# All Slavic languages: grad - town, castle



## Tagarela

Hi,



TriglavNationalPark said:


> In many Slavic languages, "grad" means castle rather than "city". It's a common false friend.



I wonder if it isn't related to the concept of a city. I mean, in the past many cities had walls, what would resemble castles, and in some cases, perhaps, castles could "shelter" villages. But I am not a historian. 

Good bye.:


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## TriglavNationalPark

You're right, Tagarela. According to Marko Snoj's etymological dictionary, both meanings of the word *grad* come from the proto-Slavic *gordь*, meaning "enclosure"; both castles and towns were typically protected by fortifications.


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## TriglavNationalPark

I'm curious which Slavic languages use *grad* (or *hrad* or *gorod* or whatever) to mean "castle" and which use it to mean "town" or "city".

I believe Slovenian is the only South Slavic language in which *grad* = castle and *mesto* = town, city.*

* Croatian apparently also uses *grad* = castle in some contexts, but its primary meaning is town or city.


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## Drunklord

May be the roots are more deep. Gor(a) in Slavic 
languiges is hill or mountain, where the castles and cities were built. 
the hill - the castle, the place - the town.


In Ucranian somthing like _mistse_ is a city as well.


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## Mišo

TriglavNationalPark said:


> I'm curious which Slavic languages use *grad* (or *hrad* or *gorod* or whatever) to mean "castle" and which use it to mean "town" or "city".
> 
> I believe Slovenian is the only South Slavic language in which *grad* = castle and *mesto* = town, city.*
> 
> * Croatian apparently also uses *grad* = castle in some contexts, but its primary meaning is town or city.



Slovak and surely also Czech use *hrad* only for castle and *mesto* / *město* for town.
And for example *mestské hradby* = *city walls*, or *mestský hrad* = *municipal castle*.


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## Mišo

Drunklord said:


> May be the roots are more deep. Gor(a) in Slavic
> languiges is hill or mountain, where the castles and cities were built.
> That is my opinion.
> 
> In Ucranian somthing like _mistse_ is city as well.



It´s logically possible, but we need some confirmation from etymologic point of view.
Momentary I find only this one "source" - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grad#Bosnian.


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## texpert

Anyway, there's a clear link between hrad-hradiště-podhradí--) Hradec (now fill in the missing Christian names to get a town


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## TriglavNationalPark

texpert said:


> Anyway, there's a clear link between hrad-hradiště-podhradí--) Hradec (now fill in the missing Christian names to get a town


 
Indeed, there's a Polhov Gradec in Slovenia (*polh* = dormouse, which some of us eat).

There's also a Slovenj Gradec; its meaning is obvious.

Another toponym derived from the (proto-)Slovenian word "gradec" is Graz, Austria. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:



> The name of the city, and some archaeological finds point to the erection of a small castle by South Slavic people, which in time became a heavily defended fortification. In Slovene, _gradec_ literally means "small castle", a hypocoristic derivative of Proto-West-South Slavic *gradъ "settlement, enclosure, city", thus originally probably denoting "small town".


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## texpert

Pity it later fell to Jörg. 

The number of _Hradec's or Hradiště's _in_ Czech _is so large that it makes little sense to list them all here (you can get them by putting Hradec or Hradiště into the www.mapy.cz search field). 

You do eat dormice in Slovenia? I should have known.


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## Mišo

Drunklord said:


> the hill - the castle, the place - the town.



This juxtaposition reminds me of Deutsch verbal connection between *der Berg* and *die Burg*.


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## Kanes

I think grad originaly was a noun meaning something like a "build or builded". This as many words with the root refer to this and not only city. Only few examples:

grad - city
ograda - fence
sgrada - building
pregrada - obsticale, dam, wall
gradia - I'm building (verb)

Our version of the Czech _Hradiště_ is Sredishte, it comes from sreda, meaning a center. Sredishte in Bulgarian is a gathering place, central place.


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## texpert

How is garden then? (Zahrada ín Cz).


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## Kanes

texpert said:


> How is garden then? (Zahrada ín Cz).


 
gradina... interesting one, this may sound stupid but a wield guess, when you separate it _gradi na_, it means _builds on._


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## texpert

Joining in your wild ride - _za hradí_ equals to _closes in _


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## Kanes

texpert said:


> Joining in your wild ride - _za hradí_ equals to _closes in _


 
Same in Bulgarian, zagradi = to suround, to fence in 

Oh forgot to mention, our words for castle are not related to grad though....


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## texpert

I thought so. Though it seems more likely that _zahrada _as well as _gradina _had to do more with being in the vicinity of the hrad (grad). But this is far from a safe bet, hope somebody will clarify it.


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## texpert

Sure, Plovdiv has a beautiful _stari grad_.


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## Kanes

texpert said:


> Sure, Plovdiv has a beautiful _stari grad_.


 
My city, thank you


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## Maroseika

In Russian город is "city", but городище originally meant "castle", though not always a walled one. 
In XII-XIII a citadel was also called Днешний град (дне - internal) or детинец; the later name - кремль.


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## Slavianophil

In Russian, this root exists in two forms 'gorod' (Russian proper) and grad (Church Slavonic which developed from Ancient Bulgarian).

So, we have such words as gorod (town, city), ogorod (vegetable garden, called so because it is normally surrounded by a fence), zagorodka (colloquial word meaning 'fence'), peregorodit' (to divide by a fence), etc.

and

grad (a literary and poetic word meaning 'town, city', often used to form city names: Petrograd, Kaliningrad), ograda (a more literary word meaning 'fence'), pregrada (obstacle), ogradit' (protect), etc. Most of the words in the second group are more literary or high-flown than in the first group.

Practically in all of them, the idea of a fence or a wall is present. 

By the way, in the ancient town of Zveni*gorod* near Moscow, its oldest part, which is on a steep hill and used to be surrounded by walls, is called *Gorod*ok.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Based on the posts so far, here's what *grad* (or gorod, hrad, etc.) means in various Slavic languages:

*Slovenian:* castle
*BCS:* city (sometimes also castle in Croatian)
*Czech:* castle
*Slovak:* castle
*Bulgarian:* city
*Russian:* city
*Old Church Slavonic:* city


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## texpert

Right. Only in Russian the _city _meaning applies to gorod (read _górod_). 

But what has caught my attention - is the word *Kreml *really a cognate of *grad*?


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## werrr

Drunklord said:


> May be the roots are more deep. Gor(a) in Slavic
> languiges is hill or mountain, where the castles and cities were built.


No, these words are not closely related.



Mišo said:


> Slovak and surely also Czech use *hrad* only for castle and *mesto* / *město* for town.
> And for example *mestské hradby* = *city walls*, or *mestský hrad* = *municipal castle*.


“Hrad” means only castle in modern Czech, but the other old Czech meanings are “town” and “hail(stones)”. The last meaning is still preserved in Polish and Russian.

The Czech word “hradba” (= barrier, rampart, wall) is not derived from the noun “hrad”, but from the cognate verb “hradit” (= to enclose/barrier).

Another cognate is “hráz” (= barrier, dam).



texpert said:


> Anyway, there's a clear link between hrad-hradiště-podhradí--) Hradec (now fill in the missing Christian names to get a town


“Hradec” is old diminutive form of “hrad”. Its modern analog is “hrádek”.

“Hradiště” means “fortified settlement” in modern Czech, but this is modern construct. The old Czech meaning (i.e. the meaning preserved in the local names) is “a place of a former castle/town”.



Kanes said:


> I think grad originaly was a noun meaning something like a "build or builded".


No, the meaning was “enclosure, closure, barrier” as it is stated in the second post.



> This as many words with the root refer to this and not only city. Only few examples:
> 
> grad - city
> ograda - fence
> sgrada - building
> pregrada - obsticale, dam, wall
> gradia - I'm building (verb)


Similar Czech cognates are:

přehrada - dam
ohrada - fence
zahrada - garden

But they are derived from respective prefixed forms of the verb “hradit”. Some new meanings of the verb “hradit” and its prefixed forms were also derived on the line:

enclose → separate by enclosure → separate / set aside / put aside → reserve/assign (→ reserve/assign money → pay)



> Our version of the Czech _Hradiště_ is Sredishte, it comes from sreda, meaning a center. Sredishte in Bulgarian is a gathering place, central place.


These words have nothing in common except of the suffix.

Czech counterpart of your “sredishte” is “středisko/(sou)střediště”.



Kanes said:


> gradina... interesting one, this may sound stupid but a wield guess, when you separate it _gradi na_, it means _builds on._


Surely you are joking. 



texpert said:


> …Though it seems more likely that _zahrada _as well as _gradina _had to do more with being in the vicinity of the hrad (grad).


No, “zahrada” is just another variation on the “enclosure”, it is unrelated to castle.


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## Mišo

werrr said:


> “Hrad” means only castle in modern Czech, but the other old Czech meanings are “town” and “hail(stones) Did you mean "ledovec (kameny)" or it has some other meaning?. The last meaning is still preserved in Polish and Russian.



So, when I want to say _I am going to town_ in Czech, it would be _jdu do hradu_?



werrr said:


> The Czech word “hradba” (= barrier, rampart, wall) is not derived from the noun “hrad”, but from the cognate verb “hradit” (= to enclose/barrier).



Derived directly or indirectly, we could legitimize, that verb _hradiť_ is derived from _hrad_ also rightfully as _hradba_ or _úhrada_, _hradenie_, _hrada_, _hradidlo_, _hradisko_, _hradlo_, _hrádza_...
Is it not? Are they not?


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## werrr

Mišo said:


> Did you mean "ledovec (kameny)" or it has some other meaning?.


hail = krupobitie, krúpy
hailstone = krúpa

In Slovak, we call it also “ľadovec”, but the Czech counterpart “ledovec” means only “glacier” and never “hail” (i.e. “ľadovec” and “ledovec” are semi-false friends).



> So, when I want to say _I am going to town_ in Czech, it would be _jdu do hradu_?


Yes, in *old* Czech, and only for the meaning “I am going into another town”, not for “I am going downtown”.

Not in modern Czech!



> Derived directly or indirectly, we could legitimize, that verb _hradiť_ is derived from _hrad_ also rightfully as _hradba_ or _úhrada_, _hradenie_, _hrada_, _hradidlo_, _hradisko_, _hradlo_, _hrádza_...
> Is not it? Are not they?


“Hradit” and “hrad” are the very early forms. It is not well-established whether the noun is derived from the verb or vice versa. For our purpose it is important that the words diverged in meanings before the other words like “hradba” emerged. In other words, the pair “hradit-hrad” ceased to be a standard verb-noun pair of the kind “běžet-běh” (bežať-beh) before “hradba” was derived from “hradit”.

The point in my post was that “hradba” was not derived as “castle wall” from “castle”, but as “barrier (wall)”.


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## sokol

texpert said:


> Right. Only in Russian the _city _meaning applies to gorod (read _górod_).


Well, both actually - as mentioned already:


Slavianophil said:


> In Russian, this root exists in two forms 'gorod' (Russian proper) and grad (Church Slavonic which developed from Ancient Bulgarian).


But "gorod" is of course the "original" word and "grad" the loan.



texpert said:


> But what has caught my attention - is the word *Kreml *really a cognate of *grad*?


It isn't according to Vasmer - and as much as I understand from this entry (difficult to say, especially with all those strange abbreviations) is that it is probably an Altaic loan (non-established etymology).


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## Mišo

werrr said:


> “Hradit” and “hrad” are the very early forms. It is not well-established whether the noun is derived from the verb or vice versa. For our purpose it is important that the words diverged in meanings before the other words like “hradba” emerged. In other words, the pair “hradit-hrad” ceased to be a standard verb-noun pair of the kind “běžet-běh” (bežať-beh) before “hradba” was derived from “hradit”.



It is quite feasible, that verbs and nouns familiarly had *the only form* in very early language ages.


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## WannaBeMe

TriglavNationalPark said:


> You're right, Tagarela. According to Marko Snoj's etymological dictionary, both meanings of the word *grad* come from the proto-Slavic *gordь*, meaning "enclosure"; both castles and towns were typically protected by fortifications.



Protoslavic form should be GARDUS or possibly garadus, not gord.
In Serbian are related words: graditi - to built; građevina - the building;
ograditi - enclose and ograda - enclosure, balustrade; if we think deaper it means "what is built around". 
And gradina could mean castle in Srb.


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## texpert

sokol said:


> It isn't according to Vasmer - and as much as I understand from this entry (difficult to say, especially with all those strange abbreviations) is that it is probably an Altaic loan (non-established etymology).


As to *Kremlin *quote: 
I got to read this useful link only now. The entry itself is somewhat confusing - it mentions a usage of Kremlin as of a "fortress within a town" from 1445, when _кремь _(kremь) was recorded to mean "part of a forest where the timber-wood was grown" and _кремлёвый _(kremlyovyi) had the meaning of "solid, resistant". After several other forestry references there appears a sequence of expressions out of which I can decipher only *Mongolian* *kerem *and *keri *(does it attribute its origins to *kalmyks?*) I wish that some Russian speaker would lend his hand


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## sokol

After re-reading Vasmer: actually I think now that he suggest rather that it was the other way round - that Mongolian and the language shortened to "кыпч." loaned the word _from _Russian.

Difficult read though, that Vasmer - as ever, with all those abbreviations.


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## texpert

After rereading it (it becomes a passion) I'm inclined to think we both missed the point. The word is actually a cognate of _кре́мень_ (_kremenj_ - *flint *in Eng, _křemen _in Cz). The reason I missed it out before is, obviously, the auxiliary diacritics. After that, I think, the entry states that the _unacceptable explanation_ is that Kreml is a loanword from the afore-mentioned Asian or whatever languages.


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## sokol

texpert said:


> The reason I missed it out before is, obviously, the auxiliary diacritics. After that, I think, the entry states that the _unacceptable explanation_ is that Kreml is a loanword from the afore-mentioned Asian or whatever languages.


Oh, you are right! (After re-reading it. )
It says that those Mongolian and Kalmük and "Kypch." words can't relate phonetically to the Kremlin-root.

And also Vasmer of course says definitely "Родственно _кре́мень_ и _крома́_" - so, that those are related words. So hopefully we have interpreted Vasmer now correctly.


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## Duya

sokol said:


> It says that those Mongolian and Kalmük and "Kypch."



(Probably http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kypchak_languages)


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## nohayproblemas

Hi!

I would just like to add that, as far as I know, in Croatian 'grad' doesn't mean 'a castle'. It might have meant that in the past, but today nobody would think that 'grad' means 'a castle'.


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## texpert

sokol said:


> And also Vasmer of course says definitely "Родственно _кре́мень_ и _крома́_" - so, that those are related words. So hopefully we have interpreted Vasmer now correctly.


 
We seem to have. And this _kipchak_ link fits in as well. There remains a single crack - in the form of "_нем. _(German) _Kremelin (Maierberg)_" originating allegedly from "_кремльнъ" _(no clue here) - but I can easily do without it. 
Anyway, to dare to think that _Kreml _was related to _křemen_ (flint) I would not dare


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