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The Real Roots Of The Name Panholzer
Dr Isolde Hausner of the Austrian Institute for Dialect and Name Encyclopaediae, a department of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (the former "Old Vienna University", a baroque building designed by Jadot), is in charge of several scholarly publication projects including historical works, lexica and dictionaries . The Dictionary of Bavarian Dialects in Austria, which is the most comprehensive documentation of Bavarian dialects spoken in Austria ever compiled, is one example of such a long-term dictionary project. Dr Hausner helped to illuminate the historic and linguistic origins of Panholz: "holz" (wood) being an ancient commonly used form of "wald" (forest) in combination with "Bann" (in the sense of "ban" or "exclusion") denoted a forest banned from public use and reserved for the hunting pleasure of the sovereign. Today, the modern and later word Bannwald is still used, but with an ecological meaning. According to the Dictionary "Waldbauliche Terminologie" (Vienna 1980) "Bannwald" is translated as "closed forest" and has three main definitions: 1) strictly enforced forest reserve, void of any human use, so that the forest vegetation can develop totally undisturbed; 2) in historic times forest areas, for which the ruler claimed exclusive ownership and use; 3) term of recent Austrian forest legislation introduced in 1974, according to which the "Bannwald" serves to protect from avalanches, mud slides, and wind.
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