def. german urft?

[Peter A. McGraw]

With apologies to those of you who may find this thread straying (and
fraying?) rather far from American dialects...

I couldn't find the Urft in several atlases, so I guess the Rand McNally
wasn't one of those I tried.  There's a minutely detailed German atlas of
Germany, but we don't have it here.

Anyway, the web sites that Doug provided clear up the question of what Urft
has to do with dogs.  Urftquelle here means "Urft Spring," or "Urft
Source," i.e., the spring in which the Urft River originates.  There is a
kennel in Euskirchen that has named itself after the spring (or the area of
the spring), presumably because of its geographic proximity.  The kennel
breeds a line of Dobermans that all have the "surname" (?) von der
Urftquelle (e.g., Curd von der Urftquelle, Akini von der Urftquelle, even
[and I am not making this up] Chico von der Urftquelle).  Apparently they
named the line after the area and the kennel after the line.

Urft occurs only as a place name and as such is not in any dictionary I can
find (including the Grimm), nor does urfeda or just feda occur in
Schuetzeichel's Althochdeutsches Woerterbuch.  So I'm stumped as to the
etymology.

Peter Mc.

--On Monday, February 4, 2002 8:19 PM -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson"
<douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

>> ... Douglas Wilson's post seems to be describing the location of the Erft
>> River, which parallels the Rur but is a tributary of the Rhine.
>
> Not according to my sources. Here I have the Rand McNally atlas (1993),
> listing the Erft River at 51.11N, 6.44E, the distinct Urft River at
> 50.35N, 6.30E. [The Rur is not the Ruhr.]
>
> Here are some Web sites:
>
> http://www.eifeltour.de/Texte/Geographie/Fluesse/Urft.htm
>
> http://www.general-anzeiger-bonn.de/freizeit/wandertips/mariawald.html
>
> http://www.eifelfuehrer.de/U/Urft.html
>
> http://www.eifel-touristik.de/wassererlebnis/wassererlebnis/gewaesser/urf
> t.htm
>
> Here is "Urftquelle":
>
> http://www.eusebius.de/niederkastenholz/ettighoffer/ett04.htm
>
> And regarding the Dobermans:
>
> http://home.t-online.de/home/d-meyerkirchheim/
>
> etc.
>
> "Urft" might be from Latin since the Eifel region was once Romanized ...
> or Celtic ... or ....
>
> -- Doug Wilson



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu