The name "borough" comes from of "Bury", which has cognates in other Germanic languages such as the Old Norse "borg" meaning "wall, castle"; and Gothic "baurgs" meaning "city". They all derive from Proto-Germanic "*burgs" meaning "fortress". This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European root "*bhrgh" meaning "fortified elevation", with cognates including Welsh "bera", "stack" and Sanskrit bhrant- "high, elevated building".