Dictionary of Placenames in the Province of Upper Austria

The "Dictionary of Placenames in the Province of Upper Austria" explains about 15.000 official placenames of the country according to their historical documents since the Middle Ages, the local dialect spelling and the etymology with morphology, motivation, meaning and grammatical development. The linguistic explanation of the placenames gives the base for the history of settlement since the early Middle Ages with some surviving romance people in the west of the country, slavic people in the eastern and southern parts and the dominating bavarian german people in the western and middle areas. For the early linguistic history of the country the names of places and rivers of indoeuropean, celtic, romance and slavic origin are of special importance. The development of the bavarian german names also shows the vocalic and consonantal developments of the dialect and gives glimps on special dialectological problems. 6 volumes of the "Dictionary" were published since 1989 (1-4, 6, 7) 3 volumes are in preparation (9-11). The new project deals with volume 8: "The Placenames of the Political Districts of Wels and Linz" in the so called "Northern Traunviertel". About 1000 placenames are to be prepared. On the east periphery there are some placenames of slavic origin. Prof. Dr. Ernst Eichler (Leipzig) will help to explain their etymologies. The present local dialect spelling of the placenames will be collected by Prof Dr. Hermann Scheuringer. We also collect the historical documents for volume 5 "The Placenames of the Political Districs Grieskirchen and Eferding". The "Dictionary" follows a new onomastic method. The placenames are not presented alphabetically, but according to their geographical position within the municipalities. Therefore it is necessary to give an alphabetical index and also registers for the types of placenames, the personalnames and surnames, and appellatives. The important types of placenames are also presented on 32 maps.