ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2979 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2979 ************************************ 15 Dec 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked a followup question to our report 2945 on your name and arms: The one aspect of your very interesting response that I take some issue with relates to the construction of the surname Rabeslautern... My wife is a native of Kaiserslautern and she informs me, and this information has been confirmed by other 'natives', that in the local dialect 'lautern' means a stream, a creek or a way (in the sense of a path, possibly a path alongside a stream or creek). The local story is that Kaiser Barbarossa used to come to Lautern to fish in the lautern, hence the renaming as the Kaiser's lautern or Kaiserslautern. Therefore the meaning of Kaiserslautern, in accordance with local folklore and the local dialect, is the Kaiser's stream. As the words also mean 'way', I have chosen to substitute Rabe for Kaiser in a manner which I believe is lingisticly defensable. The place that became was undoubtedly previously known simply as (or, more precisely, by an earlier version of that same word). As we noted in our report, it was called c. 820-30 and in 985. The modern name first appears as in 1322 [8, 9, 10]. The original placename was identical to the name of a nearby river, the Lauter, which originally flowed nearby but was diverted and drained over the years [14, 15]. The river-name is derived from an adjective meaning 'limpid, pure, clear'; this is not an unusual type of name for a stream [16, 17]. In other words, it is clear that the origin of the place name is 'Kaiser's [place called] Lauter', not 'Kaiser's stream'. A combination of a word for 'raven' with a generic term for a stream, like based on (OHG 'brook'), is entirely plausible; but , a substantivized adjective 'the limpid one', is much less likely to be modified; and in fact we were unable to find an example of an early placename using <-lauter> as the second element. The adjective itself appears as the modifier in the common place-name 'bright or clear brook', among others. In order to use a modern dialect 'stream' to justify a period place-name corresponding to a modern , one would have to show that this dialect usage was medieval or earlier. Unfortunately, modern usage is no guarantee, and our information on Old and Middle High German dialects does not extend to such fine detail. We can only note that standard dictionaries of Middle High German don't mention such a usage and that we've not seen any evidence for it in our sources of information on German place-names. I was assisted in preparing this letter by Gunnvor Silfraharr and Talan Gwynek. If you have further questions, please don't hesitate to write again. Arval for the Academy 15 Dec 2004 - - - - References (numbered to be consistent with the original report, which is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/2945 ) [8] "Eine Stadt mit Geschichte: Kaiserslautern". (WWW: Druckerei-Kerp. 1999). http://www.shopping-kl.de/Info-KL-Ordner/Staedte/KL-Geschichte.html [9] Schmitt, Josef. "Die Geschichte unserer Heimatstadt Kaiserslautern". (WWW: Homepage Kaiserslauten). http://www.alt-kaiserslautern.de/Alt-Lautern/Geschichte_1/body_geschichte_1.html [10] "Stadtinfo Kaiserslautern mit Fotos Barbarossa Online". (WWW: Computer Beutler. 2002). http://www.barbarossa-online.de/stadtinfo_kaiserslautern__mit_.html [14] Stadt Kaiserslautern: Auf den ersten Blick http://www.kaiserslautern.de/Anwendung/WebGate/Wg.nsf/FrameByKey/PPRA-52VCMG-DE-p [15] City Portrait of Kaiserslautern http://www.campus-germany.de/english/4.22.3.1534.html [16] The river-name is apparently OHG , 'limpid, pure, clear' (MHG , , modern German 'pure; sincere, honorable'. See: Ko"bler, Gerhard. _Althochdeutsches Wo"rterbuch_, 4th edition, 1993. Online version at http://www.koeblergerhard.de/ahdwbhin.html and specifically http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/althochdeutscheswoerterbuch/ahdL.pdf. Note that in above, the colon is a length marker, and represents an o-umlaut. [17] There is an Old English cognate, 'pure, clear, bright, sincere', and the OE stream name 'the bright one' occurs. The name of the river Clyde is a cognate (British , ). See _Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society_, edited by Victor Watts, edited in association with John Insley, Margaret Gelling (Cambridge University Press: January 2004) s.n. .