Talk:Tauern

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Who writes this crap?[edit]

I am referring to the following completely extraneous statement: "There is no clear link with the name of the municipality of Thaur near Innsbruck, which could be analogous to the Illyrian for "rock", but could also be derived from the Rhaeto-Romance word Tgaura ("goat")."

Anyone with the slightest understanding of Rhaeto-Romance and/or Romance Linguistics knows that tgaura is from Latin capra. How capra can have anything to do with the municipality of Thaur is beyond me! Pasquale (talk) 22:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since you are clearly an expert linguist, why not read the original German article from which this is translated (see tag above), and either come up with a better translation or raise your query on German Wikipedia? --Bermicourt (talk) 05:34, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And here is the text from the German article on Thaur: "Der Name Thaur stammt eventuell aus der illyrischen Sprache und bedeutet „Fels“. Eine weitere Namensherkunft könnte das rätoromanische „Taur“ bzw. „Tgaura“ (Ziege) darstellen, und somit auf Weidenutzung hinweisen. Ein Urnengräberfeld aus der Bronzezeit weist darauf hin, dass das Gebiet schon um 1000 v. Chr. besiedelt war. 827 wurde Thaur erstmals urkundlich als „taurane“ erwähnt."

The suggestion is that the area was used for grazing (of goats), hence the name. Seems to reinforce the existing text to me... --Bermicourt (talk) 06:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply, Bermicourt! I should have thought of checking the German Wikipedia. The main issue here is that the etymology of the municipality of Thaur is irrelevant to the etymology of the Tauern. The two need not be related in any way or discussed in the same article. Nevertheless, let's consider what the German Wikipedia says. It actually offers three possible etymologies for the name of this town. The first one is from an unspecified Illyrian word meaning 'rock'. (Actually what is being referred to here is the very same Illyrian word meaning 'mountain', and later perhaps 'mountain pass', discussed earlier as the probable etymology of the Tauern. So far so good, and in fact perfectly reasonable. Then it adds two possible etymologies based on Rhaeto-Romance lexical items, the first one from the Rhaeto-Romance word taur, which means 'bull' (the male of the cow), and that's linguistically plausible, and the second one from the Rhaeto-Romance word tgaura ('goat'). By the way, it's odd that the spelling shown here is the one used in the Surselvan dialect, the farthest one from Tyrol. The spelling used in the Engadine Romansh Ladin dialect is chaura. The pronunciation is nonetheless identical, as tg and ch are different digraphs used in different dialects of Rhaeto-Romance for the same palatal sound. As I repeat, this word comes from Latin capra. With all due respect for the German Wikipedia, the notion that the name of this town might reflect Rhaeto-Romance chaura / tgaura is etymologically preposterous and, I'm sorry to say, laughable, especially when you consider that the name of this locality is mentioned in 827 AD as Taurane, according to the same German Wikipedia article. In my modest opinion, the presence of the suffix -ane in the 827 AD attestation also makes a derivation from Rhaeto-Romance taur ('bull') unlikely, as that suffix would be hard to explain. This leaves the Illyrian word meaning 'mountain' (or, if you prefer, 'rock') as the only one of those three alternative etymologies that is at all plausible. So, yes, the name of the municipality of Thaur may well have the same etymology as the name of the Tauern. Let's forget about those Rhaeto-Romance words. I don't doubt for a moment that a dialect very similar to Engadine Romansh Ladin was spoken in that area prior to 800-1000 AD. But still the substratum etymology (i.e. Illyrian) is much more persuasive in this case. Pasquale (talk) 21:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Pasquale, that's enlightening and explains why they mention Thaur at all. Perhaps German Wikipedia only included the less likely derivations for completeness because, however implausible they may be, they reflect what the sources are saying. I would have no problem with your amending the words, but we need to be careful that we are basing it on sources and that it is not WP:OR. German Wikipedia has no inline citations (as normal) but there may be more information in the sources or external links. --Bermicourt (talk) 05:54, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]