The Sernftal or ''Kleintal'' is an

alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National P ...

valley within

Glarus Süd Glarus Süd is a municipality in the Switzerland, Swiss canton of Glarus. It comprises the upper Linth valley, and the entire Sernf valley, and includes the villages of Betschwanden, Braunwald, Glarus, Braunwald, Diesbach, Glarus, Diesbach, Elm, Sw ...

, in the

canton of Glarus The canton of Glarus ( ; ; ; ) is a cantons of Switzerland, canton in east-central Switzerland. The capital is Glarus. The population speaks a variety of Alemannic German. The majority of the population (81%) identifies as Christianity in Switzer ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

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

Linth The Linth (pronounced "lint") is a Switzerland, Swiss river that rises near the Linthal, Glarus, village of Linthal in the mountains of the cantons of Switzerland, canton of canton of Glarus, Glarus, and eventually flows into the Obersee (Züri ...

. Situated in the Sernftal are the villages of

Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus ''Ulmus'' in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ...

(977 m) and

Engi Engi may refer to: * ENGI, a Japanese animation studio * Engi, Switzerland, a former municipality in the canton of Glarus in Switzerland * Engi (era) was a after ''Shōtai'' and before ''Enchō.'' This period spanned the years from July 901 t ...

(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 (; ; ; ; ), or Anterior Rhine, is the left of the two initial tributaries of the Rhine (the other being the '' Hinterrhein''). It is longer than the ''Hinterrhein'', but has a lower discharge than the latter at their confluence, w ...

valley in

Grisons The Grisons (; ) or Graubünden (),Names include: * ; *Romansh language, Romansh: ** ** ** ** ** **; * ; * ; * . See also list of European regions with alternative names#G, other names. more formally the Canton of the Grisons or the Canton ...

Geography

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

Glarus Alps The Glarus Alps () 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 Glarus Alps contains ...

, 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 (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

Name

The name '' Sernf'' (earlier also ''Sernft'') is of pre-Germanic origin, either Celtic or an example of

Old European hydronymy Old European () 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'', Wiesbaden Edition Otto Harr ...

. 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), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...

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 ' () is a German news website. It was established in 1994 as ''Spiegel Online'' as a content mirror of the magazine ''Der Spiegel''. In 1995, the site began producing original stories and it introduced ''Spiegel Online International'' for artic ...

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 ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

", from ''Genava''.

References

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