What is the origin of the name of the Danube River?
21209639#2
"Danube" is an Old European river name derived from a Proto-Indo-European "*dānu". Other river names from the same root include the Dunaj, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr, Dysna, Tana and Tuoni. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, "dānu" means "fluid, drop", in Avestan, the same word means "river". In the Rigveda, "Dānu" once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers." The Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, which is most likely derived from the word for the river in Swedish and German, "Donau". Its Sámi name "Deatnu" means "Great River". It is possible that "dānu" in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": "Dnieper" and "Dniestr", from "Danapris" and "Danastius", are presumed to continue Scythian "*dānu apara" "far river" and "*dānu nazdya-" "near river", respectively.
Danube
367280#74
Scholars who reject the continuity theory emphasize that the Romanian names of the large rivers show that the Romanians did not directly inherit them from their Latin-speaking ancestors. According to Vékony (who promotes the immigrationist theory), the Romanian name of the Danube evinces that the Romanians' ancestors lived far from this large river, because otherwise they must have preserved its Latin name, "Danuvius". He also emphasizes that the hypothetical "*Donaris" form is not attested in written sources and "Istros" was the river's native name. According to Schramm, the early Slavs adopted the East Germanic name of the Danube, showing that a predominantly Gothic-speaking population inhabited the territory between the Slavs' homeland and the Lower Danube before the Slavs approached the river in the 5th century. Vékony proposes that the Romanians adopted the river's Cuman name, "Dunay", when they reached the Danube during their northward expansion around 1100. In Schramm's view, the phonetic changes from ""s"" to ""ʃ"" in the names of five large rivers also contradict the continuity theory, because Latin did not contain the latter consonant, thus only non-Romanized natives could transmit it to the peoples who settled in the north-Danubian regions after the Romans abandoned them. Similarly, historian László Makkai says that the change from ""a"" to ""o"" shows that a Slavic-speaking population mediated the ancient names of three large rivers to modern populations (including Romanians), because this vowel shift is attested in the development of the Slavic languages, but is alien to Romanian and other tongues spoken along the rivers. Linguists (including some proponents of the continuity theory) also accept a Slavic mediation which is undeniable in specific cases.
Origin of the Romanians
21209639#1
The Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, and today flows through 10 countries, more than any other river in the world. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , passing through or bordering Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine before draining into the Black Sea. Its drainage basin extends into nine more countries. The Danube river basin is home to fish species such as pike, zander, huchen, Wels catfish, burbot and tench. It is also home to a large diversity of carp and sturgeon, as well as salmon and trout. A few species of euryhaline fish, such as European seabass, mullet, and eel, inhabit the Danube delta and the lower portion of the river.
Danube
190005#4
The district is named after the Danube River (German "Donau") and the Swabian Alb ("Schwäbische Alb") mountains. The Danube enters the district in the southwest, runs through the southern parts of the district and leaves eastwards to Ulm. North of the Danube banks the hills of the Swabian Alb rise. The hill chain extends from southwest to northeast parallel to the course of the Danube River and is continued on either side of the district. An affluent of the Danube, the Iller River, forms the southeastern border of the Alb-Donau district, before it meets the Danube in Ulm.
Alb-Donau-Kreis
504489#2
It is named after the "Place du Danube", named after the Danube River. This street was renamed the "Place de Rhin-et-Danube" in 1952, adding a reference to the Rhine.
Danube (Paris Métro)
121535#1
Danube was laid out in 1899, and named after the Danube, a European river. A post office called Danube has been in operation since 1903.
Danube, Minnesota
2232789#1
The German word Aue (variant Au) means "river island, wetland, floodplain, riparian woodland", i.e. a cultivated landscape in a riparian zone. The words Aue and Au occur in a large number of German place names—including Donau, the German word for the Danube River—and refer to forests, meadows, and wetlands in river and stream lowlands and floodplains. The Danube-Auen National Park protects a large area of lowland forests, meadows, wetlands, and other riparian habitat along the Danube just downstream of Vienna.
Danube-Auen National Park
4815260#3
The name ""Donaukanal"" ("Danube Canal"), has been used since 1686, for the southern branch of the River Danube in Vienna. Originally a natural branch, during 1598–1600, it was regulated for the first time by Baron von Hoyos.
Donaukanal
376633#1
The name "Dniester" derives from Sarmatian "dānu nazdya" "the close river." The Dnieper, also of Sarmatian origin, derives from the opposite meaning, "the river on the far side". Alternatively, according to Vasily Abaev "Dniester" would be a blend of Scythian "dānu" "river" and Thracian "Ister", the previous name of the river, literally Dān-Ister (River Ister). The Ancient Greek name of Dniester, "Tyras" ("Τύρας"), is from Scythian "tūra", meaning "rapid." The names of the Don and Danube are also from the same Indo-Iranian word "*dānu" "river". Classical authors have also referred to it as "Danaster." These early forms, without -"i"- but with -"a"-, contradict Abaev's hypothesis. Edward Gibbon refers to the river both as the Niester and Dniester in his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".
Dniester
4875579#1
It was named after the two large rivers which it connects – the Danube and the Tisa. There are several other names used for the canal in other languages: ; , etc.
Danube–Tisa–Danube Canal