The German Question, Part Twenty-Seven

"In English It's Vienna, But In German It's Wien"

The area of Vienna was originally settled by Celtic tribes, who apparently named the area "Vedunia," which meant "stream," or "forest stream." When the Romans came, they called their own encampment there "Vindobona," which some linguists feel was taken from the Celtic name, while others disagree. Whatever the case, Germanic peoples came to the area in force, including none other than Karl der Grosse (English/French, Charlemagne), considered by Germans to be their first emperor, who established the "Avar March" (German:"Awarenmark") in eastern Bavaria to guard his territory against the Avars, a nomadic group of people from central Asia, "seemingly" related to the Turks. The main Germanic people who settled the area then abandoned by the Romans were the Bavarians, and at some point the city became known as "Wenia," again supposedly taken from the Celtic or Roman terminology. This later became "Wien," in German (pronounced as if Veen), and Vienna, in English. Much of the Avar March later came to be called the "Ostmark" or "Eastern March;" a "march" being a fortified border area. It comprised much of what is modern Austria.

The German "Babenberg" family ruled the area and lived in Vienna for a couple of centuries prior to the rise of the Habsburg family, who then later also made Vienna their home. When the various Habsburgs rose to almost always be chosen as the German emperors, Vienna became the capital of the German Empire (Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) until the end of the empire.

In 1529, the Ottoman Turks besieged the city, then surrounded by walls, as were many cities of those times. The city held out under the command of Graf von Salm (Graf=count, in English) and defeated the Turks, who retreated in serious disorder. This halted Turkish expansion in Europe at the time. The Turks returned, but not until July 1683. At that time an Ottoman army of between 100-200,000 men (sources vary on the number) surrounded the city. The initial German forces had been led by the emperor himself, Leopold von Habsburg (Leopold I), but they withdrew, and Leopold tried to organize forces for a relief attack. The remaining forces were seriously under strength, numbering less than 20,000, and that included several thousand civilian volunteers. The Turks demanded surrender, but the city, under the command of Graf Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, refused. The walls of the city were strong and endured bombardment by the Turkish cannons, so the Turks decided to literally tunnel beneath the walls, plant explosive charges, and demolish the walls so they could then send troops into the city. Believe it or not, to counter this, the city commander had tunnels dug to intercept the Turks digging towards the walls!

The city garrison gradually began to look like they would lose the battle, but German forces under Karl (Charles), Duke of Lorraine,* arrived near the city and inflicted a serious defeat on some Hungarian forces allied with the Turks. Then major relief forces arrived outside the city in early September under the command of the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, known as Jan III (he had an alliance with Leopold), who had several thousand excellent Polish cavalry. Various German forces (usually called "Imperials," since they were sent due to the appeal of the German emperor) from parts of the empire (Saxony, Bavaria and Franken, to name a few) also were part of this force, which by then saw this as a religious battle, too; Christian versus Muslim. As the Turks prepared a huge explosive charge to bring down a large section of the city walls, one of the counter-tunnels dug by the defenders came upon the Turkish explosives and disarmed them. Nearby, the assembled forces of both armies clashed, and the cavalry of both German and Polish forces carried the day against the Turks, who withdrew.

The Imperial and Polish forces captured large amounts of Turkish supplies, including a beverage that would become famous in Vienna, and all of Europe (and eventually America and the world), coffee! To this day, Vienna is known for its coffeehouses, which began springing up in the aftermath of this battle. Further, the city's bakers baked crescent-shaped rolls to commemorate the victory over the Muslim Turks (their flag had a crescent design on it), and this supposedly gave us the first "croissants," at least that's what the Viennese claim.

Like the Berliners, the Viennese have their own dialect. It is based upon High German, more particularly what is termed Oberdeutsch, "upper German," and it is part of the general "Bavarian" dialect of most, but not all, south German speakers.** In standard German it is called "Wienerisch," but in Bavarian it is called "Weanarisch." Like "Berlinerisch," it is basically spoken in the city and immediate suburban area, but begins to decline the further from the city limits one goes. Also, like with "Berlinerisch," people in the countryside may have great difficulty understanding it, even though in the case of "Wienerisch," it is based upon the same southern dialect of "Bavarian," whereas in Berlin, the dialect is quite different, as it is based upon standard German, with Low German influences, and in the countryside around Berlin, the dialect is based upon Low German. Again like "Berlinerisch," "Wienerisch" has been influenced by a number of non-German languages, in Vienna's case like Hungarian, Czech, and Italian, and the Yiddish influence on the dialect has also been noticeable.

In the United States, one goes to a bar (neighborhood type), in England one goes to a pub, in standard German one goes to a Kneipe (pronounced knipe-eh, with the "kn" sound pronounced, as we once did in English), but in "Wienerisch" one goes to a "Beisl" (the "ei" is pronounced as a long "i"). In standard German one might drink a "Bier" (pronounced pretty close to the English word), but in "Wienerisch" it is "Bia," as if bee-ah. We have "that" and standard German has "das," which comes out "des" in "Wienerisch," just as we say "have," which is "haben" (short "a" like in father) in standard German, but which comes out "ham" (not like English meat from a pig, but with the same short "a" in father). Many, but not all, participle forms of verbs in standard German begin with the prefix "ge," and English once did similar with either "ge" or "ga" prefixes, but in Bavarian generally, and certainly in "Wienerisch," the "ge" often becomes just a barely detectable "g," with no "e" sound, so that we have "gesehen" (ge-zay-en, which means "seen") in standard German, but gsehn (no "e" sound after the "g" or before the "n" either) in "Wienerisch" and much of Bavarian. Much like in English, standard German "mein" (pronounced like our word "mine," but meaning "my") becomes simply "mei" in Bavarian, pronounced like English "my." Where English has the now archaic "thine," standard German has "dein" (like "dine"), but in Bavarian it is reduced to "dei" (like English "die"). In the north, the use of the regular past tense is common. Since I used "gesehen," above, I'll stick with the base word "sehen," =to see. In the regular past tense, English speakers would say "I saw," and in standard German it is the very similar "Ich sah" (zah), but in the south, even in standard German, they tend to use the participle form for past tense, except for the much used words for "be" and "have" ("sein" and "haben" are the infinitive forms), so it would be "Ich habe gesehen" (which can be translated a variety of ways: "I saw," "I did see," "I have seen," this last being the literal word-for-word translation).

A Word History" is below the notes....

* Charles was known as "Duke (Herzog, in German) of Lorraine (Lothringen, in German)," but in fact, Lorraine at that time was under French occupation, so he had no territory.

** In more recent times, many linguists call "Bavarian" the hyphenated "Austro-Bavarian." I'll be more traditional and retain the term "Bavarian." While the overwhelming number of Austrians and Bavarians speak this general dialect, there are exceptions, as in far western Austria and northwestern Bavaria, the dialect is Alemannic; that is, the general dialect of Swabia, Alsace and Switzerland, while around Nuremberg, the dialect is Frankish (historically the regional name of the area is "Franken;" rendered in English as "Franconia"). 

WORD HISTORY:
Tread-This word is closely related to "trade." This word's ultimate origin is hazy, perhaps going back to an expanded form of Indo European "der/dr," which meant "to walk, to step." It appears that the basic word is only present in the Germanic languages, which goes back to the Old Germanic verb form "tredan(an)," which meant "to step (on), to walk (on.)." This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "tredan," which later became "treden," before becoming modern "tread." The noun form was derived from the verb in the early 1200s, and the idea of repeated "treading" on an area creating a path, developed the sense of "tire tread," from the "groove" created by such repeated treading. Related forms in the other Germanic languages: German has "treten," Low German has "treden," Dutch has "treden," West Frisian "tree," Danish has "træde," Swedish has "träda," Norwegian has "trø" and Icelandic has "troða/trotha."