Talk:Margrave

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Wait, Fastifex, I didn't say places containing "Mark" are always related to "margrave". I wish you'd read contributions from others properly. I said both 'mark' and 'margrave' derive from the term 'mark - borderland'. The connecting term is 'mark' not 'margrave', and that is the only reason why 'Mark' and 'margrave' are related, they derive from the same stem. Yes, the word 'Mark' later took on the meaning 'area', but originally it was the 'mark', the border' or 'borderland' which determined the meaning of place-names, and when place-names were formed it was still the 'border' concept that determined the names. By the way, the word 'mark' - 'border' goes back to Proto-Indo-European roots. Dieter Simon 00:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi again, Fastifex, ok, you are making your point again and again to the potential reader, most of the "Mark" places have nothing to do with 'margrave' or 'margraviate'. I agree with you, most have to do with 'border areas'. But as for 'Markgenossenschaft', are you sure there are any places named after 'Markgenossenschaften'? Don't forget they were early cooperatives, consisting of 'Gemarkungen', parts of the whole and named after the nearest already existing villages. It would almost be a kind of back-formation, wouldn't it? Anyway, you must know. Dieter Simon 00:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• Quite frankly, I must have missed your first entry here (drowned in my long watchlist?), so I'm reading both now. I DO read the article properly, but you seemed to miss the point that this page is not on marks, but on margraves, hence only margraviates are actually relevant, not any other 'borderland'. Furthermore, Germany is a relatively young country by European standards- while names in the Roman provinces mostly trace back to Antiquity, hugue areas of Germany were colonised much later, with all kinds of 'modern' village names, sometimes referring to the origin of settlers, sometimes to those authorising, but also local references in the German pragmatical style. As it is irrelevant here which other use prevails, I've melted the Markgenossenschaft- and market-alternatives. What I don't get is why you state the (rather obvious) Proto-I-G root Fastifex 10:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

All I meant was, that 'Mark', the borderland comes first, before any margrave were probably thought of, although I'm not sure about that. That's what I meant by it being so old as to belong to the PIE language space. I don't know whether the Mark you mentioned is the same as the one in the Sauerland near Lünen, in today's North Rhine-Westphalia, you were right of course that it was 'borderland'. "Wissen" states it to having derived from Middle-Latin marca - Grenze.

Yes, the argument, if there is one, does carry us away from 'margrave' and 'margraviate', my original rejoinder to you was meant to say that 'Mark' places do not indeed all derive from 'margraviates' but more importantly from 'borderlands'. That's all. Good luck. Dieter Simon 15:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Brandenburg

The old historical German region is "Mark Brandenburg" and never "Mark of Brandenburg". See this in the German Wikipedia, and it is grammatically wrong to add an "of" in the name in the English Wiki. "Mark Brandenburg" is the actual name of the region, and the name is not reflected as noun phrase such as the "Land of Brandenburg" or the "town of Weimar". Nowadays Brandenburg is of course one of the states of Germany. I have changed it in the article. Dieter Simon 00:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)