slavic, germanic and others for the fun

[Vedun]

"Troy (Troia) as T-R-G market place is probably a bit far-fetched...

Anyway, clear proof that the Vikings already controlled the Mediterranean trade in antiquity, and established torgs everywhere..

PS: If I were to set up a pan-Mediterranean port network, these are some of the places I would consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachoni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taucheira
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgos_Dirou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragano
Tragaki, Zakynthos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrës
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oderzo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trani
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triggiano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranto"

Occult nonsense. There were no "Vikings" establishing and naming any cities in Mediterranean. All cities you've mentioned have totally different meanings; this includes the city of Trogir, which simply derives from Etruscan Torkuna-Kir (like the city of Tarquinia; names were often shortened into "Torkir" and later into "Trogir"; which means "market part(rock; another word for a "rock" was PETER in Etruscan; "Peter the Rock" in Vatican (Etruscan 8ATIZ; "Seer"; Videc in Slovene(Video in Greek, etc...) ". The "Illyrians" were nothing else than Viliri or Wheel-irian (Trojans), who also lived around the Tyrrhenian (Vilirian; "Ilios" = Viloš; greeks did not use "V" for Veneti and for Trojans - Vilosh (Wheel; Volan, VIL) sea...
The "Trani" city is named by Etruscan Turan.

Regards to Troja. I've intentionally mentioned it. It includes the Lingual container "TR" which means "rotation" (cycle). Wheel (Viloš; Ilios). And Market place is nothing else than a center for (cyclic) exchange, resell. Money and goods which are "circulating" among the population... That's why "TRG" and TORG or whatever...

 

[Sile]

"Troy (Troia) as T-R-G market place is probably a bit far-fetched...

Anyway, clear proof that the Vikings already controlled the Mediterranean trade in antiquity, and established torgs everywhere..

PS: If I were to set up a pan-Mediterranean port network, these are some of the places I would consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachoni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taucheira
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgos_Dirou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragano
Tragaki, Zakynthos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrës
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oderzo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trani
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triggiano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranto"

Occult nonsense. There were no "Vikings" establishing and naming any cities in Mediterranean. All cities you've mentioned have totally different meanings; this includes the city of Trogir, which simply derives from Etruscan Torkuna-Kir (like the city of Tarquinia; names were often shortened into "Torkir" and later into "Trogir"; which means "market part(rock; another word for a "rock" was PETER in Etruscan; "Peter the Rock" in Vatican (Etruscan 8ATIZ; "Seer"; Videc in Slovene(Video in Greek, etc...) ". The "Illyrians" were nothing else than Viliri or Wheel-irian (Trojans), who also lived around the Tyrrhenian (Vilirian; "Ilios" = Viloš; greeks did not use "V" for Veneti and for Trojans - Vilosh (Wheel; Volan, VIL) sea...
The "Trani" city is named by Etruscan Turan.

Regards to Troja. I've intentionally mentioned it. It includes the Lingual container "TR" which means "rotation" (cycle). Wheel (Viloš; Ilios). And Market place is nothing else than a center for (cyclic) exchange, resell. Money and goods which are "circulating" among the population... That's why "TRG" and TORG or whatever...

Oderzo never had access to the sea...it is not a port .

 

[FrankN]

"Troy (Troia) as T-R-G market place is probably a bit far-fetched...

Anyway, clear proof that the Vikings already controlled the Mediterranean trade in antiquity, and established torgs everywhere..

PS: If I were to set up a pan-Mediterranean port network, these are some of the places I would consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachoni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taucheira
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgos_Dirou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragano
Tragaki, Zakynthos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrës
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oderzo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trani
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triggiano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranto"

Occult nonsense. There were no "Vikings" establishing and naming any cities in Mediterranean. All cities you've mentioned have totally different meanings; this includes the city of Trogir, which simply derives from Etruscan Torkuna-Kir (like the city of Tarquinia; names were often shortened into "Torkir" and later into "Trogir"; which means "market part(rock; another word for a "rock" was PETER in Etruscan; "Peter the Rock" in Vatican (Etruscan 8ATIZ; "Seer"; Videc in Slovene(Video in Greek, etc...) ". The "Illyrians" were nothing else than Viliri or Wheel-irian (Trojans), who also lived around the Tyrrhenian (Vilirian; "Ilios" = Viloš; greeks did not use "V" for Veneti and for Trojans - Vilosh (Wheel; Volan, VIL) sea...
The "Trani" city is named by Etruscan Turan.

Regards to Troja. I've intentionally mentioned it. It includes the Lingual container "TR" which means "rotation" (cycle). Wheel (Viloš; Ilios). And Market place is nothing else than a center for (cyclic) exchange, resell. Money and goods which are "circulating" among the population... That's why "TRG" and TORG or whatever...

If you haven't noticed yet, my "Viking" comment was of course ironic. In any case, "T-R-G", and possibly also "TR" as in Troia, appears to be a very ancient East-Mediterranean word. If we assume Thera and Tarragon being based on this root, it should date back to at least the third millennium BC, which probably makes it pre-Indo-European. Phoenician "QRT" (=city, as in Cartago) might actually represent a variation on the same root. The relation of "market" to "turning (over)" is fascinating - quite a high level of abstraction for ancient civilizations.

Anyway, I realise that I again have managed to turn a thread off-topic, which is a bit of a pity since I still intend to answer some of Moesan's comments/ questions on Vikings. If there is interest in continuing discussing "torgs", I propose to open up a new thread under "History & Civilisations", possible title "Ancient (pre-Roman/ Greek/ Celtic) place names around the Mediterranean". Comments on this idea by personal message to me (copy to LeBrok as moderator) will be appreciated.
Edit: The new thread has been opened in the meantime: http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...he-Mediterranean?p=436076&posted=1#post436076

 

[MOESAN]

a try concerning étymologies

DR/TR (by reinforcing of stop) : breton dre « through »sameas slavic drvogermanictree/trä « tree »,« wood » TRaspired sometimes like inthrough asin english, because bridges were at first made of timber, and theygave possibility to get « through »or « over »the rivers – of same root, germanic door,deur, dörr,gaelic doras,bretonand welsh dor, dôr,drwswith the basic root DR meaning « wood »,« timber » becausethe first doors were made of wood too and are the mean to get through(2 prooves for the same price) – with inversion of consonnantsDR/TR gave RD/RT : welsh and breton rhod,rod, latinrota « wheel »+latin rotund-« round »because the wheels ar circular in form but at first were made in woodor timber, and are used to go on, or to go through a country (threeprooves for the same price) – RT gave art-bypermutation stop-vowel, because the first abstract arts were based oncircular drawings...
god night for all of us

 

[FrankN]

a try concerning étymologies

DR/TR (by reinforcing of stop) : breton dre « through »sameas slavic drvogermanictree/trä « tree »,« wood » TRaspired sometimes like inthrough asin english, because bridges were at first made of timber, and theygave possibility to get « through »or « over »the rivers – of same root, germanic door,deur, dörr,gaelic doras,bretonand welsh dor, dôr,drwswith the basic root DR meaning « wood »,« timber » becausethe first doors were made of wood too and are the mean to get through(2 prooves for the same price) – with inversion of consonnantsDR/TR gave RD/RT : welsh and breton rhod,rod, latinrota « wheel »+latin rotund-« round »because the wheels ar circular in form but at first were made in woodor timber, and are used to go on, or to go through a country (threeprooves for the same price) – RT gave art-bypermutation stop-vowel, because the first abstract arts were based oncircular drawings...
god night for all of us

Another branch from the DR/TR root, namely dry (Slovenian torr), might also be related to wood, because you prefer wood to be dry when you use it for a fire or (later in human history) want to process it. To keep dry when it rains, you look for shelter under a tree, and afterwards, you dry yourself up on a wood-fuelled campfire (that was also 3 proves for the same price).

I think the original meaning of art was rather skilfulness / craftsmanship, as present in Latin ars, artes. You artificially create a purposeful object from wood, stone (Latin petra, as noted by Vedun), or as pottery. That can be arduous, hard work (German Arbeit, Slavic rabot /robot) - but such virtue has the merit of creating worth (Slovenian vreden, Polish wartosc, Lithuanian verté). [This is actually a derived RBT / WRT -cluster, which also suggests it initially wasn't easy for Germanics and Celts to articulate IE words(Irish: briathar) - Gauls even became muted.]

Crafted objects were dear, often paid in gold, zlato, золотой, χρυσός (partly r->l, d->t consonant shifts) - at least, where gold was available. The Romans had to pay their soldiers in salt, and borrowed aureum from Basque urrum. Celts made use of other metals instead, the Balts used amber (Lithuanian gintaras).

 

[LeBrok]

Does anyone knows where word "bridge/bruke" comes from? Any connection to berg or breg?

 

[Sile]

Does anyone knows where word "bridge/bruke" comes from? Any connection to berg or breg?

Berg ........german
Borgo.......italian
Borough....english

all mean hamlets.....also small walled villages.............some became huge cities and some disappeared

 

[MOESAN]

Another branch from the DR/TR root, namely dry (Slovenian torr), might also be related to wood, because you prefer wood to be dry when you use it for a fire or (later in human history) want to process it. To keep dry when it rains, you look for shelter under a tree, and afterwards, you dry yourself up on a wood-fuelled campfire (that was also 3 proves for the same price).

I think the original meaning of art was rather skilfulness / craftsmanship, as present in Latin ars, artes. You artificially create a purposeful object from wood, stone (Latin petra, as noted by Vedun), or as pottery. That can be arduous, hard work (German Arbeit, Slavic rabot /robot) - but such virtue has the merit of creating worth (Slovenian vreden, Polish wartosc, Lithuanian verté). [This is actually a derived RBT / WRT -cluster, which also suggests it initially wasn't easy for Germanics and Celts to articulate IE words(Irish: briathar) - Gauls even became muted.]

Crafted objects were dear, often paid in gold, zlato, золотой, χρυσός (partly r->l, d->t consonant shifts) - at least, where gold was available. The Romans had to pay their soldiers in salt, and borrowed aureum from Basque urrum. Celts made use of other metals instead, the Balts used amber (Lithuanian gintaras).

GOOD GAME GOOD PLAY NFRANK!!! you winned by far!
I see my soft irony about wild etymology didn't abuse you! I hope we 'll can discuss again more seriously, comparing step by step what can be compared without help of any god or devil

 

[FrankN]

Berg ........german
Borgo.......italian
Borough....english

all mean hamlets.....also small walled villages.............some became huge cities and some disappeared

The German would be "Burg", though "Berg" (mountain) is also related through the same pattern as in Slavic gora/ grad. The Germanic root is "bergen" - to bear, to shelter, to cover (compare birth, to bury). The wall is the much more important feature here than the settlement. A simple settlement would be a Weiler" (English village, Latin villa, Singhalese wela), or a "Dorf" (English thorpe, compare Latin turba = gathering).
However, the comparison to hamlet isn't completely wrong: German "Hamm" means fenced area, and that actually seems to be the older term. It s related to Latin campus, the c->h sound shift indicates its ancestry. I love "Hamburg" here - the Saxons were obviously not aware anymore of the meaning of "Ham(m)", otherwise they wouldn't have added "-burg" to an old name with the same meaning (though Hamburg-Hamm is a few kilometres from the new Burg).

Note in this context Hindi/ Singhalese puri as in Jaipur or Singapore (lion's castle), and also Continental Celtic / Raetian / Venetic briga (Bregenz, Brixen, Celtobriga, Braga, Bruxelles?). In Continental Celtic, bridge was probably briva (e.g. Samarobriva, Somme-bridge, today's Amiens).

According to Grimm's etymological dictionary, "Bridge" is related to German Britsche/ Pritsche, which means a construction from wooden boards (German Brett). Board / Brett is derived from broad/ breit, so a broad and planed piece of wood.
German "Brücke" seems to be unrelated. Grimm considers a lost old Germanic brau(g)an = to bulge, to vault, to arch over (compare eye-brow). This would indirectly connect Brücke to Berg, which is also a bulge (especially in its Low German use for "hill"). Another possible root may be "to break" - the first bridges were most likely branches broken from a tree and placed over a creek.

 

[kamani]

Another branch from the DR/TR root, namely dry (Slovenian torr), might also be related to wood, because you prefer wood to be dry when you use it for a fire or (later in human history) want to process it. To keep dry when it rains, you look for shelter under a tree, and afterwards, you dry yourself up on a wood-fuelled campfire (that was also 3 proves for the same price).

Interesting...
In Albanian, wood = dru, door = dera; so wood and door sound very simmilar. Also, deer = dre, I guess the horns of it looked like dry wood.

 

[FrankN]

Interesting...
In Albanian, wood = dru, door = dera; so wood and door sound very simmilar. Also, deer = dre, I guess the horns of it looked like dry wood.

Or because deer lives in the woods - German Wald (forest, woods) <-> Wild (game, deer). While German btw has lost the "TR"=tree/wood root, Tier (animal, deer) has been maintained.

 

[MOESAN]

Does anyone knows where word "bridge/bruke" comes from? Any connection to berg or breg?

a partial answer here Under

Question of bridge, brigg, brugg,brücke, bro + borough, burg, borg, borgo, bourg, bourc'h + berge,breg, briell (« riverbank ») indifferent I-Ean languages -
firstof all, all the supposed roots I found seem issued from an I-Ean*Bh-R – (so thegenuine cognates would be in °F-R- inlatin and °Ph-R- ingreek -
among thechallenging ones I put, from Pokornik and others (a sensible bet) :
*BheR (2) :« to bear »
*BheR(4) :« point »,« peak » >> « border », « edge »
*BheRê[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ğ[/FONT]h/ BheR[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ğ[/FONT]hos :« high »,« noble », « barrow », « mountain »
*BheR[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ğ[/FONT]h :« to keep »,« to hide », « to bury »
*BhReu / BhRu :« edge »
*BhaR / BhoR /BhR : « burr »,« stubble », « somethingjutting out »
thelast one could evocate something AND high AND jutting out :breton barr1/ « branch »-2/ « summit »-classified as « obscure » root *BaRRbyold romance scholars, it's to say : pre-latin -
here we could have some hazards or in the opposite, true semanticdrifts of a general meaning of « height » >>« noble », « famous » + >> « highborder », « high edge », « high limit »,« high river bank » + >> « high fortifiedsettlement », « inaccessible place » … it can gofar with time but the intermediate words/forms are needed to be sureof such semantic evolutions ...
the breton briell for « relatively high bank »seems at first sight from an ancient °brig-
(? << *BhR-G?) - breton has also bri :« respect », « admiration » + bre :« hill » << « mountain », seecommon brittonic/gallic root Brig- in people or place namesand other celtic languages – the problem of roots giving byinstance KeRK- and KreK- in subsequent languages
is linked to syllabic liquid sonnants where the subsequent vowelappendix is without too much importance : inversions very commonamong slavic languages and present even in others (french « frog » :grenouille /grnuj/> /grnuj/[FONT=Times New Roman, serif],« cheese » :[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]fromage[/FONT]/frOmaZ/[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]instead of correct[/FONT]/fOrmaZ/– but this stage of languages does not seem« primitive » to me : I would suppose a stage withConsonne+Vowel ++ Consonne+Vowel++ ... as more natural at first –maybe at some stage the long vowels were the primitive ones when theshort ones were the ones born bt the liquid sonnants ?


keeping on with closer meanings and forms recent works wouldpropose << Wikipedia indo-european languages : notperfect maybe, but very interesting yet)
*BheR[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ğ[/FONT]h :« strong » >> Engl- burg / borough /Germ- burg+ berg / Scand- borg(bjarg) + Russ- bereg+ Tokh- pärk +Hitt- parku + Lat-for-t- (borgois a late loan to germanic) +Sanskr- barhayati ;they give the gallic Bergusia butnot briga (!?!) orthis word briga nameda « fortified place » very often upon hills –apparently the meaning of « mountain » is correct heretoo : Serb-Croat- breg « hill »-
*BheR[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ğ[/FONT]h :« to hide », « to protect » >> O-Englbyrgan / Engl- bury- Germ- bergen +Russ- bere[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]č[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]'[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif](OldCh-Slavon- [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]br[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ě[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]g[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ą– [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]herethe meaning could come from « strong place » ? -[/FONT]
*BhRuH- : « bridge »,« beam » >> O-Engl- brycg /Engl- bridge / Germ-brücke / Dutch brug(brugg) / Scand- bro+ Gall- =Gaul- briva+ O-Ch-Slavon-brivuno / Pol-birzwno / Russ-brevno
this in incomplete – I suppose in slavic languages we could findtoo some cognates words for « river bank » ??? Someforumers already posted about this stuff -


&: sorry for my poor technical english !

 

[MOESAN]

Or because deer lives in the woods - German Wald (forest, woods) <-> Wild (game, deer). While German btw has lost the "TR"=tree/wood root, Tier (animal, deer) has been maintained.

at first I was believing you were making jokes - but not - here we could agree at first sight: the animal identified with its life milieu: different but showing the same degree of semantic drift we have in french 'SAUVAGE' ("wild") << 'SALVAGE' ('SELVE' << 'SILVA' "wood", "forest") -
bu I don't agree concerning TREE /TIER: TIER is DIER in dutch (see DEER?) T# D not the same I-E root I think -
but the thought was not senseless

 

[MOESAN]

"arm" latin '*arm-' (maybe a loanword in it?) but also 'ramus' "small branch" french 'rameau', 'ramification'

 

[FrankN]

*BhRuH- : « bridge »,« beam » >> O-Engl- brycg /Engl- bridge / Germ-brücke / Dutch brug(brugg) / Scand- bro+ Gall- =Gaul- briva+ O-Ch-Slavon-brivuno / Pol-birzwno / Russ-brevno

While I hate citing authorities, here I can follow Grimm when he thinks that a V<>K/G sound change, from Celtic Briva / Slavic Brevno to German Brücke / Lithuanian brukkas is unlikely. The "V" makes sense, also in relation to brewing (bubbles as small elevations), the "K/G" doesn't. Maybe a pre-IE word that has converged with an IE root?
"Briga" is not necessarily Continental Celtic - the examples I am aware of are either from Portugal (Celtiberic), or from the Alps (Raetian/ Venetic), so Wikipedia may be correct with Gallic "Bregusia".

bu I don't agree concerning TREE /TIER: TIER is DIER in dutch (see DEER?) T# D not the same I-E root I think

DR/TR (by reinforcing of stop) : breton dre « through »same as slavic drvo Germanic tree/trä « tree »,« wood »

ehem... Which of those two statements was meant seriously? May I also remind you of German Tür, Dutch Deur, English through, German durch, English tight, German dicht...

 

[LeBrok]

a partial answer here Under

Question of bridge, brigg, brugg,brücke, bro + borough, burg, borg, borgo, bourg, bourc'h + berge,breg, briell (« riverbank ») indifferent I-Ean languages -
firstof all, all the supposed roots I found seem issued from an I-Ean*Bh-R – (so thegenuine cognates would be in °F-R- inlatin and °Ph-R- ingreek -
among thechallenging ones I put, from Pokornik and others (a sensible bet) :
*BheR (2) :« to bear »
*BheR(4) :« point »,« peak » >> « border », « edge »
*BheRêĞh/ BheRĞhos :« high »,« noble », « barrow », « mountain »
*BheRĞh :« to keep »,« to hide », « to bury »
*BhReu / BhRu :« edge »
*BhaR / BhoR /BhR : « burr »,« stubble », « somethingjutting out »
thelast one could evocate something AND high AND jutting out :breton barr1/ « branch »-2/ « summit »-classified as « obscure » root *BaRRbyold romance scholars, it's to say : pre-latin -
here we could have some hazards or in the opposite, true semanticdrifts of a general meaning of « height » >>« noble », « famous » + >> « highborder », « high edge », « high limit »,« high river bank » + >> « high fortifiedsettlement », « inaccessible place » … it can gofar with time but the intermediate words/forms are needed to be sureof such semantic evolutions ...
the breton briell for « relatively high bank »seems at first sight from an ancient °brig-
(? << *BhR-G?) - breton has also bri :« respect », « admiration » + bre :« hill » << « mountain », seecommon brittonic/gallic root Brig- in people or place namesand other celtic languages – the problem of roots giving byinstance KeRK- and KreK- in subsequent languages
is linked to syllabic liquid sonnants where the subsequent vowelappendix is without too much importance : inversions very commonamong slavic languages and present even in others (french « frog » :grenouille /grnuj/> /grnuj/,« cheese » :fromage/frOmaZ/instead of correct/fOrmaZ/– but this stage of languages does not seem« primitive » to me : I would suppose a stage withConsonne+Vowel ++ Consonne+Vowel++ ... as more natural at first –maybe at some stage the long vowels were the primitive ones when theshort ones were the ones born bt the liquid sonnants ?


keeping on with closer meanings and forms recent works wouldpropose << Wikipedia indo-european languages : notperfect maybe, but very interesting yet)
*BheRĞh :« strong » >> Engl- burg / borough /Germ- burg+ berg / Scand- borg(bjarg) + Russ- bereg+ Tokh- pärk +Hitt- parku + Lat-for-t- (borgois a late loan to germanic) +Sanskr- barhayati ;they give the gallic Bergusia butnot briga (!?!) orthis word briga nameda « fortified place » very often upon hills –apparently the meaning of « mountain » is correct heretoo : Serb-Croat- breg « hill »-
*BheRĞh :« to hide », « to protect » >> O-Englbyrgan / Engl- bury- Germ- bergen +Russ- bereč'(OldCh-Slavon- brěgą– herethe meaning could come from « strong place » ? -
*BhRuH- : « bridge »,« beam » >> O-Engl- brycg /Engl- bridge / Germ-brücke / Dutch brug(brugg) / Scand- bro+ Gall- =Gaul- briva+ O-Ch-Slavon-brivuno / Pol-birzwno / Russ-brevno
this in incomplete – I suppose in slavic languages we could findtoo some cognates words for « river bank » ??? Someforumers already posted about this stuff -


&: sorry for my poor technical english !

Astounding knowledge Moesan. I couldn't find your conclusion though. Is it possible that word bridge comes from berg/breg (hill, edge), as a new name for a structure connecting two hills/edges.

 

[FrankN]

I have checked further on "Brücke" (bridge). My first idea was that it sounds suspiciously close to Celtic "briga". As old settlements are often located on strategic river crossings, I thought it possible that the Celtic name was later germanised into Brücke. And indeed, there is such a case - Sarabriga has turned into Saarbrücken - and the first bridge there dates 500 years later than the initial recording of the city name. There are other cases, e.g. Tösens-Steinbrücken on a plateau above the upper Inn. That's the view you have from there - obviously a "Berg", possibly a "briga", but highly unlikely that anybody ever built a stone bridge there:

A third, albeit a bit less clear-cut example is Coppenbrügge. The small town lies in southern Lower Saxony on the Medieval Hellweg (salt road) from Cologne to the Harz and Magdeburg,. Located in a saddle between the Ith and Deister mountains, it controls the passage between the Weser and Leine rivers. The area is one of the proposed locations of the 16 AD Battle of Idistaviso (=Ith-meadows). "Coppen" stems from German "Kuppe" (rounded hill or hill-top), so the standard interpretation of the name is "Bridge at the rounded hill". However, given that the town lies on the watershed between the Weser and Leine rivers, it may be doubted that there ever existed a bridge significant enough to give the town its name. The first recorded names are "Cobbanbrug" (1000) and "Cobbanberg" (1013), so the initial name may as well have been "Cobban-briga" - hill-top fort. Accidentally, the Osterwald directly to the east (photo below) bears yet unexcavated remains of the Barenburg, a large La Tene-period hill fort. Intensive cultural contacts with Celtic areas has been demonstrated by recent excavations of another Hallstat-/ La Tene period hill-fort some 20 km NW.

Another possible root, especially for towns located in the North German plain (Osnabrück, Quakenbrück, Wiedenbrück etc.) is from "Bruch"=river marsh, swamp. That seems to be a different IE root Breg = water surface. My etymological page (however reliable) even indicates that it could be a borrowing from Semitic "B-R-G"=to shimmer, to reflect, birkatu = pond. IE derivatives include

• Greek βρέχειν = to rain,
• Celtic/ Raetic/ Venetic river names such Brigach or Breg (which implies an alternative explanation for town names such as Bregenz and Brixen)
• Galloroman bracum = swamp
• English brook
• Cymr. brag-wellt =swamp grass
• French breuil = shrubs
• Birch, Birke, björk, breza etc.
• possibly, French berge, Polish brzeg, Slovakian breh = river bank
• also, possibly, the Germanic Bructeri (swamp dwellers?), who settled somewhere around and between Broich (Ruhr), Wiedenbrück, and Osnabruck.

There is a certain tradition in Germany to make a "Bruch", a river marsh or swamp, passable: Log roads ("Knüppeldamm"). The photo below displays a log road from the 3rd century AD north of Hamburg. The oldest log road that has been excavated in Germany dates to 4,800 BC, it has been found in a swamp near Damme, SW of Bremen, close to the Hamburg-Cologne motorway. How would you call a log road across a Bruch: Brücke (bridge) seems adequate.

 

[MOESAN]

in germanic, the today groups of word in B-R-G and B-R-K are distinct, clearly, at least concerning the suffix:
for the meaning too, according to myself, a person I have the greatest respect for (hum...) -
BRK: engl- brook - high germ- bruch : marsh or humid, water concept- # engl- bridge (brigg in dialects) dutch brug - high germ- brücke : bridge concept - I think they were different meanings since the beginning - for a semitic origin, I have some difficulty to accept at first sight but who knows? - by the way, the B- here in "bridge" (and in "berg", "borough" is from a supposed I-Ean Bh-

to answer to Lebrok, I didn't affirm nothing because I'm not absolutely sure - But I let people to understand I would not be astonished if the "bridge" concept would be linked to the "height" one (and "noble" and "strength" ones too ) in a far past of languages - but apparently the "bridge" concept had a distinct I-Ean root "Bhreuh- distinct from the root of "berg", "burg" and "strength" according to people having more knowledge than me -

 

[MOESAN]

While I hate citing authorities, here I can follow Grimm when he thinks that a V<>K/G sound change, from Celtic Briva / Slavic Brevno to German Brücke / Lithuanian brukkas is unlikely. The "V" makes sense, also in relation to brewing (bubbles as small elevations), the "K/G" doesn't. Maybe a pre-IE word that has converged with an IE root?
"Briga" is not necessarily Continental Celtic - the examples I am aware of are either from Portugal (Celtiberic), or from the Alps (Raetian/ Venetic), so Wikipedia may be correct with Gallic "Bregusia".



ehem... Which of those two statements was meant seriously? May I also remind you of German Tür, Dutch Deur, English through, German durch, English tight, German dicht...

I was making joke when I compared seemingly (only seemingly) cognates words passing from the meaning of "wood" to the one of "bridge", "door", "wheel", "passage" and "art" !!! I was making my "magic etymology"!!!
I recall
I-E D- >> germanic T- (only later in high germans >> TS written 'Z'
I-E T- >> germanic Th- english, icelandic, old germanic >> T- frisian, norvegian, swedish, danish >> D- dutch, all germans (even high german)
I-E D-h >> germanic D- (only later in high germans) >> T-
I know it's very easy to confuse all these modern reflexes of first germanic from proto-I-Ean !!! in the middle or end of words it is a bit more complicated yet - so 'tier' roothas nothing (I think) to do with the root of 'tree'/'trä' - if it was for the same root it would have given 'zier' in modern high german - but it gave only 'tier' that is in D- in other modern germanic languages which have T in 'tree' or 'trä' (*D-R-)-

 

[FrankN]

I was making joke when I compared seemingly (only seemingly) cognates words passing from the meaning of "wood" to the one of "bridge", "door", "wheel", "passage" and "art" !!! I was making my "magic etymology"!!!
I recall
I-E D- >> germanic T- (only later in high germans >> TS written 'Z'
I-E T- >> germanic Th- english, icelandic, old germanic >> T- frisian, norvegian, swedish, danish >> D- dutch, all germans (even high german)
I-E D-h >> germanic D- (only later in high germans) >> T-
I know it's very easy to confuse all these modern reflexes of first germanic from proto-I-Ean !!! in the middle or end of words it is a bit more complicated yet - so 'tier' roothas nothing (I think) to do with the root of 'tree'/'trä' - if it was for the same root it would have given 'zier' in modern high german - but it gave only 'tier' that is in D- in other modern germanic languages which have T in 'tree' or 'trä' (*D-R-)-

Here I was teasing you, but you proved yourself well!

I checked in the meantime with Grimm (his etymological dictionary is quite an outstanding work, and has luckily been digitised. One of Germany's greatest scientists, but all that people remember is the fairy tale collection!). For deer / Tier, he supposes an IE Dhus - to breathe, related to Old Slavic dusa = spirit, soul, in an analogous construction to Latin anima <> animal.
http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/call_wbgui_py_from_form?sigle=DWB&mode=Volltextsuche&lemid=GT03393