Zum Ortsnamen Jena

Abstract The place-name Jena has posed a problem to etymologists for decades. It has been clear for some time that it must be connected with MHG jân m. ‘row (of mown grass, of cut down grain)’. A recent article by Karlheinz Hengst and Peter Wiesinger brought a break-through: it seems now clear that the MHG word and the place-name OHG Iani go back to an old i-stem Proto-Germ. *iǣni- > West-Germ. *jāni-. The further etymology of the word can now be given more precisely: The place-name probably goes back to a highly archaic vddhi-formation PIE *iḗh2-ni- f. > Proto-Germ. *iǣni-, which might have meant ‘area at a river-crossing’. An etymological connection of this place-name with Polish river-names containing the element Jan- (implying that Jena was originally a designation for a section of the river Saale) must be regarded as rather improbable.