The Hydronymy of the Cheb District in the Context of Northeast Bavaria: On the question of the language situation in the Early Middle Ages
Abstract
The study presented is composed of three parts. In the first part, a methodological overview and short research of the hydronymy of northeast Bavaria and the Cheb district are provided.
The aim of the second part of the study is a revision of the current concept of the names of the waterways in the Cheb basin, in the Fichtel Mountains and the adjacent areas, because, for a great majority of the hydronyms, there a Germanic or early German origin is anticipated, and the whole area is therefore considered by linguists as an inseparable part of the Germanic-Old-German communication area with a long-term linguistic continuity, uninterrupted even by a Slavic intervention. The third part compares the spatial distribution of the Germanic-German and Slavic hydronyms with the expanison of row burial grounds of the Carolingian-Ottonian period.