The Vltava ( / ˈ v ʊ l t ə v ə , ˈ v ʌ l -/ VU(U)L -tə-və , Czech: [ˈvl̩tava] ; German : Moldau [ˈmɔldaʊ] ) is the longest river in the Czech Republic , a left tributary of the Elbe River. It runs southeast along the Bohemian Forest and then north across Bohemia , through Český Krumlov , České Budějovice , and Prague . It is commonly referred to as the "Czech national river".
42-690: Both the Czech name Vltava and the German name Moldau are believed to originate from the old Germanic words * wilt ahwa 'wild water' (compare Latin aqua ). In the Annales Fuldenses (872 AD) it is called Fuldaha ; from 1113 AD it is attested as Wultha . In the Chronica Boemorum (1125 AD) it is attested for the first time in its Bohemian form, Wlitaua . The Vltava originates by
84-667: A common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the Nordic Bronze Age . The Proto-Germanic language developed in southern Scandinavia (Denmark, south Sweden and southern Norway) and the northern-most part of Germany in Schleswig Holstein and northern Lower Saxony, the Urheimat (original home) of the Germanic tribes. It is possible that Indo-European speakers first arrived in southern Scandinavia with
126-724: A confluence of two rivers, the Teplá Vltava , which is longer, and the Studená Vltava , originating in Bavaria . From a water management point of view, the Vltava and Teplá Vltava are one river with single numbering of river kilometres . The Teplá Vltava originates in the territory of Kvilda in the Bohemian Forest at an elevation of 1,174 m (3,852 ft), on the slope of the Černá hora mountain. Together with
168-432: A dialect of Proto-Indo-European that had lost its laryngeals and had five long and six short vowels as well as one or two overlong vowels. The consonant system was still that of PIE minus palatovelars and laryngeals, but the loss of syllabic resonants already made the language markedly different from PIE proper. Mutual intelligibility might have still existed with other descendants of PIE, but it would have been strained, and
210-475: A larger scope of linguistic developments, spanning the Nordic Bronze Age and Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe (second to first millennia BC) to include "Pre-Germanic" (PreGmc), "Early Proto-Germanic" (EPGmc) and "Late Proto-Germanic" (LPGmc). While Proto-Germanic refers only to the reconstruction of the most recent common ancestor of Germanic languages, the Germanic parent language refers to
252-555: A late stage. The early stage includes the stress fixation and resulting "spontaneous vowel-shifts" while the late stage is defined by ten complex rules governing changes of both vowels and consonants. By 250 BC Proto-Germanic had branched into five groups of Germanic: two each in the West and the North and one in the East. The following changes are known or presumed to have occurred in
294-415: A low bridge at Týn nad Vltavou . Work is planned to complete boat lifts , planned for but never completed, at the two dams, and to rebuild the bridge, in order for them to navigate throughout. Much smaller craft, of up to 3.5 tonnes (3.4 long tons; 3.9 short tons) displacement and under 3 metres (9.8 ft) beam and 3 metres (9.8 ft) air draft, can avoid these obstacles. Upstream of České Budějovice,
336-676: A third of the Czech Republic's entire territory. The waters ultimately drain to the North Sea. As it runs through Prague, the river is crossed by 18 bridges (including the Charles Bridge ) and covers 31 kilometres (19 mi) within the city. The water from the river was used for drinking until 1912 when the Vinohrady Water Tower ceased pumping operations, and is now a place to view the city. It is, however,
378-502: Is a musical description of the river's course through Bohemia. Smetana's symphonic poem also inspired a song of the same name by Bertolt Brecht . An English version of it, by John Willett , features the lyrics Deep down in the Moldau the pebbles are shifting / In Prague three dead emperors moulder away. The Vltava River has been used as the setting for a number of films, including the 1942 Czech drama The Great Dam . More recently,
420-807: Is largely a matter of convention. The first coherent text recorded in a Germanic language is the Gothic Bible , written in the later fourth century in the East Germanic variety of the Thervingi Gothic Christians , who had escaped persecution by moving from Scythia to Moesia in 348. Early West Germanic text is available from the fifth century, beginning with the Frankish Bergakker runic inscription . The evolution of Proto-Germanic from its ancestral forms, beginning with its ancestor Proto-Indo-European , began with
462-413: Is termed Pre-Proto-Germanic . Whether it is to be included under a wider meaning of Proto-Germanic is a matter of usage. Winfred P. Lehmann regarded Jacob Grimm 's "First Germanic Sound Shift", or Grimm's law, and Verner's law , (which pertained mainly to consonants and were considered for many decades to have generated Proto-Germanic) as pre-Proto-Germanic and held that the "upper boundary" (that is,
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#1732772377700504-695: Is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages . Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branches during the fifth century BC to fifth century AD: West Germanic , East Germanic and North Germanic . The latter of these remained in contact with the others over a considerable time, especially with the Ingvaeonic languages (including English ), which arose from West Germanic dialects, and had remained in contact with
546-564: Is the question of what specific tree, in the tree model of language evolution, best explains the paths of descent of all the members of a language family from a common language, or proto-language (at the root of the tree) to the attested languages (at the leaves of the tree). The Germanic languages form a tree with Proto-Germanic at its root that is a branch of the Indo-European tree, which in turn has Proto-Indo-European at its root. Borrowing of lexical items from contact languages makes
588-548: Is typical not of Germanic but Celtic languages. Another is * walhaz 'foreigner; Celt' from the Celtic tribal name Volcae with k → h and o → a . Other likely Celtic loans include * ambahtaz 'servant', * brunjǭ 'mailshirt', * gīslaz 'hostage', * īsarną 'iron', * lēkijaz 'healer', * laudą 'lead', * Rīnaz 'Rhine', and * tūnaz, tūną 'fortified enclosure'. These loans would likely have been borrowed during
630-677: The Corded Ware culture in the mid-3rd millennium BC, developing into the Nordic Bronze Age cultures by the early second millennium BC. According to Mallory, Germanicists "generally agree" that the Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, was primarily situated in an area corresponding to the extent of the Jastorf culture . Early Germanic expansion in
672-503: The Funnelbeaker culture , but the sound change in the Germanic languages known as Grimm's law points to a non-substratic development away from other branches of Indo-European. Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken after c. 500 BC, and Proto-Norse , from the second century AD and later, is still quite close to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, but other common innovations separating Germanic from Proto-Indo-European suggest
714-637: The Norse . A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described by Grimm's law , a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. The end of the Common Germanic period is reached with the beginning of the Migration Period in the fourth century AD. The alternative term " Germanic parent language " may be used to include
756-681: The Pre-Roman Iron Age (fifth to first centuries BC) placed Proto-Germanic speakers in contact with the Continental Celtic La Tène horizon . A number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic have been identified. By the first century AD, Germanic expansion reached the Danube and the Upper Rhine in the south and the Germanic peoples first entered the historical record . At about the same time, extending east of
798-621: The Vistula ( Oksywie culture , Przeworsk culture ), Germanic speakers came into contact with early Slavic cultures, as reflected in early Germanic loans in Proto-Slavic . By the third century, Late Proto-Germanic speakers had expanded over significant distance, from the Rhine to the Dniepr spanning about 1,200 km (700 mi). The period marks the breakup of Late Proto-Germanic and
840-484: The "lower boundary" was the dropping of final -a or -e in unstressed syllables; for example, post-PIE * wóyd-e > Gothic wait , 'knows'. Elmer H. Antonsen agreed with Lehmann about the upper boundary but later found runic evidence that the -a was not dropped: ékwakraz … wraita , 'I, Wakraz, … wrote (this)'. He says: "We must therefore search for a new lower boundary for Proto-Germanic." Antonsen's own scheme divides Proto-Germanic into an early stage and
882-556: The 2nd century CE, as well as the non-runic Negau helmet inscription, dated to the 2nd century BCE), and in Roman Empire -era transcriptions of individual words (notably in Tacitus ' Germania , c. AD 90 ). Proto-Germanic developed out of pre-Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe. According to the Germanic substrate hypothesis , it may have been influenced by non-Indo-European cultures, such as
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#1732772377700924-675: The Celtic Hallstatt and early La Tène cultures when the Celts dominated central Europe, although the period spanned several centuries. Orl%C3%ADk Reservoir The Orlík Reservoir ( Czech : Vodní nádrž Orlík ) is the largest hydroelectric dam in the Czech Republic . It dams the Vltava River near the village of Solenice , which is near the town of Příbram . The structure is named after Orlík Castle , which
966-429: The Germanic subfamily exhibited a less treelike behaviour, as some of its characteristics were acquired from neighbours early in its evolution rather than from its direct ancestors. The internal diversification of West Germanic developed in an especially non-treelike manner. Proto-Germanic is generally agreed to have begun about 500 BC. Its hypothetical ancestor between the end of Proto-Indo-European and 500 BC
1008-660: The Teplá Vltava, the Vltava is 431.3 kilometres (268.0 mi) long. Without the Teplá Vltava, the Vltava is 377.0 kilometres (234.3 mi) long. The river flows north across Bohemia, through Český Krumlov , České Budějovice and Prague . It merges with the Elbe River at Mělník at an elevation of 156 m (512 ft). The height difference from source to mouth is 1,018 metres (3,340 ft). The Vltava River drains an area of 28,089.9 square kilometres (10,845.6 sq mi) in size, over half of Bohemia and about
1050-479: The Vltava are: Between the confluence with the Elbe at Mělník and Prague , the river is navigable by vessels of up to 1,000 tonnes (980 long tons; 1,100 short tons) displacement. Most of the river upstream of Prague as far as České Budějovice is navigable by craft of up to 300 tonnes (300 long tons; 330 short tons) displacement, but such vessels cannot pass the dams at Orlík and Slapy , and are also restricted by
1092-757: The Vltava has been used as a film location for such films as Amadeus in 1984 and Mission: Impossible in 1996. A minor planet , 2123 Vltava , discovered in 1973 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh , is named after the river. Proto-Germanic Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc ; also called Common Germanic )
1134-488: The banks denoting the water line for notable floods in 1784, 1845, 1890, 1940, and the highest of all in 2002. In August of 2002, the basin was heavily affected by the 2002 European floods when the flooded river killed several people and caused massive damage and disruption along its length, including in Prague. It left the oldest bridge in Prague, Charles Bridge, seriously weakened, requiring years of work to repair. Prague
1176-489: The beginning of the (historiographically recorded) Germanic migrations . The earliest available complete sentences in a Germanic language are variably dated to the 2nd century AD, around 300 AD or the first century AD in runic inscriptions (such as the Tune Runestone ). The language of these sentences is known as Proto-Norse , although the delineation of Late Common Germanic from Proto-Norse at about that time
1218-498: The dates of borrowings and sound laws are not precisely known, it is not possible to use loans to establish absolute or calendar chronology. Most loans from Celtic appear to have been made before or during the Germanic Sound Shift . For instance, one specimen * rīks 'ruler' was borrowed from Celtic * rīxs 'king' (stem * rīg- ), with g → k . It is clearly not native because PIE * ē → ī
1260-414: The development of a separate common way of speech among some geographically nearby speakers of a prior language and ended with the dispersion of the proto-language speakers into distinct populations with mostly independent speech habits. Between the two points, many sound changes occurred. Phylogeny as applied to historical linguistics involves the evolutionary descent of languages. The phylogeny problem
1302-432: The earlier boundary) was the fixing of the accent, or stress, on the root syllable of a word, typically on the first syllable. Proto-Indo-European had featured a moveable pitch-accent consisting of "an alternation of high and low tones" as well as stress of position determined by a set of rules based on the lengths of a word's syllables. The fixation of the stress led to sound changes in unstressed syllables. For Lehmann,
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1344-480: The entire journey that the dialect of Proto-Indo-European that would become Proto-Germanic underwent through the millennia. The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any complete surviving texts; it has been reconstructed using the comparative method . However, there is fragmentary direct attestation of (late) Proto-Germanic in early runic inscriptions (specifically the Vimose inscriptions , dated to
1386-496: The erosion of unstressed syllables, which would continue in its descendants. The final stage of the language included the remaining development until the breakup into dialects and, most notably, featured the development of nasal vowels and the start of umlaut , another characteristic Germanic feature. Loans into Proto-Germanic from other (known) languages or from Proto-Germanic into other languages can be dated relative to each other by which Germanic sound laws have acted on them. Since
1428-545: The history of Proto-Germanic in the wider sense from the end of Proto-Indo-European up to the point that Proto-Germanic began to break into mutually unintelligible dialects. The changes are listed roughly in chronological order, with changes that operate on the outcome of earlier ones appearing later in the list. The stages distinguished and the changes associated with each stage rely heavily on Ringe 2006 , Chapter 3, "The development of Proto-Germanic". Ringe in turn summarizes standard concepts and terminology. This stage began with
1470-612: The largest reservoir on the Vltava by volume, while the Lipno Reservoir retains the largest reservoir by area. The Štěchovice Reservoir is built over the site of St John's Rapids . The river also features numerous weirs that help mitigate its flow from 1,172 metres (3,845 ft) in elevation at its source near the German border to 155 metres (509 ft) at its mouth in Mělník. The Vltava basin has flooded multiple times throughout recorded history. Markers have been created along
1512-413: The period marked the definitive break of Germanic from the other Indo-European languages and the beginning of Germanic proper, containing most of the sound changes that are now held to define this branch distinctively. This stage contained various consonant and vowel shifts, the loss of the contrastive accent inherited from PIE for a uniform accent on the first syllable of the word root, and the beginnings of
1554-552: The reduction of the resulting unstressed syllables. By this stage, Germanic had emerged as a distinctive branch and had undergone many of the sound changes that would make its later descendants recognisable as Germanic languages. It had shifted its consonant inventory from a system that was rich in plosives to one containing primarily fricatives, had lost the PIE mobile pitch accent for a predictable stress accent, and had merged two of its vowels. The stress accent had already begun to cause
1596-539: The relative position of the Germanic branch within Indo-European less clear than the positions of the other branches of Indo-European. In the course of the development of historical linguistics, various solutions have been proposed, none certain and all debatable. In the evolutionary history of a language family, philologists consider a genetic "tree model" appropriate only if communities do not remain in effective contact as their languages diverge. Early Indo-European had limited contact between distinct lineages, and, uniquely,
1638-477: The river's section around Český Krumlov (specifically from Vyšší Brod to Boršov nad Vltavou ) is a very popular destination for water tourism . Nine hydroelectric dams have been built on the Vltava south of Prague to regulate the water flow and generate hydroelectric power , starting in the 1930s. Beginning at the headwaters, these are: Lipno , Lipno II , Hněvkovice , Kořensko , Orlík , Kamýk , Slapy , Štěchovice and Vrané . The Orlík Reservoir supports
1680-511: The separation of a distinct speech, perhaps while it was still forming part of the Proto-Indo-European dialect continuum. It contained many innovations that were shared with other Indo-European branches to various degrees, probably through areal contacts, and mutual intelligibility with other dialects would have remained for some time. It was nevertheless on its own path, whether dialect or language. This stage began its evolution as
1722-453: The source of drinking water in case of failures of or repairs to the water supply from the Želivka and Kárané sources. The Podolí water processing plant is on standby for such cases with the long section of the river upstream of the Podolí plant under the stricter, second degree of pollution prevention regulations. Along its course, the river receives many tributaries. The longest tributaries of
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1764-601: Was again flooded in 2013 . Many locations within the Vltava and Elbe basins were left under water, including the Prague Zoo , but metal barriers were erected along the banks of the Vltava to help protect the historic city centre. One of the best-known works of classical music by a Czech composer is Bedřich Smetana 's Vltava , sometimes called The Moldau in English. It is from the Romantic era of classical music and
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