An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Berg

by Friedrich Kluge

Berg, masculine, ‘mountain,’ inherited from the Old Teutonic vocabulary; Old High German bërg, Middle High German bërc(g), masculine. Compare Anglo-Saxon beorh(g), especially ‘barrow’ (called byrgels also), English only in the derivative ‘to bury’ (Anglo-Saxon byrgan), from *burgian; the Gothic form *bairga- is deduced from the derivative bairgahei, ‘mountain range.’ The rules for the permutation of consonants demand a pre-Teutonic bhérgho-; with this is connected Sanscrit bṛhant, ‘high’ (b from bh, because the aspiration at the beginning of the root was, on account of the following aspirate, necessarily lost); h is gh; Zend barezanh, ‘height,’ berezant, ‘high’; Old Irish brigh, ‘mountain’ (ri, Sanscrit ṛ, might be compared with the ur of Burg), Armenian berj, ‘height,’ barjr, ‘high,’ Welsh and Armorican bre, ‘mountain, hill,’ Welsh bry, ‘high.’ Also the Keltic proper names Brigiani and Brigantes, like the Teutonic Burgunden, Burgundiones (literally ‘monticulae’), and the name of the town Brigantia (Bregenz). Hence to the root bhergh belong the primary meanings ‘high, rising ground’ (Old Slovenian brěgŭ, ‘bank (of a river),’ is borrowed from German); perhaps Burg is derived from this root, if it does not come from bergen. The attempt to connect Berg with Gothic fairguni and Hercynia, identical with the latter, must be abandoned. With zu Berge, ‘up, on end,’ compare Middle High German ze tal, ‘down.’