Thanks everybody - especially Nathu. Sounds like -ikon is a lot like -ing in English place names which comes from the Saxon -inga and describes the person or clan who first settled the area like Hastings (people of Haesta), Reading (people of Raeda), Godalming (people of Godhelm), Kidlington (settlement of Cydel's people).
Focko's place in Austria raises a smile - apparently it's the most stolen sign:
Back in the day, my German teacher told us that the dialects of Switzerland precede the current "High" German which was spawned from parts of this language/dialect so perhaps we should be asking how did "-chen" derive from the Swiss German "-li".
"Eng"-land probably derives from "Angel" and that again from Angelsachse (Anglosaxon) - A tribe originally from western germany I think (didn't check any sources but heard about it - correct if wrong)
Generally the origin of Swiss place names (at least those ending in -ingen, -wil and -kon) can be roughly dated. Those endings are associated with several waves of Allemanic tribes into Switzerland; -ingen and -hausen are the earliest, -wiler in the 8th/9th century and -kon after that. Forgot the other dates, sorry.
I think it is beyond reasonable doubt that Zürich derives from Turicum which is what the romans called it (the Romans had a fortified garrison on what is now Lindenhof as well as baths and a number of villas in other parts of the town). However how the Romans got that name is open to some speculation and one theory I picked up is that it derives from the Celtic for "place by the water". The area was inhabited by Celts in pre-Roman times.
Yes, this corrsponds with the period that the Allemanics stopped being nomadic and started establishing settlements. If you look at the history of your average village you'll find it was founded in circa that period.
-wil actually has the same linguistic origin as the French "ville" and strangely, the English "wall". All denote some measure of protection or safety and so a wil or a ville was a place that could be defended or had defences whereas a wall is an obvious example of such a defence.
In the history of Germanic languages there have been a number of vowel changes where one vowel was substitued by another. The theory is that Switzerland missed out on one of these. But this does not mean that everybody used to speak Swiss German. There have always been regional dialects and variants.
The current high German language was not really cemented until Martin Luther translated the bible and decided to translate it into his native Thuringian dialect which hence became the officiel written Geramn. The best (correctest) spoken German is supposeldy spoken in Hanover however, so High German is a hybrid of Thuringian syntax with Hanover pronounciation.
General Guisan was the guy who was in charge of the Swiss army during WW2 and developed the "reduit" strategy which saw a number of Alpine super fortresses built to which part of the population and most of the army could retreat if the rest of the country were invaded, and where they could hypothetically have held out indefinitely. His strategy was never put to the test so we'll never know whether or not it was flawed. Most older people I know speak of him with great respect and admiration. Most younger people don't really care or see the comical side of it.
W@nk is a German surname (albeit rare), see the attached thread from toytown germany. I loved the slogan "for a better life in Germany Max W@nk". I checked in local.ch there are a couple of [email protected] here.
The German verb w@nken means to be indecisive or to stagger.
So W@ankdorf is a village of drunks.
In technology, w@anken also signifies a nodding-style movement. So if for example you have a device that swivels on its vertical axis, that is schwenken , but if it swivels upwards and downwards, ie around a horizontal axis, that is w@anken.
A W@nkelmotor is a type of combustion engine that doesn't have conventional cylinders but in which the chambers change shape on account of some clever geometric interplay between the shaft-mounted part and the fixed part, ie, there are no moving parts (other than valves) besides the shaft itself. It was named W@ankel after the German engineer who invented it. It was supposed to be better than conventional engines on account of its compact size and fewer moving parts but it never really took off commercially.
The German equivalent of the English term w@nk is wichsen , pronounced vixen.