Post by Alrik on Dec 11, 2005 15:56:58 GMT
Hello, everyone.
In the last few days I wrote two short articles about Germany for friends in a different forum. I present them to you here.
I think that knowledge about other parts of the world can always be kind of an "enrichment" for someone.
Alrik
Here it comes :
I live near Cologne. Ever heard of the "Eau de Cologne" ? Yes, that comes from Cologne, Germany.
I once read a story in a newspaper of someonme who used his Eau de Cologne in the U.S. - he sprayed himself it to show it was totally harmless. The police officers took him and interrogated him because they considered him a terrorist. This story has caused a bit irritation here in Cologne. This hit the pride of the people in Cologne (they are *very* proud of their town !).
Personally, I live in Leverkusen, that's near Cologne. Ever heard of Aspirin ? yeah, the company "Bayer" producing chemicals made it (although the name right were sold in the U.S. to another company ... - only a few years ago Bayer bought them back). A part of Bayer renamed itself recently to "Lanxess" only half a year or so ago. The big company got split in parts.
Another brand from Leverkusen is Agfa. ("Agfa Gavaert".) This company produced films - even for Hollywood ! - for a very long time (at least several decades). Only a few months ago Agfa closed. No more films from Leverkusen. A very small, but also very productive branch of Agfa still exists, though, although it is likely theat they won't get the mname rights on "Agfa" for that. This closing of Agfa was accompanied with some irritation because the company seemed relatively healthy before its closing.
Cologne lies in the Rhein (Rhine) area. It is famous for its grape and for other things, like the "Siebengebirge" (mountain range of 7 mountains). I don't know much about the Rhein further south, but the climate there is the most warm one in whole Germany !
North of the Rhein area there lies the „Ruhrgebiet“ („Ruhr area“). The Ruhr is a river there. This arwa is known for its industy. It’s basically the „ore and coal region“of Germany. In the last decades, this kind of industry declined there more & more, so they had to develop something else there. Also, pollution was reduced through the decline of this industrial plants. (Which uis a good thing, I believe ) This current development is called „Strukturwandel“ (change/turn of structure - whereas „Struktur“ in German means a general pattern, not only physical structures, but also environmental and social structures). This is a process the Ruhrgebiet“ is currently going through.
Not too far from here lies the town Solingen. It is famous for its blades. There exist several companied producing blades there. „Zwilling“ is one of them. („Zwilling“ actuially means „Twilling“. There has once been a shift or substitution of the T with a Z in one of both languages in some words. You can see this in Twilight/Zwielicht as well.)
South of Cologne lies Bonn, the former Capital of Germany (before Berlin became the capital again). It is not such a big town like, let’s say Berlin, but rather a humble, rather quiet town (compared to Cologne). It has a Museum about Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer, who lived there (or was he born there ? Or both ? ) By the way, we pronounce in German „Beethoven“ quite differently than you do in English : We don’t connect the t and the h to an th. Insteah, we pronounce both letters separately. Beet-hoven. A „Hof“ (from which this words seems to me to come from) is kind of a Farm. And a Beet - I don’t know whether this is dialect or something else, but I know the word „Beet“ as a line where you plant your vegetables in your garden.
By the way, our ex-„Bundeskanzler“ (Bundeskanzler = Chancellor) Helmut Kohl has a last name which also includes a vegetable ... You can do this with many German names : They actually have a meaning. And foreign people with German ancestors can be discovered by that. For example the Star Wars author Timothy Zahn has a last name which actually means „tooth“ in German.
Bavaria is a different thing. I know that, because my mothercomes from there. Look, Germany is a Federal Republic. So, every state is in principle morte or less independent.
Bavaria is more independend than most other states. It was once its own country and even had a king. In principle, I heard, the Bavarian constitution still has a side-door open for Kingdom. Although no-one believes it will ever be used.
The Bavarian dialect is very dificult to understand for foreigners, I believe, at least in rural areas. Even Germans have difficulties to understannd deep Bavarian dialect ! I can understand it, because I had been there as a young boy - that’s why I like this area.
It is very, *very* rural, and it appears to me that people there are more conservative than in other areas in Germany - except in towns. A lot of woods, sometimes really deep forests are there.
And in the south are the Alps ! This is Europe’s highest mountain-range which basically connects Germany, France, Italy together. The Alps re actually a part of Africa which travelled north through geologcal time. It was a so-called „plate“ lying north of Africa. Between Europe and this plate was once a small ocean, and this was destroyed through the collision of these parts. Rests of it can be found within the Alps.
The Mediterranean Sea was developed a bit later - and partly within this process. Did you know That there was a channel connecting the North Sea with the Mediterranean Sea some 10.000 years ago ?
recent discoveries even suggest that the Mediterranean Sea was kind of a Desert - which was once flooded. This was *far* before humans evolved. A similar thing happened with the Black Sea, though, Scientists believe, at a time when humans lived there. This seems to be the cause of the development of the Flood story in the Bibly (the Sumerian Gilgamesh Epic contains a similar story in hints).
Back to Bavaria (and after that north again) : The Bavarian dialect has something special that is an absolute rarity in european languages : A dual form.
Normally, we say in English (the most world-wide known european language) : one thing, many things. One Mouse, Two or more Mice.
Esrlier languages, however, were more complex. They even had Dual forms of words. Which would be in English as if there was - additionally to the „one thing, many things“ cincept also a „two things“ word. Following this mice example, this would be as if there was a word meaning „twomice“: One Mouse, Two [Dual form, which is a special word indicating TWO mice, not morte and mot less], Many Mice. Obviously, such a word which says that there are *exactly* two of a a thing doesn’t exist in English and in - as far as I know - any european languges which belongs to the sme family of languages as the English language does.
Except : The Bavarian Dialect.
The Bavarian Dialect has two words which contain a Dual. This is „ess“ and „enk“, which means „two of them“ and „two of us“. „Ess“ means kind of „their“ (two, of course), ans „enk“ means kind of „you“ (two, again), and both are plural forms. So, you would say to a group of persons : „You are very quiet today.“ In Bavarian dialect, you would say to two persons „enk“ instead of „you“ in this example, and ONLY if there are TWO persons. The other example would be „Thir bycicle isn’t looking good.“. In Bavarian dialact you would say „ess“ instead of „their“ and ONLY if there are TWO owners of bycicles.
I found out about this „oddity“ only a few years ago, and I was highly astonished, because I didn’t know about this thing.
Munich (still in Bavaria) has every year the so-called „Oktoberfest“. You might know it. It’s said to be one of the biggest festivals in the world. (And one of the most expensive, I might add, because the prices for beer are quite high there.) Munich is also one of Germany’s biggest towns - and one of the most liked ones, according to what I’ve read over the years. There is a lot of software and computer technology in that area, and Microsoft has its German headquarters there, too. Munich (München) also has some important and famous museums.
Further north, there is the „Nördlinger Ries“, which is a big, *big* crater produced through the impact of an asteroid some thousands years ago. It still has a more or less circle shape.
Stuttgard is also one of Germany’s well-known towns. Personally, I don’t know too much about it, because I haven’t been there yet.
But what I do know is that an area around there is rich of fossils : The Ichtyosaurs of the slate of Holzmaden are internationally well known among scientists. There extremely well preserved, even with outlines of their body shape !
The village „Holzmaden“ by the way contains the words „wood“ = „Holz“ and maggot = made“. A „Holzmade“ means an animal that lived in dead wood. This maggot eventually becomes a beetle or bug, the „Holzkäfer“ (wood-bug or wood-beetle).
(The term „Made in Germany“ would therefore read for a German like „Maggot in Germany“. )
Frankfurt located at the river Main further north is the town with the greatest number of banking companies. Because of its many scyscrapers it’s sometimes called „Mainhattan“ (the river Main isn’t exactly pronounced as you would do with the English word „main“ : Instead, the „a“ within it is pronounced like the last a in „Maria“ : „Main“.
East of Frankfurt lies Darmstadt (I actually have NO idea where THIS name comes from : The „Darm“ is actually the part of the belly where your food is processed - no, not the stomach. And „Stadt“ simply means „town“). In that area lies Messel. The „Grube von Messel“ (the pit of Messel) is internationally know for its unique preservation of fossils within the so-called „oil-slate“. Skin outlines and even the contants of the belly are preserved ! In this „pit“ (which was once a lake a few million years ago, after the death of the Dinosaurs and *long* before human arrival) there was once found a fossil which ios the most precious of all : The so-called „Ur-Pferdchen“ (which roughly means „ancestor horse“). It was not much bigger than a dog and lived in woods and forests there. It must have slipped out at the border of the lake and slipped into the lake which contained very, very few oxygen. Which resulted in the unique preservation, because without oxygen, fossils cannot be eroded. This is the ancestor of all horses, and they evolved in Europe ! Well, Europe lied at that time around the Equator with tropical climate. Another very important fossil is an animal we call in German „Ameisenbär“. This is an animal today ONLY known from South America, which only feeds itself from ants (Ameise = Ant) and has its snout fused into kind of a tube. It uses its tongue to lick ants. It doesn’t use its teeth anymore. The special thing is, that this animal is today only knkwn from South America - which sheds some light on how the continental connections once were ...
The pit of Messel was only few decades ago designated to be a gigantic waste container : All of the waste from all of the cities around it should be deposited there. The citizens, of course, wre against the destruction of this unique fossil site. Typical German : The bureaucrats didn’t stop this project; instead, they stopped any kind of opposition. And also typical German : Only a formal mistake in the bureacratic process stopped this waste deposition from actually happening ...
Okay, I’m around Cologne again.
Apart from Trier, Cologne („Köln“ in German, „Keulen“ in the Netherlands / Holland language) is one of the towns with the most preserved roman remains. Colonia Claudia Ara Aggrippinensum - that’s the first ancient name of Cologne - indeed was once a roman town. The „Römisch-Germanisches Museum“ contains the well-known „Dionysus Mosaik“. A few years ago, on an G7 meeting, the heads of the G7 countries were actually allowed to have a meal on that Mosaik. Normally, no mortal being is allowed to do so. Cologne is also famous because of its many old churches. It has a *lot* of them !
It also has my favourite muserum : The Chocolate Museum ! It indeed it about Chocolate, and was founded by the owner of a chocolate manufacturing company : Stollwerck. With the brands „Alpia“ and „Stollwerck“ and „Sarotti“. You can learn there about the history of Chocolate - evolving from xocolatl (I read in a book that this was an ancient Aztec name for a brew which contained cacao, pepper ans some more spices) to what is know today as a *very* sweet thing. 
You can also buy Chocolate there.
Okay, I think that’s it for now. Others might add what I couldn’t write about due to my limited knowledge. (Especially about the eastern parts of Germany).
Alrik
Below, I’m citing some lines I wrote only a few days ago in a different forum :
Here, the Rhein area is usually very warm. The more south you travel along the Rhein, the warmer it gets. They even grow Wein (Grape) there ! Cologne as a town has a very warm climate ... Snow usually doesn't last long within the town.
I'm in the north-east of Cologne, at the border of the Cologne lowland and the more colder land that's called "Bergisches Land".
A Berg is a mountain - but sometimes also only a very big hill. It's like a river ... we have in the German language a word for small rivers; I don't know such a word in the English language. That complicated communication a bit, imho. The word for a very small river or stream is "Bach", like the composer.
Also, we say Berg for really *big* mountains (like in the Rocky Mountains, for example), but also for very big hills.
We can say a landscape is "bergig" which means it has a lot of big hills (we don't use it for real mountain ranges, normally) and consequently deep valleys between the big hills, carved by rivers or Bäche (plural form of Bach) through thousands of years. And of course woods in the valleys (except where people live, of course).
That’s how the Eifel and the Bergisches Land look like. Both are very, *very* old continental pieces (in terms of geological ages) and bear fossils of some of the first vertebrates (when the only vertebrated were fish). The Ardennes are of a similar age, partly.
Well, now comes the joke (for outsiders) : The „Bergisches Land“ has its name NOT from the adjective „bergig“, but from the Counts of Berg, who lived there (I think some of them exist even now) and to whom the „Bergisches Land“ belonged ! ;D [By the way, does the word „country“ come from the fact that it belongs to a Count ?] Well, outsiders don’t know this, and I didn’t as well for a long time. Remember, I’m more Cologne-oriented , but I live at the border to the Bergisches Land.
The Eifel and the Bergisches Land are much colder and wilder than everything around them. The folks this country breeds are more earth-bound, I think. Farmers, for example, and ore (iron, for example).
So, I’m here at the border; snow lasts longer than in the warm town of Cologne, and not as long as in the Bergisches Land itself. Mixed.
I talked about the Eifel and the Bergisches Land being *very* old, counted on geological ages. In fact, I have even seen sites not too far away from here (up to 20 km maybe) which contain ripples from shores. These are *old*. If you have a tme scale at hand - look out for the time around the development of fish - I think before verterates crawled onto land. This age is called „Devon“ in Geology, named after a place in Great Britain where these fossils and stata were found first. Internationally, such ages are named by a comittee after such places where their fossils and strata are found first.
A nearby town called Bergisch Gladbach is famous for its old fossils of fish. Unfortunately, they wre mostly found within the geological depression (like a wide and huge valley) in wich now the town itself sits. So fossils cannot be obtained from there anymore - except when someone builds a new house.
I’ve been in the Eifel while studying Geology / Palaentology several times on excoursions. There are circle round lakes which are called „Maar“ (singular) and „Maare“ (plural form). They are in fact lakes within craters of old vulcanoes !
The far biggest one is „Maria Laach“, where a monastery resides. It is several kilometres wide ! (The word „Laach“ is a dialect form, you can find the word „lake“ in it. ) It „exploded“ during the early ages of Man in a „big bang“ so that everything within several kilometres was covered with thick layers of Ashes. Like Pompeji, only much thinker and much more and at a greater distance. Due to this explosive eruption some sites of early „villages“ (well, during the ice ages there were no real „villages“ as we are used to know them from today) were covered and thus preserved. Some delicate slabs of stone with carved figures were preserved which would otherwise have been lost during the following few million years.
The Eifel has a rich variety of minerals, ore and fosssils. There have been several reefs during early „fish ages“ and later, too. The Eifel as well as the Ardennes are famous for their Trilovytes - a distinct form of invertebrate, almost „crab-like“ creature. They were very widespread a long, long time ago. The so-called „horseshoe crab“ is a distant relative (and „living fossil“) of them. Although it’s closer relatives are with scorpions, spiders and similar animals.
Well, I think that’s it for now.
Any questions ?
In the last few days I wrote two short articles about Germany for friends in a different forum. I present them to you here.
I think that knowledge about other parts of the world can always be kind of an "enrichment" for someone. Alrik
Here it comes :
I live near Cologne. Ever heard of the "Eau de Cologne" ? Yes, that comes from Cologne, Germany.
I once read a story in a newspaper of someonme who used his Eau de Cologne in the U.S. - he sprayed himself it to show it was totally harmless. The police officers took him and interrogated him because they considered him a terrorist. This story has caused a bit irritation here in Cologne. This hit the pride of the people in Cologne (they are *very* proud of their town !).Personally, I live in Leverkusen, that's near Cologne. Ever heard of Aspirin ? yeah, the company "Bayer" producing chemicals made it (although the name right were sold in the U.S. to another company ... - only a few years ago Bayer bought them back). A part of Bayer renamed itself recently to "Lanxess" only half a year or so ago. The big company got split in parts.
Another brand from Leverkusen is Agfa. ("Agfa Gavaert".) This company produced films - even for Hollywood ! - for a very long time (at least several decades). Only a few months ago Agfa closed. No more films from Leverkusen. A very small, but also very productive branch of Agfa still exists, though, although it is likely theat they won't get the mname rights on "Agfa" for that. This closing of Agfa was accompanied with some irritation because the company seemed relatively healthy before its closing.
Cologne lies in the Rhein (Rhine) area. It is famous for its grape and for other things, like the "Siebengebirge" (mountain range of 7 mountains). I don't know much about the Rhein further south, but the climate there is the most warm one in whole Germany !
North of the Rhein area there lies the „Ruhrgebiet“ („Ruhr area“). The Ruhr is a river there. This arwa is known for its industy. It’s basically the „ore and coal region“of Germany. In the last decades, this kind of industry declined there more & more, so they had to develop something else there. Also, pollution was reduced through the decline of this industrial plants. (Which uis a good thing, I believe
) This current development is called „Strukturwandel“ (change/turn of structure - whereas „Struktur“ in German means a general pattern, not only physical structures, but also environmental and social structures). This is a process the Ruhrgebiet“ is currently going through.Not too far from here lies the town Solingen. It is famous for its blades. There exist several companied producing blades there. „Zwilling“ is one of them. („Zwilling“ actuially means „Twilling“. There has once been a shift or substitution of the T with a Z in one of both languages in some words. You can see this in Twilight/Zwielicht as well.)
South of Cologne lies Bonn, the former Capital of Germany (before Berlin became the capital again). It is not such a big town like, let’s say Berlin, but rather a humble, rather quiet town (compared to Cologne). It has a Museum about Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer, who lived there (or was he born there ? Or both ? ) By the way, we pronounce in German „Beethoven“ quite differently than you do in English : We don’t connect the t and the h to an th. Insteah, we pronounce both letters separately. Beet-hoven. A „Hof“ (from which this words seems to me to come from) is kind of a Farm. And a Beet - I don’t know whether this is dialect or something else, but I know the word „Beet“ as a line where you plant your vegetables in your garden.
By the way, our ex-„Bundeskanzler“ (Bundeskanzler = Chancellor) Helmut Kohl has a last name which also includes a vegetable ...
You can do this with many German names : They actually have a meaning. And foreign people with German ancestors can be discovered by that. For example the Star Wars author Timothy Zahn has a last name which actually means „tooth“ in German. Bavaria is a different thing. I know that, because my mothercomes from there. Look, Germany is a Federal Republic. So, every state is in principle morte or less independent.
Bavaria is more independend than most other states. It was once its own country and even had a king. In principle, I heard, the Bavarian constitution still has a side-door open for Kingdom. Although no-one believes it will ever be used.
The Bavarian dialect is very dificult to understand for foreigners, I believe, at least in rural areas. Even Germans have difficulties to understannd deep Bavarian dialect ! I can understand it, because I had been there as a young boy - that’s why I like this area.
It is very, *very* rural, and it appears to me that people there are more conservative than in other areas in Germany - except in towns. A lot of woods, sometimes really deep forests are there.And in the south are the Alps ! This is Europe’s highest mountain-range which basically connects Germany, France, Italy together. The Alps re actually a part of Africa which travelled north through geologcal time. It was a so-called „plate“ lying north of Africa. Between Europe and this plate was once a small ocean, and this was destroyed through the collision of these parts. Rests of it can be found within the Alps.
The Mediterranean Sea was developed a bit later - and partly within this process. Did you know That there was a channel connecting the North Sea with the Mediterranean Sea some 10.000 years ago ?
recent discoveries even suggest that the Mediterranean Sea was kind of a Desert - which was once flooded. This was *far* before humans evolved. A similar thing happened with the Black Sea, though, Scientists believe, at a time when humans lived there. This seems to be the cause of the development of the Flood story in the Bibly (the Sumerian Gilgamesh Epic contains a similar story in hints).
Back to Bavaria (and after that north again) : The Bavarian dialect has something special that is an absolute rarity in european languages : A dual form.
Normally, we say in English (the most world-wide known european language) : one thing, many things. One Mouse, Two or more Mice.
Esrlier languages, however, were more complex. They even had Dual forms of words. Which would be in English as if there was - additionally to the „one thing, many things“ cincept also a „two things“ word. Following this mice example, this would be as if there was a word meaning „twomice“: One Mouse, Two [Dual form, which is a special word indicating TWO mice, not morte and mot less], Many Mice. Obviously, such a word which says that there are *exactly* two of a a thing doesn’t exist in English and in - as far as I know - any european languges which belongs to the sme family of languages as the English language does.
Except : The Bavarian Dialect.
The Bavarian Dialect has two words which contain a Dual. This is „ess“ and „enk“, which means „two of them“ and „two of us“. „Ess“ means kind of „their“ (two, of course), ans „enk“ means kind of „you“ (two, again), and both are plural forms. So, you would say to a group of persons : „You are very quiet today.“ In Bavarian dialect, you would say to two persons „enk“ instead of „you“ in this example, and ONLY if there are TWO persons. The other example would be „Thir bycicle isn’t looking good.“. In Bavarian dialact you would say „ess“ instead of „their“ and ONLY if there are TWO owners of bycicles.
I found out about this „oddity“ only a few years ago, and I was highly astonished, because I didn’t know about this thing.
Munich (still in Bavaria) has every year the so-called „Oktoberfest“. You might know it. It’s said to be one of the biggest festivals in the world. (And one of the most expensive, I might add, because the prices for beer are quite high there.) Munich is also one of Germany’s biggest towns - and one of the most liked ones, according to what I’ve read over the years. There is a lot of software and computer technology in that area, and Microsoft has its German headquarters there, too. Munich (München) also has some important and famous museums.
Further north, there is the „Nördlinger Ries“, which is a big, *big* crater produced through the impact of an asteroid some thousands years ago. It still has a more or less circle shape.
Stuttgard is also one of Germany’s well-known towns. Personally, I don’t know too much about it, because I haven’t been there yet.
But what I do know is that an area around there is rich of fossils : The Ichtyosaurs of the slate of Holzmaden are internationally well known among scientists. There extremely well preserved, even with outlines of their body shape !
The village „Holzmaden“ by the way contains the words „wood“ = „Holz“ and maggot = made“. A „Holzmade“ means an animal that lived in dead wood. This maggot eventually becomes a beetle or bug, the „Holzkäfer“ (wood-bug or wood-beetle).
(The term „Made in Germany“ would therefore read for a German like „Maggot in Germany“.
)Frankfurt located at the river Main further north is the town with the greatest number of banking companies. Because of its many scyscrapers it’s sometimes called „Mainhattan“ (the river Main isn’t exactly pronounced as you would do with the English word „main“ : Instead, the „a“ within it is pronounced like the last a in „Maria“ : „Main“.
East of Frankfurt lies Darmstadt (I actually have NO idea where THIS name comes from : The „Darm“ is actually the part of the belly where your food is processed - no, not the stomach. And „Stadt“ simply means „town“). In that area lies Messel. The „Grube von Messel“ (the pit of Messel) is internationally know for its unique preservation of fossils within the so-called „oil-slate“. Skin outlines and even the contants of the belly are preserved ! In this „pit“ (which was once a lake a few million years ago, after the death of the Dinosaurs and *long* before human arrival) there was once found a fossil which ios the most precious of all : The so-called „Ur-Pferdchen“ (which roughly means „ancestor horse“). It was not much bigger than a dog and lived in woods and forests there. It must have slipped out at the border of the lake and slipped into the lake which contained very, very few oxygen. Which resulted in the unique preservation, because without oxygen, fossils cannot be eroded. This is the ancestor of all horses, and they evolved in Europe ! Well, Europe lied at that time around the Equator with tropical climate. Another very important fossil is an animal we call in German „Ameisenbär“. This is an animal today ONLY known from South America, which only feeds itself from ants (Ameise = Ant) and has its snout fused into kind of a tube. It uses its tongue to lick ants. It doesn’t use its teeth anymore. The special thing is, that this animal is today only knkwn from South America - which sheds some light on how the continental connections once were ...
The pit of Messel was only few decades ago designated to be a gigantic waste container : All of the waste from all of the cities around it should be deposited there. The citizens, of course, wre against the destruction of this unique fossil site. Typical German : The bureaucrats didn’t stop this project; instead, they stopped any kind of opposition. And also typical German : Only a formal mistake in the bureacratic process stopped this waste deposition from actually happening ...
Okay, I’m around Cologne again.
Apart from Trier, Cologne („Köln“ in German, „Keulen“ in the Netherlands / Holland language) is one of the towns with the most preserved roman remains. Colonia Claudia Ara Aggrippinensum - that’s the first ancient name of Cologne - indeed was once a roman town. The „Römisch-Germanisches Museum“ contains the well-known „Dionysus Mosaik“. A few years ago, on an G7 meeting, the heads of the G7 countries were actually allowed to have a meal on that Mosaik. Normally, no mortal being is allowed to do so.
Cologne is also famous because of its many old churches. It has a *lot* of them !It also has my favourite muserum : The Chocolate Museum !
It indeed it about Chocolate, and was founded by the owner of a chocolate manufacturing company : Stollwerck. With the brands „Alpia“ and „Stollwerck“ and „Sarotti“. You can learn there about the history of Chocolate - evolving from xocolatl (I read in a book that this was an ancient Aztec name for a brew which contained cacao, pepper ans some more spices) to what is know today as a *very* sweet thing. 
You can also buy Chocolate there. Okay, I think that’s it for now. Others might add what I couldn’t write about due to my limited knowledge.
(Especially about the eastern parts of Germany).Alrik
Below, I’m citing some lines I wrote only a few days ago in a different forum :
Here, the Rhein area is usually very warm. The more south you travel along the Rhein, the warmer it gets. They even grow Wein (Grape) there ! Cologne as a town has a very warm climate ... Snow usually doesn't last long within the town.
I'm in the north-east of Cologne, at the border of the Cologne lowland and the more colder land that's called "Bergisches Land".
A Berg is a mountain - but sometimes also only a very big hill. It's like a river ... we have in the German language a word for small rivers; I don't know such a word in the English language. That complicated communication a bit, imho. The word for a very small river or stream is "Bach", like the composer.
Also, we say Berg for really *big* mountains (like in the Rocky Mountains, for example), but also for very big hills.
We can say a landscape is "bergig" which means it has a lot of big hills (we don't use it for real mountain ranges, normally) and consequently deep valleys between the big hills, carved by rivers or Bäche (plural form of Bach) through thousands of years. And of course woods in the valleys (except where people live, of course).
That’s how the Eifel and the Bergisches Land look like. Both are very, *very* old continental pieces (in terms of geological ages) and bear fossils of some of the first vertebrates (when the only vertebrated were fish). The Ardennes are of a similar age, partly.
Well, now comes the joke (for outsiders) : The „Bergisches Land“ has its name NOT from the adjective „bergig“, but from the Counts of Berg, who lived there (I think some of them exist even now) and to whom the „Bergisches Land“ belonged ! ;D [By the way, does the word „country“ come from the fact that it belongs to a Count ?] Well, outsiders don’t know this, and I didn’t as well for a long time.
Remember, I’m more Cologne-oriented , but I live at the border to the Bergisches Land.The Eifel and the Bergisches Land are much colder and wilder than everything around them. The folks this country breeds are more earth-bound, I think. Farmers, for example, and ore (iron, for example).
So, I’m here at the border; snow lasts longer than in the warm town of Cologne, and not as long as in the Bergisches Land itself. Mixed.
I talked about the Eifel and the Bergisches Land being *very* old, counted on geological ages. In fact, I have even seen sites not too far away from here (up to 20 km maybe) which contain ripples from shores. These are *old*. If you have a tme scale at hand - look out for the time around the development of fish - I think before verterates crawled onto land. This age is called „Devon“ in Geology, named after a place in Great Britain where these fossils and stata were found first. Internationally, such ages are named by a comittee after such places where their fossils and strata are found first.
A nearby town called Bergisch Gladbach is famous for its old fossils of fish. Unfortunately, they wre mostly found within the geological depression (like a wide and huge valley) in wich now the town itself sits. So fossils cannot be obtained from there anymore - except when someone builds a new house.
I’ve been in the Eifel while studying Geology / Palaentology several times on excoursions. There are circle round lakes which are called „Maar“ (singular) and „Maare“ (plural form). They are in fact lakes within craters of old vulcanoes !
The far biggest one is „Maria Laach“, where a monastery resides. It is several kilometres wide ! (The word „Laach“ is a dialect form, you can find the word „lake“ in it.
) It „exploded“ during the early ages of Man in a „big bang“ so that everything within several kilometres was covered with thick layers of Ashes. Like Pompeji, only much thinker and much more and at a greater distance. Due to this explosive eruption some sites of early „villages“ (well, during the ice ages there were no real „villages“ as we are used to know them from today) were covered and thus preserved. Some delicate slabs of stone with carved figures were preserved which would otherwise have been lost during the following few million years.The Eifel has a rich variety of minerals, ore and fosssils. There have been several reefs during early „fish ages“
and later, too. The Eifel as well as the Ardennes are famous for their Trilovytes - a distinct form of invertebrate, almost „crab-like“ creature. They were very widespread a long, long time ago. The so-called „horseshoe crab“ is a distant relative (and „living fossil“) of them. Although it’s closer relatives are with scorpions, spiders and similar animals.Well, I think that’s it for now.
Any questions ?
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