Hallstatt

English
A view of the town of Hallstatt.
Some pottery from the Hallstatt Culture.

Etymology

German Hallstatt

Proper noun

Hallstatt

  1. A village in Salzkammergut, Austria, known historically for the production of salt.
  2. The Hallstatt culture of the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age.

Derived terms

German

Etymology

The second element is Statt (“place, stead”).

Traditionally the first element is taken to be a borrowing from Celtic for ‘salt’, such as Welsh halen or Breton holen; see Proto-Celtic *salanos.[1]

David Stifter rejects the traditional etymology because of several problems, among them:

  1. the element hall- exists only in names of places settled by Germanic speakers (and nowhere else in the Celtic-speaking areas),
  2. the *s > *h sound change is not attested in Continental Celtic,
  3. derivation from the ‘salt’ word would have given a non-geminated final l.

He instead derives it from Proto-Germanic *hallą, from Proto-Indo-European *kHlnom (“hardened skin, encrustation”), referring to encrusted salt forming during the simmering of brine.[2]

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈhalˌʃtat/
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: Hall‧statt

Proper noun

Hallstatt n (proper noun, genitive Hallstatts or (optionally with an article) Hallstatt)

  1. A municipality of Upper Austria, Austria

References
  1. Winter, H.E. (2004) A history of the Celts, page 119
  2. David Stifter (2005) “Hallstatt – In eisenzeitlicher Tradition?”, in Interpretierte Eisenzeiten. Fallstudien, Methoden, Theorie. Tagungsbeitrage der 1. Linzer Gesprache zur interpretativen Eisenzeitarchaologie‎, Linz, pages 229–240
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