The Sernftal or ''Kleintal'' is an
alpine valley within
Glarus Süd, in the
canton of Glarus
The canton of Glarus (german: Kanton Glarus rm, Chantun Glaruna; french: Canton de Glaris; it, Canton Glarona) is a canton in east central Switzerland. The capital is Glarus.
The population speaks a variety of Alemannic German.
The majority of ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. It is formed by the Sernf, a right tributary of the
Linth. Situated in the Sernftal are the villages of
Elm (977 m) and
Engi (812 m). The
Panix Pass at 2407 m connects the Sernftal with the
anterior Rhine valley in
Grisons
The Grisons () or Graubünden,Names include:
*german: (Kanton) Graubünden ;
* Romansh:
** rm, label= Sursilvan, (Cantun) Grischun
** rm, label=Vallader, (Chantun) Grischun
** rm, label= Puter, (Chantun) Grischun
** rm, label=Surmiran, (Cant ...
.
Geography
The valley is the site of an important geological feature of the
Glarus Alps, the ''Glarner Hauptüberschiebung'', a notable
fault in
alpine geology.
A scale model of the feature is on exhibit in the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
.
Name
The name ''
Sernf'' (earlier also ''Sernft'') is of pre-Germanic origin, either Celtic or an example of
Old European hydronymy
Old European (german: Alteuropäisch) is the term used by Hans Krahe (1964) for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy (river names) in Central and Western Europe.Hans Krahe, ''Unsere ältesten Flussnamen'', Wiesbad ...
.
It derives from a hypothetical ''*Sarnivos'', containing a
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
root ''*ser'' "to flow".
The name of the Sernf river has received some attention in German online culture as the "fifth
German word in ''-nf''", popularized by
Bastian Sick
Bastian Sick (; born 17 July 1965) is a German journalist and author.
History
Bastian Sick grew up in Ratekau, in the north of Germany near Lübeck. He attended the “Leibniz Gymnasium” in Bad Schwartau where he did his Abitur (A-level ...
in his
Spiegel Online blog.
Zwiebelfisch-Abc: fünf Wörter auf -nf
the online discussion can be traced to 2002
archive.org link
The word ''fünf'' "five" is the only genuinely German word with this ending, the others are early loanwords, including ''Hanf'' "hemp" (from ''kánnabis'') and ''Senf'' "mustard" (from ''sinapis''), and the toponym ''Genf'' " Geneva", from ''Genava''.
References
{{Authority control
Valleys of Switzerland
Valleys of the Alps
Aare
Landforms of the canton of Glarus