Have you ever wondered about German cities ending with Berg vs Burg? Wurzburg for example?

[Robertinfremont]

I spent about 16 months living in Germany and noticed then towns end in both Berg and Burg. Nuremberg is a good example as is Wurzburg.

Here is why the end of the names vary.

The variant burg had the meaning of a high place that is defendable. In German, it has kept the meaning of a medieval defensive castle, die Burg “boork”. Since towns often grew up around a lord's castle, lots of German town names end in -burg, ditto people named for such towns.Nov 8, 2018

So if you visit, if the town ends in Burg, expect there to be a castle.

I spent a lot of time in Schweinfurt. Schwein is PIG and Furt is crossing.

Schweinfurt was heavily bombed in WW2 due to the factories there.

The army base I was based in most of the time was a former German armored base called a Kasern. Ledward Kaserne for instance, now closed to Americans. This base had a lot of garages for tanks and we used them for jeeps and armored personnel carriers. This base had one totally destroyed Nazi building used to house troops. And next to that site was about a half of a building left standing. As a target it was not nearly as damaged as was the main parts of Schweinfurt.

When I was based at the Army Airfield, it was closed to German aircraft save one rich German who owned a number of airplanes he used to fly rich Germans around Germany. He was generous to we at the field. He told me one day his passenger was the head of BMW a famous German auto and motorcycle manufacturer. Normally when he landed, a large limonene came onto the base to pick up his passengers.

At the time he flew to our base a Beechcraft Queen Air. And had a stewardess on the airplane.

This is the Queen air.

 

[MamboDervish]

I spent about 16 months living in Germany and noticed then towns end in both Berg and Burg. Nuremberg is a good example as is Wurzburg.

Here is why the end of the names vary.

The variant burg had the meaning of a high place that is defendable. In German, it has kept the meaning of a medieval defensive castle, die Burg “boork”. Since towns often grew up around a lord's castle, lots of German town names end in -burg, ditto people named for such towns.Nov 8, 2018

So if you visit, if the town ends in Burg, expect there to be a castle.

I spent a lot of time in Schweinfurt. Schwein is PIG and Furt is crossing.

Schweinfurt was heavily bombed in WW2 due to the factories there.

The army base I was based in most of the time was a former German armored base called a Kasern. Ledward Kaserne for instance, now closed to Americans. This base had a lot of garages for tanks and we used them for jeeps and armored personnel carriers. This base had one totally destroyed Nazi building used to house troops. And next to that site was about a half of a building left standing. As a target it was not nearly as damaged as was the main parts of Schweinfurt.

When I was based at the Army Airfield, it was closed to German aircraft save one rich German who owned a number of airplanes he used to fly rich Germans around Germany. He was generous to we at the field. He told me one day his passenger was the head of BMW a famous German auto and motorcycle manufacturer. Normally when he landed, a large limonene came onto the base to pick up his passengers.

At the time he flew to our base a Beechcraft Queen Air. And had a stewardess on the airplane.

This is the Queen air.

So - you explained the meaning of why a town might end in -burg. But what is the definition of towns ending in -berg?

 

[Robertinfremont]

Happy to help with Berg


Anne G. Lynch
, former German historian at University of Central Oklahoma (1967-2007)
Answered July 2, 2019


The simple answer is that a Berg is a hill or mountain, whereas a Burg is a fortress. Said fortress is often on top of said hill! It is hard to remember how to end the name of many cities because the city has a Burg sitting on top of a very conspicuous Berg. Why are forts associated with cities? Given that a fortification offered some protection, fairs often took place in or near Burgs. A fair is a gathering of merchants at a certain date. Fairs preceded towns as places to distribute goods. Naturally, a regular fair could, and often did, lead to a permanent settlement. Thus the term for townspeople came to be Burger, residents of Burgs, even though said people were merchants, not soldiers. Another way in which towns and fortifications came to be connected is that merchants needed to be able to transport goods. Germany has many rivers. Rivers are hard to cross. Bridges have to be built and defended! Thus a common pattern among German cities is a river with a high hill on one side and a flat area on the other. Atop the hill is a fort. A town grew up in the flat area and eventually also became fortified. A bridge or two connect the two sides. Once a settlement reached the point that it was licensed by a ruler to have its own government, then it became a Stadt or city.

1.3K views

 

[Robertinfremont]

Bad Kissing, Grub, Worms and Hamm.

Germany is dotted with diverse–and occasionally whimsical–city, town and village names. Many of these names have common suffixes inspired by natural or manmade attributes, including:

zeitguidegermany.com - zeitguidegermany Resources and Information.

zeitguidegermany.com is your first and best source for all of the information you’re looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, zeitguidegermany.com has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!

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• Au (meadow)
• Bach (brook)
• Bad (spa)
• Berg (mountain)
• Brücken (bridge)
• Burg (fortress)
• Dorf (village)
• Fels (cliff)
• Furt (ford)
• Hof (farm)
• Tal (valley)
• Wald (forest).

Though the source of many place names, including the Rhine-side town Assmanshausen, the Alpine resort Füssen (“Feet”) and the Hessen city Darmstadt (“Intestine City”), will always remain a mystery, most names are easily decoded.

 

[MamboDervish]

Happy to help with Berg


Anne G. Lynch
, former German historian at University of Central Oklahoma (1967-2007)
Answered July 2, 2019


The simple answer is that a Berg is a hill or mountain, whereas a Burg is a fortress. Said fortress is often on top of said hill! It is hard to remember how to end the name of many cities because the city has a Burg sitting on top of a very conspicuous Berg. Why are forts associated with cities? Given that a fortification offered some protection, fairs often took place in or near Burgs. A fair is a gathering of merchants at a certain date. Fairs preceded towns as places to distribute goods. Naturally, a regular fair could, and often did, lead to a permanent settlement. Thus the term for townspeople came to be Burger, residents of Burgs, even though said people were merchants, not soldiers. Another way in which towns and fortifications came to be connected is that merchants needed to be able to transport goods. Germany has many rivers. Rivers are hard to cross. Bridges have to be built and defended! Thus a common pattern among German cities is a river with a high hill on one side and a flat area on the other. Atop the hill is a fort. A town grew up in the flat area and eventually also became fortified. A bridge or two connect the two sides. Once a settlement reached the point that it was licensed by a ruler to have its own government, then it became a Stadt or city.

1.3K views

I see. So burger is townspeople. I looked up berger and came up with shepherd, or herdsman.
So simply put - the burgers were the city folk, and the bergers were the country folk. Of course, when speaking they're virtually identical. They are only distinguished in the written language.
Curios.

 

[Chagos]

~...........................................Though the source of many place names, including the Rhine-side town Assmanshausen, the Alpine resort Füssen (“Feet”) and the Hessen city Darmstadt (“Intestine City”), will always remain a mystery, most names are easily decoded.

Assmannshausen was called (in the Middle Ages) "Hasemanneshusen", translating as home (house) of the man of the hare. Whether somebody bred hares there or simply hunted them remains unclear.

Füssen is indeed "feet" and describes the topographical location (at the foot of the mountains).

Darmstadt has nothing to do with "intestines" but derives from a royal forest warden named Daremund (possibly late 11th century).

 

[Chagos]

I see. So burger is townspeople. I looked up berger and came up with shepherd, or herdsman.
So simply put - the burgers were the city folk, and the bergers were the country folk. Of course, when speaking they're virtually identical. They are only distinguished in the written language.
Curios.

The herdsman thing derives from the French berger, the German "Berger" simply denotes "of or from a hill or mountain", often "from hill country".

As such Nürnberg (Nuremberg) is derived from old German "Nor" which denotes a rock and describes the hill on which the Nürnburg ("Nürn castle") was built.

Generally one can work on the principle that the original fortress (Burg) was extended to protect the peasants that supplied it, thus laying the founding of the town that would subsequently come into being.

IOW what started out as a castle of the local lord found its walls extended to encompass the local peasant dwellings as protection in times of conflict. The fields, of course, remaining outside of the perimeter of such peasant refuge.

 

[Sven Karma]

We drove from the UK to a wedding in Freiberg (far east Germany, near the Czech border). The stepson very nearly ended up in Freiburg (west Germany, near the Swiss border).

 

[MamboDervish]

The herdsman thing derives from the French berger, the German "Berger" simply denotes "of or from a hill or mountain", often "from hill country".

As such Nürnberg (Nuremberg) is derived from old German "Nor" which denotes a rock and describes the hill on which the Nürnburg ("Nürn castle") was built.

Generally one can work on the principle that the original fortress (Burg) was extended to protect the peasants that supplied it, thus laying the founding of the town that would subsequently come into being.

IOW what started out as a castle of the local lord found its walls extended to encompass the local peasant dwellings as protection in times of conflict. The fields, of course, remaining outside of the perimeter of such peasant refuge.

Thanks for your contribution to the discussion. It makes some sense in the context of my own experience, and word origins fascinate me.
Apologies for the long post - but it's worth it.

Many years ago, as a young man, I had an opportunity to spend Christmastime in Rothenburg ob Der Tauber - arguably the most charming place and time I've ever experienced in my life. It was magical - and not only because of my consumption of Glühwein. More than merely a castle, it appears as if the entire town had become walled in just as you describe. I highly recommend the experience.

During my stay in Germany - less than half-a-year - I often tried to use an English-German/German-English dictionary, and found it very difficult to master. I remember thinking how useless it was. I encountered so many long words, not in the dictionary, that had been constructed by attaching smaller words together. I've since come to understand that knowing the smaller root words is the key to comprehension.

My mother came from East Prussia - Ostpreußen - from a town not too far from the Lithuanian border. Since WWII the entire area has fallen under Russian rule, and what was once Königsberg has long since become the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad. I suspect the Russian suffix grad to have a similar meaning - as in Petrograd, Stalingrad, etc.

Anecdotally, a few years ago, my niece bought me a DNA test as a gift. It revealed that the man I had thought to be my father was not. Subsequent DNA tests with different testing companies confirmed that all of my genetics ancestry - say at least over the past 800 years - appears to have come from areas bordering the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea. When I mentioned this to a neighbor one day, she said that it sounded like my ancestry was from the Hanseatic League - or Hansa - a term I was not familiar with, but had to look up. In reading the history, it was clear that this Hansa was, in effect, the earliest European Union - a connection of city-states throughout the Baltic and North Seas that stretched all the way from Novgorod Russia in the East, to London and Edinburgh in the West. This league of trading partners - city-states - was comprised of over 190 towns/bergs/grads through 16 countries, and existed for several hundred years, despite the rise and fall of various monarchies within its territory. The league had their own army and navy that protected the commerce between city-states.
The name of the German airline - Lufthansa - is derived from it! In effect - flying Hansa.

 

[Chagos]

~..........................During my stay in Germany - less than half-a-year - I often tried to use an English-German/German-English dictionary, and found it very difficult to master. I remember thinking how useless it was. I encountered so many long words, not in the dictionary, that had been constructed by attaching smaller words together. I've since come to understand that knowing the smaller root words is the key to comprehension.

You might have taken some comfort from bringing along Langhorne's (Mark Twain's):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language

Here's a challenge: "Oberdonaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze".

My mother came from East Prussia - Ostpreußen - from a town not too far from the Lithuanian border. Since WWII the entire area has fallen under Russian rule, and what was once Königsberg has long since become the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad. I suspect the Russian suffix grad to have a similar meaning - as in Petrograd, Stalingrad, etc. ..............................~

Yes, "grad" stands for fortified (fenced) area, "gorod" as in Novgorod is a variation.

~..................... the Hanseatic League - or Hansa - a term I was not familiar with, but had to look up. In reading the history, it was clear that this Hansa was, in effect, the earliest European Union - a connection of city-states throughout the Baltic and North Seas that stretched all the way from Novgorod Russia in the East, to London and Edinburgh in the West. This league of trading partners - city-states - was comprised of over 190 towns/bergs/grads through 16 countries, and existed for several hundred years, despite the rise and fall of various monarchies within its territory. The league had their own army and navy that protected the commerce between city-states.
The name of the German airline - Lufthansa - is derived from it! In effect - flying Hansa.

It's actually "Air Hansa" but same difference.

With German car licence plates actually denoting the city or region of registry (e.g. D for Düsseldorf), Hamburg and Bremen even today are not simply H and B but HH and HB. The H standing for "Hansestadt".

Yeah, precursor of a transnational union if ever there was one.

 

[MamboDervish]

You might have taken some comfort from bringing along Langhorne's (Mark Twain's):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language

Here's a challenge: "Oberdonaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze".

Yes, "grad" stands for fortified (fenced) area, "gorod" as in Novgorod is a variation.

It's actually "Air Hansa" but same difference.

With German car licence plates actually denoting the city or region of registry (e.g. D for Düsseldorf), Hamburg and Bremen even today are not simply H and B but HH and HB. The H standing for "Hansestadt".

Yeah, precursor of a transnational union if ever there was one.

LOL - is it the "upper Danube steamship company captain's hat" ?? Why on earth should that be condensed into one word? It's an answer to a question probably only asked once in history. "Who's hat is that?"

Apropos of the OP topic, I looked up "-heim" because many German cities end in it. Of course you know that it means "home", so knowing the meaning of the first part of the cities name effectively gives us "the home of - - - - - " . . . whatever. Good to know.

I try to learn at least 10 new things every day - but alas, at my age I completely forget about 15 old things, so I'm running at a net daily loss of at least 5.

 

[german hick]

heyho linguistic interested ;o)

The area I come from is named Sauerland - in dialect Suierland or Suerland. It originally meant "southern land (of the saxon tribe)" and the cities her were all part of the Hanse - ~ 300km southward to the north sea

Most often used town name here is "Neuenkirchen" - means "new Church"
in the saxon speaking region (not our days Saxony - that´s another story ;o) ) - a lot of places end with "-kirchen" and also "-heim" (home), or -hausen/husen/ngsen (all comes from houses)

But I think a lot of them is the same in English speaking areas: -fort (Furt) - burgh (burg) etc

ptw - at these times the saxon language (plattdeutsch) the language of the Hanse, was a world language - now it´s dying out

 

[Chagos]

LOL - is it the "upper Danube steamship company captain's hat" ?? Why on earth should that be condensed into one word? It's an answer to a question probably only asked once in history. "Who's hat is that?"

German has long since shied away from such monstrosities as Mark Twain (and not just he) encountered.

The above concoction is the result of a game I used to play with the kids of German friends of mine. The game consisting of "add another term until you forget what preceded".

As such one might break the sound barrier with "Oberdonaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmützenbandknopfleiste" but from there on things would begin to provide insurmountable challenges if you weren't writing stuff down but working from memory.

Apropos of the OP topic, I looked up "-heim" because many German cities end in it. Of course you know that it means "home", so knowing the meaning of the first part of the cities name effectively gives us "the home of - - - - - " . . . whatever. Good to know.

Yeah, old Germanic, originally meaning camp.

I try to learn at least 10 new things every day - but alas, at my age I completely forget about 15 old things, so I'm running at a net daily loss of at least 5.

reminds me of two friends meeting, one explaining that he's just back from the doctor. Asks the other "why did you go to the doc?"

"Because of this ailment".

What sort of ailment?"

"I keep forgetting things."

"Oh dear, how long have you had this?"

"What?"

"The ailment."

"What ailment?"

 

[Chagos]

heyho linguistic interested ;o)

The area I come from is named Sauerland - in dialect Suierland or Suerland. It originally meant "southern land (of the saxon tribe)" and the cities her were all part of the Hanse - ~ 300km southward to the north sea

Most often used town name here is "Neuenkirchen" - means "new Church"
in the saxon speaking region (not our days Saxony - that´s another story ;o) ) - a lot of places end with "-kirchen" and also "-heim" (home), or -hausen/husen/ngsen (all comes from houses)

But I think a lot of them is the same in English speaking areas: -fort (Furt) - burgh (burg) etc

ptw - at these times the saxon language (plattdeutsch) the language of the Hanse, was a world language - now it´s dying out

did you know that the Finns call Germany "Saksa"?

and that the rest of the Germans call the Sauerland "Westfalian Congo"?

 

[german hick]

did you know that the Finns call Germany "Saksa"?

yep - always the nearest tribe to the border - the french call us after the "Allemannen"- tribe etc..

and that the rest of the Germans call the Sauerland "Westfalian Congo"?

I´m quite fine with that - see my forum name ;oP


Saxon is - as someone who knows history can assume - quite near to english

examples:

high German:
was / das / weiß

Plattdeutsch:
wat / dat / wit

english:
what / that / white

 

[Chagos]

yep - always the nearest tribe to the border - the french call us after the "Allemannen"- tribe etc..



I´m quite fine with that - see my forum name ;oP


Saxon is - as someone who knows history can assume - quite near to english

examples:

high German:
was / das / weiß

Plattdeutsch:
wat / dat / wit

english:
what / that / white

Anglo Saxon, so to speak.

As to others naming "German", I reckon the Italians get nearest with "Tedesco". Conceivably derived from old German "diutisc" (of the people).

The greatest confusion to me lies in the English language in that it confuses "German" with "Germanic". Not the fault of the English since the Romans already termed anyone living East of the Rhine as "German".

Of course French and Spanish are no better, deeming Germans to be Allemand/Aleman, when the actual Alemannen were just one of many Germanic tribes. Just like the Franks from which France takes its name.

"Frank" incidentally being the handle applied to me when I worked (and lived) in Arabian speaking countries.

 

[german hick]

Anglo Saxon, so to speak.

As to others naming "German", I reckon the Italians get nearest with "Tedesco". Conceivably derived from old German "diutisc" (of the people).

The greatest confusion to me lies in the English language in that it confuses "German" with "Germanic". Not the fault of the English since the Romans already termed anyone living East of the Rhine as "German".

Of course French and Spanish are no better, deeming Germans to be Allemand/Aleman, when the actual Alemannen were just one of many Germanic tribes. Just like the Franks from which France takes its name.

"Frank" incidentally being the handle applied to me when I worked (and lived) in Arabian speaking countries.

Quite well informed as always, Sir

Franks I think is often used of nations farer away, because since Charlemagne it was the most famous tribe

btw - Charlemage - hero of Germans and French is not my hero - mine is his opponend Widukind, duke of the Westphalians - but sadly after 30 Years of war he lost... - and nobody made a Hollywood movie! I want a braveheart film about Widukind!

 

[german hick]

The ties between (old, or original) Saxony and England stayed strong btw. until the end of the kingdom of Hannover in th 19th century.

When Friederich Barbarossa destroyed the dukedom of Saxony (the crown went south to Meißen where no Saxons lived but the todays Saxony was born) Henry the lion, former duke of Saxony and Bavaria (he became too mighty for Emperor Friederich) went into exile to London.

Fun fact: I love Ireland and Scotland - But I ain´t able to blame the "Sassenachs" for everything, because in fact they are our nearest kinsmen - more than Bavarians or Swabians

 

[HK.227]

The variant burg had the meaning of a high place that is defendable.

Strictly speaking, it just means "fortified".
It is an ancient word, existing even in old Persian ("Borj"). It is also the root of the English word "borough".

The connection with the German "burgher" is because it was where their middle class was born.
Burghers elected their own officials, collected their own taxes, and wrote and enforced their own laws. The burgh was the only place you could live where you weren't a subject to some landed noble who stole most of your income and could have you flogged or executed on whatever trumped up charges they felt like, so a burgher was essentially a non-noble who had certain rights that we today take for granted. The German word for citizen is actually "bürgher", because burgher rights were eventually extended to everyone.

Since working actually paid off when one lived in a burgh, they quickly became centres of industry and trade. Western Europe had a whole series of petty wars between burghs and various robber barons. The equivalent English experience would be something akin to the "Pillars of the Earth" novels by Ken Follet. Eventually kings and emperors figured out that the burghs were far more useful to them than a bunch of inbred families that paid few taxes and were quickly becoming obsolete on the battlefield, so that was the end of that. American history took a different turn, so US Conservatives tend to view monarchies as oppressive, but in many other countries the (remote) king/emperor being the protector of the people against (local) corrupt nobles, led to Western European Conservatives so often being monarchists that the two are usually conflated. And since this is DP, I should probably point out that Special Interest groups with special rights and privileges being the mortal enemy of the middle class is nothing new, but merely business as usual, albeit donning a new costume from time to time.

 

[Jean-s]

I'm surprised to see Robertinfremont who began this thread has been suspended. I found him to be an insufferable conservative but harmless when ignored. It's good that he's gone.