The Sernftal or ''Kleintal'' is an alpine valley within

Glarus Süd Glarus Süd is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Glarus. It comprises the upper Linth valley, and the entire Sernf valley, and includes the villages of Betschwanden, Braunwald, Diesbach, Elm, Engi, Haslen, Hätzingen, Leuggelbach, Lin ...

, 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 ...

, Switzerland. It is formed by the Sernf, a right tributary of the

Linth The Linth (pronounced "lint") is a Swiss river that rises near the village of Linthal in the mountains of the canton of Glarus, and eventually flows into the Obersee section of Lake Zurich. It is about in length. The water power of the Linth ...

. Situated in the Sernftal are the villages of

Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of Nor ...

(977 m) and

Engi , also known as Entertainment Graphic Innovation, or Studio ENGI, is a Japanese animation studio founded by Kadokawa, Sammy Corporation, and Ultra Super Pictures, and is a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation. History On April 4, 2018, Kadoka ...

(812 m). The

Panix Pass Panix Pass or Panixer Pass ( Romansh: ''Pass dil Veptga'', German: ''Panixerpass'') (2404 m) is a Swiss Alpine pass between the cantons of Glarus and Graubünden. The pass was once an important trade route between the canton of Glarus and Italy ...

at 2407 m connects the Sernftal with the

anterior Rhine The Vorderrhein ( German; English: ''Anterior Rhine''; Sursilvan: ; Sutsilvan: ''Ragn Anteriur''; Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader, and Puter: ''Rain Anteriur''; Surmiran: ''Ragn anteriour'') is one of the two sources of the Rhine. Its catchment area ...

valley in Grisons.

Geography

The valley is the site of an important geological feature of the

Glarus Alps The Glarus Alps (german: Glarner Alpen) are a mountain range in central Switzerland. They are bordered by the Uri Alps and the Schwyz Alps to the west, the Lepontine Alps to the south, the Appenzell Alps to the northeast. The eastern part of ...

, 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.

Name

The name '' Sernf'' (earlier also ''Sernft'') is of pre-Germanic origin, either Celtic or an example of Old European hydronymy. 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 in his

Spiegel Online ''Der Spiegel (online)'' is a German news website. Before the renaming in January 2020, the website's name was ''Spiegel Online'' (short ''SPON''). It was founded in 1994 as the online offshoot of the German news magazine, ''Der Spiegel'', wi ...

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 Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...

", from ''Genava''.

References

{{Authority control Valleys of Switzerland Valleys of the Alps Aare Landforms of the canton of Glarus