Dėl „Lietuvos vietovardžių žodyno turtinimo“

ONA KAŽUKAUSKAITĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas Research areas: lexicology, onomastics, history of the language. ON THE “ENRICHMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF LITHUANIAN PLACE NAMES” I would expect that Professor Zigmas Zinkevičius’s exhortation to record the place names of one’s native region did not appear in print at just the right time for me alone (Zinkevičius 2014: 173–174). More than once I have heard or read in local newspapers and publications the names of places valuable from one perspective or another. This time my attention was caught by the book Vytogala, devoted to the birthplace of Stasys Girėnas (1893–1933), the most distinguished aviator from Vytogala, which, among other things, lists and discusses the place names of Vytogala and neighboring villages. The rich volume was prepared by Doctor of Social Sciences Benediktas Šetkus (Vytogala 2013). The editor of the volume writes: “The appearance of the village is changing. The old homesteads are nearly disappearing; there are no more threshing barns with their threshing floors, chaff lofts, sheds, durvingiai, and other nameless nooks” (Vytogala 2013: 128). I, as a lexicographer, immediately recognized those durvingiai as “needed” words, ones we will not find in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. Further on in the book, in a special chapter on place names, I also find a microtoponym based on the same appellative: “Durvingis—the bank surrounding a semicircular marsh at Stasys Lovčikas’s homestead” (Vytogala 2013: 234). The homestead’s owner, Stasys Lovčikas, personally provided a more detailed written comment: “In Vytogala, the word ‘Durvingis’ was often used in the past. It could refer to a bend in a path or road, the confluence of two streams, or the junction of two walls of a building. People would say, ‘Heaped up the sheaf of straw in the durvingis. Wait for me at the durvingis in the path.’ Durvingis is a place where two lines meet. Jaujos [threshing barns] usually had doors in such places, too.” Indeed, the Institute of the Lithuanian Language’s Onomastic Records archive contains the entry Durvingis, the very one I was trying to investigate. It turns out this is not news after all. Nevertheless, the information is, I think, worth noting: in this year, 2014, the bend in the ground around one side of the marsh is still called Durvingiu. We will enrich the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language with a new word. It is interesting that the common noun durvingis is known only in Vytogala, as is the geographical name derived from it. A distinctive Vytogala phenomenon is Galdapė, “the site of Jono Čepas’s homestead on the southern edge of the village, near the Gebenė stream. A tar kiln once stood in the woods beside that stream” (Vytogala 2013: 234). This Galdapė is even mentioned in a saying: “Ek y Galdaape ožkų kaustyti” (probably a typographical error for Galdapė). Curious, Įžvalgos / Insights 349 ONA KAŽUKAUSKAITĖ that Galdāpė is not a stream but a dry place. Could it have been here in the past? In Lithuania Minor, Galdāpė is a right-bank tributary of the Ungura (Angrapė). The element -ap- often occurs in place names in Prussian Lithuania, but is probably very rare in Lithuania (?). The second element of the hydronym, -ap-, is associated with Indo-European *ap- ‘water, river’; cf. Prussian ape ‘river’ (Pėteraitis 1992: 65). The archaic Galdapė was recorded by the renowned ethnographer Vladas Statkevičius: it is a right-bank tributary of the Lokysta, which flows past my native Šilalė. Thus the Vytogala Galdāpė led me straight to a discovery. In the Vardynas index, Galdāpė seems to be recorded only in Šilalė District. Vlado Statkevičius’s article “Where Dying Streams Flow,” first printed in the Šilalė District newspaper Artojas on 1989 03 23, No. 35, and later reprinted in volume 7 of Šilalės kraštas (Statkevičius 2006: 630–632), provides specific information about the names in the basin of one river, the Lokysta, which is 46 kilometers long. Having walked all those riversides and lowland areas himself, the author vividly describes how, winding, meandering, and trickling, “nearly 80 streams and little brooks flow into the Lokysta from forests, marshes, and hillsides.” Among them is the aforementioned Galdāpė, and there may also be some names that are absent from the index. A name of considerable interest is that of the former manor estate Labgava in Šilalė District. It is thought that the name is not local, but was brought from East Prussia, where there was a river and a town called Labgava // Labguva (Vanagas 1966: 189). The recently published Atlas of Lithuanian Manor Estates mentions the Labgava manor estate and grange, based on archival data (Atlasas 2012: 104). These records may be useful in clarifying the origin of Labgava near Kvėdarna. This would be the second case (the first being Galdāpė) of a Lithuania Minor toponym being used in exactly the same form (only?) in Šilalė District. In this context, let me also mention an interesting surname that appears neither in the Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames nor in the Vardynas index: Uginozai. It is written—or, more precisely, cast—on an iron gravestone in the Šilalė cemetery: “To the best parents, Antanas and Domicele Uginozai. Their grieving children, 1901.” While awaiting the dictionary of place names, we can submit to the Vardynas department place names that we have heard and written down, especially those that are disappearing. ŠALTINIAI Atlasas 2012: Lietuvos dvarų sodybų atlasas 1. Šilalės rajono savivaldybė, sud. Rasa Butvilaitė. Vilnius: Vilniaus dailės akademijos leidykla. 350 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXI Dėl „Lietuvos vietovardžių žodyno turtinimo“ Statkevičius Vladas 2006: Kur teka mirštantys upeliai. – Šilalės kraštas 7, sud. Edvardas Vidmantas, Albina Auksoriūtė, Edita Korzonaitė. Vilnius: Margi raštai. Vytogala 2013: Šilalės kraštas 6, antrasis papildytas leidimas, sud. Benediktas Šetkus. Utena: UAB Utenos Indra. LITERATŪRA Pėteraitis Vilius 1992: Mažoji Lietuva ir Tvanksta. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla. Vanagas Aleksandras 1966: Dėl vietovardžio Labguva darybos ir kilmės. – Baltistica 1(2), 185–189. Zinkevičius Zigmas 2014: Lietuvos vietovardžių žodyno turtinimas. – Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 70, 173–174. Įteikta 2014 m. spalio 2 d. ONA KAŽUKAUSKAITĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas Petro Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lietuva [email protected] Įžvalgos / Insights 351