2098: Bécs: Why Vienna Has Different Names Sep 12, 2020

Although there are plenty of places with exonyms—names for somewhere originating outside of that area—names for 'Vienna' have some clearly different exonyms in Eastern European languages. For instance, the German language name is 'Wien' hence the English term, but in Hungarian, Romanian, Turkish, Serbo-Croatian, the word approximates *Bec, even though none of those languages are related. It is presumed to come from Avar or Proto-Turkic. There is also an exception in Slovenian with 'Dunaj', coming from the Danube river that goes through Vienna.

Watch the newest video, about historical languages.

Get Word Facts Merch.

Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts