The Curious Word “Thalweg” and Its Connection to “Dollar” and “Neanderthal”

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, hey Grant, hey Martha, how are you?

Oh, doing all right. Who are you?

Doing great.

Yeah, this is Will calling from Boston.

Hi Will, what’s up?

So I’m a civil engineer and I’m currently working on a project where I need to design a driveway to cross a stream and wetlands to access our proposed development.

And I’m working with a wetland scientist on this project and he informed me that I needed to design the thalweg for the section of stream that we’re adjusting to accommodate our driveway.

And I was looking at this word, and I was like, this has to be a typo, because it’s T-H-A-L-W-E-G. It just looks so strange.

So I looked it up in the technical document that was referenced, and sure enough, there it was.

And a lot of these technical documents have definition sections.

So I was able to scroll down and find the definition for thalweg. It had two definitions.

A line connecting the lowest points of a stream or riverbed. And then kind of a variant definition was the deepest part of the river channel.

So my question, obviously, is not necessarily what does it mean, but it sounds like an old word.

It’s like, where does it come from? Why do we have such a niche word for this type of technical definition?

And, yeah, just generally wondering what you guys can tell me about it.

It’s usually pronounced talweg, and it is a combination of two German words.

And let’s dispense with the second half first. The veg in there, W-E-G, means way or path, you know, like the path along the bottom of a valley.

But the tall part, the T-H-A-L, at the beginning is super cool because it means valley.

And you see this word, T-H-A-L, this German word meaning valley, in a whole lot of German names, like Rosenthal, which means the Valley of Roses, Blumenthal, the Valley of Flowers.

And in Germany, there’s the Neander Valley, which gave us the word Neanderthal, which is where they found the fossils of those hominids.

But wait, there’s more.

In the Czech Republic, there’s a little town in the mountains, and in the 16th century, it went by the German name Zankt Joachimstall, or Saint Joachimstall, which translates as Saint Joachim’s Valley, Joachim being the father of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus.

And in Joachimstall, that is in Saint Joachim’s Valley, there was a silver mine, and the silver there was used to mint coins that were called Joachimstallers, that is, coins from that valley.

And in German, the name Joachimstaller was shortened to taller, which eventually gave us the English word for our currency, dollar.

Wow.

And there’s more.

I’m waiting for it.

But wait, there’s more.

There’s all this stuff about the land, though, Martha, right?

There’s all this stuff about the land because related to this word thal in German, meaning valley, is our own word dale, which is a kind of valley, and dell, which is sort of a smaller one covered with trees usually.

Like farmer in the dell.

Yeah.

And dale as in like the Yorkshire Dales, this beautiful country.

Yes.

So I’m going to take a breath here.

And Grant, did you have anything to add to all that?

Thanks, Martha.

Will, you had a really good thought when you said something about this looks like an old word.

It is an old word.

And part of the reason that is so firmly in the specialist language of English is that it goes back to boundary disputes and discussions between different nationalities and principalities and the language of diplomacy and geopolitical boundaries.

So it’s definitely it’s borrowed from like these really sophisticated, complicated international and geopolitical relationships.

So it’s a super important word that probably will never go away.

It’s not it wasn’t something borrowed accidentally.

It just really specifically represents this idea so perfectly that it’s been borrowed into French and a whole host of other European languages.

Wow, that’s so interesting.

I mean, so the etymology of the word goes back in so many different directions.

But the actual river use had boundary implications, right?

Yeah, because the talveg is often the middle of a navigable channel, same as the channel line, and that often is the geopolitical boundary between two states or nation states.

Wow.

The word talveg is often used when discussing where one country ends and another one begins.

So I realize I went off into all kinds of tributaries, but they’re so cool.

They’re all connected.

Yeah, tributary, a choice word there, I think.

Right.

Will, so every time you see this word now when you’re working with it, what are you going to think?

Oh, man.

Well, I have so much power right now because I’m moving one, right? It’s just a small intermittent stream in this application, nothing groundbreaking.

But, yeah, that’s fascinating.

No pun intended.

Wow.

You’re moving a tall veg?

Yeah, all of, you know, five feet, and it’s a very small one. I’ll put it that way.

That’s still interesting.

Well, I’ve got to imagine there’s a whole host of other vocabulary terms that you come across, and I am inviting you to reach out to us again anytime something strikes your curiosity.

We’d love to talk to you one more time about this, or several more times about this stuff.

Yeah, it’s fun.

You know, working in Boston, it’s an old city, so I get to read old, you know, zoning bylaws and terms that came in from, you know, who knows, 1600s that are just terms that stuck around.

So, yeah.

Well, thanks for spending this time with us. We appreciate it.

Yeah, please do.

Yeah, this has been a blast.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Will.

Bye-bye.

Cheers.

Will’s not the only one who encounters the language of his profession and says, wait a second, I bet there’s more to this.

We know you have that experience, too.

Call us with it.

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