Talk:Bay of Kiel

I have moved the following from the article to this talk page since it is unsourced, has many unreferenced assertions, is not written in a particularly encyclopedic fashion, and seems more relevant for other articles than this particular one. Olessi 21:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

The founding of Kiel at Kiel
It is generally agreed, the name of the city was taken from the name of the geographic location, which certainly included the fjord, and probably the bay as well. Count Adolph IV of Schauenburg founded Holstein by planting a number of fortified cities there: Oldenburg in 1233, Plön in 1236, Itzehohe in 1238, Oldeslohe in 1238, Kiel in 1242 and Neustadt in 1244. He became a monk at Kiel in 1236, leaving the office to his son, Johann I. According to the city charter given to him, the city was named Holstenburg. The population insisted on calling it Kiel, which must have been a pre-existing name.

Kiel and Pliny
There is a tantalizing piece of possible evidence of the use of the name in antiquity. Pliny (Book IV.97) is describing the Kattegat and the large number of islands in it, the most famous being Scandinavia. Then,


 * ”quidam haec … tradunt sinum Cylipenum vocari, et in ostio insulam Latrim, mox alterum sinum Lagnum conterminum Cimbris.”
 * ”Some report that there is a bay called Cylipenus and an island, Latris, at its mouth, followed by another bay, Lagnus, coterminous with the Cimbri.”

Locations of the bay with its island have been hypothesized as far east as Riga, but Pliny clearly says that it was coterminous with the Cimbri, and the latter were certainly located in Jutland. The Cyli- in Cylipenus is most likely to be Kiel, although whether the bay, the fjord, or both are meant is uncertain. Latris may be a translation into Latin of Langeland, based on the use of the adjective, latus, “wide”, for long. The Romans would have seen it as a wide island. Lagnus must be the Bay of Mecklenburg, or of Lübeck, or both.

Admiral Pliny tells us that the Romans kept a military presence in Denmark. He states that the Roman military had intelligence of 23 islands, including Bornholm. Beyond that he isn’t sure. The presence need not have been imposed by the Romans. It may have been simply naval stations permitted by treaty with the Cimbri. Perhaps the first shipyards of Kiel were Roman, but this is only speculation.

The name, Kiel
The current population of Kiel takes a great interest in their name, folk-etymologizing it from modern German words, with English speakers throwing in Old English, as the Anglo-saxons were there in antiquity. Perhaps Kiel is a wedge, German Keil, if you see the fjord as one. The shape of the estuary permits almost any interpretation. According to Julius Pokorny, the Proto-Indo-European root in that case would be *ĝei-, “sprout.” Norwegian keila from the same root is a narrow bay, which would be Kiel Fjord. The sense could be a branch of the waters, a springing or sprouting of waters, a splitting or wedge, etc.

On the other hand perhaps German Kehle, “throat”, “channel” or “gutter” is the right word, or Kiel, our keel. In that case the root would be *gel- or *gwel-, “devour”. A number of senses are possible: a throat of some sort or a mouth, or a mouth-like projection, or a keel-shaped body of water.

Article title
I think this should be moved to "Kieler Bucht", as "Bay of Kiel" is not known in English. Must everything be translated? TinyMark 18:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Not true. "Bay of Kiel" appears 673 times on Google Books, but interestingly "Kiel Bay" is even more common with 3,740 hits. Maybe we should move it to that. --Bermicourt (talk) 15:35, 5 November 2016 (UTC)