Kocs

Kocsis a village in Komárom-Esztergom county, Hungary.

The name of the Hungarian town of Kocs is the origin of the English word coach, the Dutch and South African word koets, and the German Kutsche, Spanish coche.

Near the historic fortress-town Komárom lies the small township of Kocs. During the XVth century, the wheelwrights of the town began to build a horse-drawn vehicle with steel-spring suspension. This "cart of Kocs" as the Hungarians called it ("kocsi szekér") soon became popular all over Europe. Most western languages borrowed Hungarian adjective form of the town's name (kocsi 'of Kocs/from Kocs') to describe this new type of vehicle.

The coat of arms of the town, in addition to displaying a ram and a striped pattern, also depicts an early model cart or wagon that refers to the wheelwrights' successful industry in the town, who sold their popular invention throughout Europe. The spread of the "kocsi szekér" over Europe and hence its liguistic influence, has been linked by some theories to the king of Hungary Ferdinand III, the younger brother of Charles V who became the king of Spain, Emperor of Germany, and lord of the Burgundian Netherlands, in the 16th century, and who promoted the comfortable, spring-suspended wagons with the wealthy European nobility. (A Picture of the coat of arms would illustrate this story nicely.)

External links

• Street map (Hungarian)