Ajbelj

Ajbelj (pronounced [ˈaːi̯bəl]; in older sources also Ajbel;German: Aibel, also Eibel or Eibl) is a settlement in the Municipality of Kostel in southern Slovenia. The area is part of the traditional region of Lower Carniola and is now included in the Southeast Slovenia Statistical Region. It is a linear village standing on a hill above Kaptol. To the southeast is a karst polje with sinkholes where there are tilled fields, hay fields, and wooded land. There are large numbers of wild boar, bears, deer, foxes, and badgers in the area.

Name

The village of Ajbelj is recorded in old records as Alble and is locally known as Vajblen (with prothetic v-). The name is believed to derive from the personal name *Albelj, borrowed from German as a hypocorism of the name Albrecht. The change of the name from Alb- to Ajb- was a dissimilation process (l – ľ > j – ľ) with parallels elsewhere in Slovene. However, Heinz Dieter Pohl derives the identical German oronym Aibel, Eibel from German Alpe 'mountain pasture' via the diminutive forms Älpl, Alpl, Älpele with Middle Bavarian dialect voicing of p and vocalization of l—that is, [áibl].