this.

LITERATURE

Bichlmeier Harald 2011: Bayerisch-österreichische Orts- und Gewässernamen aus indogermanistischer Sicht: Teil 2: Isar und etymologisch Verwandtes sowie Addenda zu dem Beitrag in den BONF 46 (2009), 3–63. – Blätter für oberdeutsche Namenforschung 47, 2010[2011], 21–31.

Bichlmeier Harald 2015: Einige indogermanistische Anmerkungen zum Namen der Luhe (Obpf.) (Bayerisch-österreichische Orts- und Gewässernamen aus indogermanistischer Sicht 7). – Blätter für oberdeutsche Namenforschung 52, 2015. [im Druck]

Bichlmeier Harald 2015a: Isar, Isel, Isen, Iser, Isny – Reflexe einer keltischen Gewässernamensippe in Bayern und Österreich mit einem Anhang zu Isura (Bayerisch-österreichische Orts- und Gewässernamen aus indogermanistischer Sicht 8). – Österreichische Namenforschung 42, 2014[2015]. [im Druck]

⁷ Vgl. zum ganzen Komplex ausführlich Bichlmeier 2015.

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Bichlmeier Harald 2015b: Ammerbach und etymologisch Verwandtes. – Österreichische Namenforschung 42, 2014[2015]). [im Druck]

Delamarre Xavier 2012: Noms de lieux celtiques de l’Europe ancienne (-500/ +500). Dictionnaire. (Collection Les Hespérides) Arles: Éditions Errance.

de Vries Jan 1962: Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2. erg. Aufl. Leiden: Brill.

DLG²: Delamarre Xavier: Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Préface: Pierre-Yves Lambert. 2^e édition revue et augmentée. Paris: Éditions Errance 2003.

EDPC: Matasović Ranko: Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic. (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 9) Leiden – Boston: Brill 2009.

EDPG: Kroonen Guus: Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11) Leiden – Boston: Brill 2013.

EWdS²⁴: Kluge Friedrich / Seebold Elmar: Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. 24., durchges. u. erw. Aufl. Berlin – New York: de Gruyter 2002.

EWdS²⁵: Kluge Friedrich / Seebold Elmar: Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. 25. Aufl. Berlin – Boston: de Gruyter 2011.

Greule Albrecht 1998: Gewässernamenschichten im Flußgebiet der Lahn. – Nail Robert (Hg.): Die Welt der Namen. Sechs namenkundliche Beiträge. (Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek Marburg 87) Marburg: Universitätsbibliothek Marburg, 1–17.

Greule Albrecht 2007: Etymologische Studien zu geographischen Namen in Europa. Ausgewählte Beiträge 1998–2006 herausgegeben von Wolfgang Janka und Michael Prinz. (Regensburger Studien zur Namenforschung 2) Regensburg: edition vulpes.

Greule Albrecht 2011: Arbeits- und Darstellungstechniken des Deutschen Gewässernamenbuchs. In: Ziegler, Arne / Windberger-Heidenkummer, Erika (Hgg.): Methoden der Namenforschung. Methodologie, Methodik und Praxis. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 117–126.

Harðarson Jón Axel. 2011: Um orðið járn í fornnorrænu og forsøg þess. – Orð og tunga 13, 93–121.

IEW: Pokorny Julius: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. I. Band. München – Basel: A. Francke 1959.

LIV²: Rix Helmut et al.: Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. Die Wurzeln und ihre Primärstammbildungen. Zweite, verb. u. erw. Aufl. Wiesbaden: Reichert 2001.

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LSG: Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen. Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses. Dizionario toponomastico dei communi svizzeri, hrsgg. vom Centre de Dialectologie an der Universität Neuchâtel unter der Leitung von Andres Kristol. Frauenfeld – Stuttgart – Wien: Huber, Lausanne: Editions Payot 2005.

McCone Kim 1996: Towards a Relative Chronology of Ancient and Medieval Sound Change. (Maynooth Studies in Celtic Linguistics 1) Maynooth: Department of Old and Middle Irish, St. Patrick’s College.

Niemeyer Manfred (Hg.) 2012: Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch. Berlin – Boston: de Gruyter.

Pokorny Julius 1914: Herkunft und Etymologie des Wortes Eisen. – Kuhns Zeitschrift 46, 292–294.

Zair Nicholas 2012: The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic. (Brill’s Studies in Indo-European Languages and Linguistics 7). Leiden – Boston: Brill.

Ziegler Sabine 2001: Altirisch íaru, das „flinke“ Eichhörnchen. – Fritz, Matthias / Zeilfelder, Susanne (Hgg.): Novalis Indogermanica. Festschrift für Günter Neumann zum 80. Geburtstag. Graz: Leykam, 587–590.

Received on 2 June 2015.

HARALD BICHIMEIER

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Institut für Vergleichende Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft Kochstr. 4/16, D-91054 Erlangen [email protected]

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Orientalisches Institut Seminar für Indogermanistik und Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Ludwig-Wucherer-Str. 2, D-06108 Halle (Saale) [email protected]

Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften Arbeitsstelle Jena Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen Zwätzengasse 12, D-07743 Jena [email protected]

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