Discussion about letters: Will place names be changed in Gaißach?

Created: 04/24/2022, 11:00 am

One "n" too few?

The toponymist Freiherr von Reitzenstein considers "Grundnern" to be correct, in the community one speaks of Grundern.

© rbe

The municipal council of Gaißach is once again dealing with changing some place names.

The issue has occupied the community for two decades.

Gaißach

– Good things take time in Germany.

This has now also become clear in a discussion about place names at the most recent council meeting in Gaißach.

Because the matter has occupied the community for two decades now.

Exactly 20 years ago, Gaißach submitted an application to the district office to have the spelling of some district names adapted to the linguistic conventions.

Now things are moving again.

Gaißach has 25 districts - the four larger Gaißach-Dorf, Mühle, Untergries and Obergries - as well as 21 smaller settlements.

"Our application to change various place names has been running since 2002," Mayor Stefan Fadinger informed the municipal council.

This means that at the time, apart from Fadinger and local councilor Susann Merk, none of the current local councilors on the committee had anything to do with this process.

Of course, it is also true that neither the responsible district office nor the municipality itself have pushed for the matter of changing the place names in recent years.

District Attorney wanted a statement

At the beginning of this year, the topic became topical again.

Because the district office had asked the municipality for a new statement.

At the moment it seems possible that - according to the old application - Gaißach (the district around the Michaelskirche) will be renamed "Dorf" or even better "Gaißach-Dorf", Mühle in "Mühl", Oberreut in "Oberreuth" and Unterreut in Unterreuth.

The inclusion of "Winet" and "Schalch unterm Berg" as new district names also appears permissible.

On the other hand, it is difficult with the tongue stumbling Grundnern (with three "n"), the small district in front of the Sunntratn car park: The municipality has signposted it with "Grundern", and the local street is also spelled that way.

But the toponymist Freiherr Wolf-Armin von Reitzenstein, who is involved in the historical placename book as a professor and advises the state archive, issued a negative recommendation.

The lecturer for Bavarian onomastics at the Institute for Bavarian History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich advocates the spelling "Grundnern".

He bases his judgment on old documents, which last date from 1760.

The municipal council, on the other hand, wants to persist in this dispute over a letter on Grundern and, if necessary, obtain further scientific expertise.

There will also be a public survey of local residents.

The municipal council stated that there was “an urgent public need” for the district name to match the street name.

Citizen survey is planned

Since 1965, the district names have been of greater importance for the postal and other identifiability of addresses (e.g. from the rescue guidance system).

Previously, all properties in the community were simply numbered from 1 upwards, which made orientation in the village very difficult.

If they belonged to a farm, they were named 1/2, 1/3 and so on.

(R Bannier)

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