Wednesday’s Question.
Jul 9th, 2008 by B.
What’s the difference between a ‘burg’ (as in: Hamburg, Rothenburg, Regensburg) and a ‘berg’ (Heidelberg, Nürnberg, Baden-Wuerttemberg) in town/city names? I’m guessing it’s not just some arbitrary spelling decision… there’s got to be more to it than that. Right?
And after almost 2.5 years here, this is probably some of the stuff I should know.
i don’t know…i always assumed it had something to do with bürger und bergen…???
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Well, a Burg is a castle and a Berg is a mountain, so it probably has to do with how the city originally came to be. Wikipedia says that Hamburg was built up around something called Kastell Hammaburg so I guess that makes sense.
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Like Christina said, they are different words. Heidelberg means “Heidel hill/mountain”. It’s an old name and they’re not completely sure about the origin of the Heidel part.
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I always assumed that -berg referred to a nearby mountain of some sort… but I don’t actually know.
So is -bourg just the French version of -burg? I’ve been to a Freiburg, a Freiberg, and a Freibourg…
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My answer is the same as Christina’s, she beat me to it. You climb a berg and live in a burg…ciao
Berg and Burg are very old (and related) words, existing since the old germanic languages in different meanings.
In the medieval germanic languages “burg” didn’t automatically refer to a keep or a castle but meant more generally a fortified settlement or an area inside a town wall or sometimes just an area or village that served as an (military) area of retreat — for example a mountain (berg!). Compare “-burg(h)” or “-borough” in English and American place namings or “-borg” in scandinavian countries. Sometimes “-berg” became “-burg” over centuries or vice versa. (”Homberg” derived from the “Hohenburg”.) So there isn’t really an important difference you must know about.
Yay! Finally an oppurtunity to actually use my rusty knowledge of middle and old high German from German major classes in school
For more or this stuff you can also see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_placename_etymology
Sebastians last blog post..So etwas undankbares!
My detailled answer seems to rest in your spam filter
Sebastians last blog post..So etwas undankbares!
Sebastian - I went in & rescued your comment, thanks for letting me know it was missing.
Heh, I love that in the end the answer is that it’s really not significant. Leave it to me to obsess over a useless question…
But it IS significant and thanks for even posing the question! If you plug the wrong spelling into a navi device because you don’t consider it important, you end up in the wrong place, hours out of your way (seriously - I know someone who did that). I figured it had something to do with fortification vs. topography, too.
*steps off spelling/grammar soapbox*
Also, let’s not forget — there is absolutely no confusing the two in German since the pronunciation is distinct.
“bear”g versus “boor”g — if you know how the town is supposed to pronounced, you know how to spell it.
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Heh, I pronounce them all ‘burg’ as in: iceberg lettuce… which begs the question, have I been mispronouncing iceberg lettuce all this time??
Adding to the mountain of spelling confusion is Nürnberg’s English translation. I’ve found Nuremburg, Nuremberg, Nueremburg, Nueremberg. Should we take a poll?
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