[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] SCHWOCHOW/marlo50

[Bronwyn Klimach]

Hi,
I'm getting more terrified of these grammatical endings over time...
I recently had a nasty episode when Suchodole, which I suspected could be
Suchololy turned out to be Suchodol (with a couple of diacriticals of
course) from its position in a document - I just did not have enough
knowledge of the language to realise.  I now have some fancy grammatical
ending charts to look at, but not really enough knowledge of grammar to
apply them.  (Latin was almost unheard of when I went to school in
Australia;  I have been a little dismayed that my own children did not
pursue the subject when they had the chance at school.)

Meanwhile I have old maps showing Prenzlow for what is now consistently
Prenzlau.
I'm afraid I am still uncertain when to pronounce -ow- endings as -au- or
-ov- for unfamiliar words and places...

The many helpful and informative postings to this list are much appreciated.
Bronwyn Klimach

On 11/12/07, Günther Böhm <GHBoehm at ish.de> wrote:
>
> Günther Böhm schrieb:
>
> > In general, the -ow suffixe indicates the genitive plural of a slavian
> > [Polish, Kashubian] word, here of the name of a family or a profession
> > or the entirety of the inhabitants, meaning "of the Schwoch-s".
>
> Good Morning Margaret & Otto,
> maybe this was a bit too short as I didnot refer to the German -au
> suffixe.
> Indeed the -ow suffixe in many Slavian village names was frequently
> translated to the German -au suffixe - definitely by mistake! So the
> translation of SZWOCHOW or SWOCHOW to SCHWOCHAU would be misleading. As
> I wrote, the -ow suffixe indicates the genitive plural. Take the Polish
> word for 'nose':
>
>            SINGULAR    PLURAL
>    nom:    nos         nosy
>    gen:    nosa        nosów
>    dat:    nosowi      nosom
>    acc:    nos         nosy
>    instr:  nosem       nosami
>    loc:    nosie       nosach
>    voc:    nosie       nosy
>
> The Serbian 'Kosovo Polje' means 'field of the blackbirds'. In German we
> call it 'Amselfeld' (kos = Amsel = blackbird).
> 'Szwochowo' or 'Szwochow' means 'village (property) of the SCHWOCHs'.
>
> Many German village names have the -au suffixe which indicates a wet
> meadow, i.e. the banks of a river or creek (Aue = water meadow, marshy
> meadow). This is why German settlers (or even geographers) frequently
> translated -ow to -au. Just some examples from Silesia:
>
>    Bąków = Bankau
>    Barszów = Barschau
>    Bieniów = Benau
>    Borów = Bohrau
>    Brunów = Braunau
>    Czerwonków = Tschirmkau
>    Glogów = Glogau
>    Goliszów = Gölschau
>    Grodków = Grottkau
>    Karszów = Karschau
>
>                    - all by mistake!
>
> In some cases anyhow (if the original Polish suffixe was -awa) the
> German -au translation was correct since both derive from the
> Indo-European 'ahwa' = water, river, creek. Again some Silesian examples:
>
>    Bielawa = Bielau
>    Tarnawa = Tarnau
>    Oława = Ohlau
>    Piława = Peilau
>    Szprotawa = Sprottau
>    Ścinawa = Steinau
>
> Günther
>
>
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