*Askaburgiją

From Germanic *askaz + *burgz + *-(i)ją. The ancient forms Latin Asciburgium and Ancient Greek Ἀσκιβούργιον (Askiboúrgion) indicate such a ja-formation (Scheungraber & Grünzweig 2014: 78–79). The name is best interpreted ‘(place) at the ash hill/elevation’; ‘ash-fortress’ is possible if *burgz had already developed ‘height’ > ‘fortified height’ > ‘fortification’, but the homonymous Ptolemaic mountain name favors the older topographic sense (Scheungraber & Grünzweig 2014: 79–80). The first constituent belongs to *askaz (Kroonen 2013: 38); older scholarship reconstructs Germanic *askiz, which would more directly account for the transmitted Asci-/Aski- (Pokorny 1959: 782, s.v. *ōs, ōs-i-s, ō̆s-en-, os-k-). The second constituent *burgz continues an inherited zero-grade formation from Proto-Indo-European root *bʰergʰ-, with close Proto-Celtic brig-; the development toward ‘fortified place, town’ is shared especially by Germanic and Continental Celtic (van Sluis et al. 2023: 199, 224).