Wijk en Aalburg

Dutch

Alternative forms

• Wijk en Aolburg (dialect spelling)

Etymology

Wijk is potentially attested as wijck in 1135 and attested with certainty as wic in 1208. Aalburg is first attested as alburch in 889. Wijk is derived from Old Dutch wic (“farmstead, village, settlement”). Aalburg is derived from a compound of an unclear first element and burg (“fortified settlement, castle”). The first element has been variously interpreted as Proto-Germanic *alha (“domicile, temple”), dialectal aal (“pointed gully”), aal (“eel”), Middle Dutch ale (“ale, beer”), and Old Dutch aal (“great, entire”); all of these interpretations are purely hypothetical.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʋɛi̯k ɛn ˈaːl.bʏrx/
• Hyphenation: Wijk en Aal‧burg

Proper noun

Wijk en Aalburg n

1. A village and former municipality of Altena, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands.

References

• van Berkel, Gerard, Samplonius, Kees (2018) Nederlandse plaatsnamen verklaard (in Dutch), Mijnbestseller.nl, →ISBN