Old European hydronymy

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Old European (alteuropäisch) is the term used by Hans Krahe (1964) for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy (river names) in Central and Western Europe.^[1] The character of these river names is pre-Germanic and pre-Celtic and dated by Krahe to the 2nd millennium BC.

Old European hydronymyc map for the root *al-, *alm-.

Old European river names are found in the Baltic and southern Scandinavia, in Central Europe, France, the British Isles, and the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. This area is associated with the spread of the later "Western" Indo-European dialects, the Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Baltic and Illyrian branches. Notably exempt are the Balkans and Greece, as well as the Eastern European parts associated with Slavic settlement.

Old European hydronymyc map for the root *var-, *ver-.

Krahe locates the geographical nucleus of this area as stretching from the Baltic across Western Poland and Germany to the Swiss plateau and the upper Danube north of the Alps, while he considers the Old European river names of southern France, Italy and Spain to be later imports, replacing "Aegean-Pelasgian" and Iberian substrates (p. 81), corresponding to Italic, Celtic and Illyrian "invasions" from about 1300 BC.

German linguist Theo Vennemann has suggested that the language of the old European hydronyms was agglutinative and preindoeuropean,^[2] however this stands in contrast to the more generally accepted view that the hydronyms are of Indo-European origin and Theo Vennemann's theory has been criticised as being seriously flawed.^[3]

Old European hydronymyc map for the root *Sal-, *Salm-.

Examples

Dur

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Dur, a Pre-Celtic^{[dubious – discuss]} linguistic root meaning 'water, stream'.^[4]

• the Doiras (Spain) < *Duria.
• the Dora Baltea (Italy), Latin Duria maior or Duria bautica
• the Dora Riparia (Italy), Latin Duria minor
• the Dordogne < Durānius (France),
• the Dore (France),
• the Doron (France),
• the Dour, Kent, Latin *Dubris (United Kingdom)
• the Douro / Duero (Portugal and Spain) known as Douro in Portuguese and Duero in Spanish < *Durius.
• the Dronne (France),
• the Dropt < Roman Drotius (France),
• the Drava (Italy, Austria (known as Drau), Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary)
• the Drave and probably the Drac (France),
• the Drawa (Poland),
• the Durance (France) < *Durantia.
• the Durenque, tributary of the Agout (France)
• the Eder, tributary of the Fulda (Germany)
• the Oder (Czech Republic, Germany and Poland)

Notes

See also

• Tyrsenian languages
• Rigvedic rivers
• Urnfield culture
• Beaker culture
• Germanic substrate hypothesis
• Pre-Celtic

References

• Hans Krahe, Unsere ältesten Flussnamen, Wiesbaden (1964).

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