Germanic-Slavic Hybrid Names in the East German Toponymy

• Main Author: Karlheinz Hengst
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Izdatelstvo Uralskogo Universiteta 2015-12-01
• Series: Voprosy Onomastiki
• Subjects: Proto-Slavic language; Sorbian languages; Old Germanic languages; German language; toponymy; hybrid place names; Slavic-Germanic bilingualism
• Online Access: http://onomastics.ru/sites/default/files/doi/10.15826/vopr_onom.2015.2.005.pdf

The article focuses on the toponymy of the Eastern part of modern Germany where Slavic and Germanic tribes were in contact during several centuries: in the 7th century the Slavs ousted Germanic tribes from this territory; then, since the early 10th century, the area started being repopulated by the Germans, which led to a Slavic-Germanic bilingualism (by the 13th century the domination of the Germanic population became evident). The author argues that these ethnic and linguistic contacts are reflected in the borrowing of geographic names and terms, as well as in Germanic-Slavic “hybrid” place names that the author proposes to call hybridonyms. The Slavs readily borrowed Old Germanic (“Pre-German”) toponyms, the hybridonyms bearing traces of the late Proto-Slavic language. The author thoroughly analyzes a number of hybrid place names (Borgishain, Jenz, Leipzig, Jenzig) reducing them to one toponymic type consisting of a Germanic stem and Slavic suffixes. A large part of the paper discusses the terms hybrid and hybridization as applied to place names and seeks to theoretically substantiate the term hybridonym.