Wijk en Aalburg
Dutch
Alternative forms
- Wijk en Aolburg (dialect spelling)
Etymology
Wijk is potentially attested as wijck in 1135 and attested with certainty as wic in 1208. Aalburg is first attested as alburch in 889. Wijk is derived from Old Dutch *wic (“farmstead, village, settlement”). Aalburg is derived from a compound of an unclear first element and burg (“fortified settlement, castle”). The first element has been variously interpreted as Proto-Germanic *alha (“domicile, temple”), dialectal aal (“pointed gully”), aal (“eel”), Middle Dutch ale (“ale, beer”), and Old Dutch *aal (“great, entire”); all of these interpretations are purely hypothetical.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈʋɛi̯k ɛn ˈaːl.bʏrx/
- Hyphenation: Wijk en Aal‧burg
Proper noun
- a village and former municipality of Altena, North Brabant, Netherlands
References
- van Berkel, Gerard, Samplonius, Kees (2018) Nederlandse plaatsnamen verklaard (in Dutch), Mijnbestseller.nl, →ISBN