Although the handbooks unanimously maintain that -gasse was the second element in compound medieval streetnames in the High German area of Southern and Central Germany, whereas -strate was the predominant second element in streetnames in the Low German area of Northern Germany, a closer look at Regensburg and Vienna documents surprisingly reveals that at least in these important South German cities -straße and not -gasse was the generic in the earliest German streetnames. It was only from the late 15th century onwards that -gasse began to replace -straße in Regensburg and Vienna. Later, in the 19th century, the word Gasse was connected with the idea of a narrow, unimportant street and therefore -gasse again made way for -straße, at least in Regensburg. An overview over the German-speaking area shows that in medieval documents -straße predominated along the river Danube, whereas in South-Western Germany and Switzerland as well as in Central Germany -gasse was favoured. The early appearance of -straße in Cologne and Leipzig is seen as the result of an influence of the more prestigious Low German -strate area.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:31498 |
| Date | 05 September 2018 |
| Creators | Kohlheim, Rosa, Kohlheim, Volker |
| Publisher | Gesellschaft für Namenkunde e.V., Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | German |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 0943-0849, urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-210608, qucosa:21060 |
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