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To: Verginius Rufus

“Neanderthal” means Neander Valley auf Deutsch... Basically just a place name.


29 posted on 03/04/2012 3:28:44 PM PST by varmintman
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To: varmintman
Yes, thal (modern spelling tal) just means "valley"--it's cognate with the English word "dale." (German t often corresponds to English d as in Tochter/daughter, tot/dead, treiben/drive, Tag/day, Tat/deed, taub/deaf, etc.).

I was just surprised to learn that the name was fairly recent and its origin was known--many European placenames are so old that nothing is known of how the name originated.

30 posted on 03/04/2012 5:08:18 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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