K. Būga – lietuvių onomastikos pradininkas

IŠ LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS ISTORIJOS LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XX (1980) A. VANAGAS K. BŪGA – THE FOUNDER OF LITHUANIAN ONOMASTICS The life and scholarly work of our great compatriot, K. Būga—the most distinguished representative of Lithuanian linguistics—have already received a sufficiently comprehensive overview and a principled assessment. Above all, this is the study by Z. Zinkevičius and J. Kabelka, “Kazimieras Būga,” published in the first volume of K. Būga’s collected writings1. Considerable space in this study is also devoted to illuminating K. Būga’s onomastic work. Therefore, in our article we will endeavor, insofar as possible, not to repeat what Z. Zinkevičius and J. Kabelka have already discussed at greater length, but first and foremost to attempt to assess K. Būga’s onomastic work in light of the state of this field today. This is, of course, an extremely difficult and complex task. This is primarily because K. Būga’s research into names and his conclusions were linked to the distant past of the Balts and their neighbors, their ancestral homeland, and questions of migration—in short, they served the study of ethnogenesis. Thus, the perspective of assessment broadens considerably, encompassing many problems that extend far beyond the bounds of specifically linguistic inquiry. Assessment of K. Būga’s onomastic studies is further complicated by the fact that even today the solution to problems of Baltic ethnogenesis remains in its infancy, amid a multitude of highly conflicting hypotheses and assumptions. It should also be added that the development of this field was, and continues to be, stimulated by K. Būga’s own works. It should also be borne in mind that K. Būga’s exceptional erudition and expertise in Baltic onomastics created a situation in which this scholar’s works even today very often remain the final word in scholarship, one that no one has even attempted to put differently. On the other hand, over the more than five decades since then, Lithuanian, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, and Indo-European onomastics as a whole have not stood still: many new studies have appeared, and collections and card catalogues of names have grown (in Lithuania and Latvia), and so on. As a result, some of what K. Būga explained can now be interpreted somewhat differently, refined, or corrected. Despite the obvious difficulties and dangers, we will attempt here to survey K. Būga’s onomastic work very briefly and to draw general conclusions from one perspective or another—or, more precisely, to try to identify and define its place in the development of Baltic onomastics. K. Būga wrote his first genuinely scholarly works on Lithuanian onomastics more than seventy years ago. For instance, on March 3, 1907, in St. Petersburg, K. Būga wrote an article entitled “The Suffix -eikia- and -eiko- in Surnames,” which he published that same year in volume I of “Lietuvių tauta” (pp. 82–84). In 1908 he wrote a series of short articles on Baltic mythology and related subjects. Thus, it may be said that K. Būga began his studies of the Lithuanian (and all Baltic) name stock around 1907. From then on, he was deeply concerned with questions of place names and personal names 1 Būga K. Rinktiniai raštai. V., 1958, t. 1, p. 13–100. Toliau cituojama sutrumpintai: RR I (V., 1958); RR II (V., 1959); RR III (V., 1961). 7 K. Būga pursued this interest very intensively throughout his life, that is, for just under two decades. Those dozen or so years in the life of a humanist scholar, especially a linguist of that era, when almost everything had to be begun from scratch, are a relatively short span of time. Yet during those years K. Būga accomplished so much in the research and collection of names that today we can unhesitatingly regard him as the father of Lithuanian onomastics. As with other aspects of language, the essential condition and foundation for the study of names is linguistic material, the resources of language, whose two principal sources are living speech and written texts—in our case, above all, historical documents. K. Būga understood this perfectly clearly and tirelessly collected material himself throughout his life, while urging and mobilizing others to gather place names and personal names from spoken language and historical sources. Thus, two principal strands of K. Būga’s onomastic work can be distinguished: the collection and study of names. It would seem appropriate to discuss K. Būga’s work according to these two main strands. Collection of Onomastic Material K. Būga began collecting onomastic material, like the riches of language in general, in his early youth. In a letter to J. Basanavičius, written on September 27, 1912, K. Būga reports: “To determine the ancient homeland of the Lithuanians, the names of rivers and lakes are of the greatest help. For this purpose, I had to collect not only the names of the waters of Lithuania, Prussia, and Latvia, but also those of the Belarusians — in Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Smolensk (part of it), and Grodno. By now I have collected more than 3,000 water names”2. As is known, K. Būga graduated from university in 19123. It follows that during his studies, and even somewhat earlier4, K. Būga was already collecting onomastic material intensively. Later, as he became increasingly involved in the study of place names and personal names, K. Būga sought to accelerate the collection of onomastic material as well. He recorded the material himself and through assistants. This work, with longer or shorter interruptions, continued for about 20 years. During that time, K. Būga collected a vast body of onomastic material, either himself or through assistants and helpers—his card file of nomina propria comprises about 75,000 cards. About 35,000 cards were written in K. Būga’s own hand5. The entire card file has survived and is kept at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences. It was written on cards of roughly uniform size (approximately 90 × 60 mm). The paper varies considerably—newsprint, drawing paper, and other fairly thick paper. The cards were most often cut by K. Būga himself or by assistants from notebooks, office files, and other larger sheets. Until recent years, the card file had been arranged by letter, but the cards within each letter had not been alphabetized. In K. Būga’s time, only the letter A was fully organized and alphabetically arranged. More recently, the entire file has been alphabetized, thus becoming a rich and accessible source of onomastic material for everyone. 2 RR III 806. 3 RR I 39. 4 This is shown by his letters to acquaintances, written before 1905, that is, before he entered university—see RR I 42. 5 The previously cited figure of 47,000 cards of nomina propria collected by K. Būga on various occasions is inaccurate. 8 The scholarly value of this card file is immense. It was compiled in accordance, insofar as was possible at the time, with the main requirements of onomastic collection methodology: efforts were made to accentuate place and personal names recorded from spoken language, to provide their locations, and to include the other most essential metadata. K. Būga, it is true, did not publish any special instructions for collecting onomastic material or the like, but on various occasions he did tell his assistants how such material should be recorded. For example, in a letter to M. Grigonis dated April 8, 1922, K. Būga reminds him: “For each place name, it is necessary to indicate where it is found (village and parish). At the end of each card there must be the collector’s signature (e.g., a pupil, male or female, of the Panevėžys Gymnasium…) and the date of collection (e.g., 119 21/x 20 m.).”6 There were quite a lot of assistant collectors—as one leafs through the sheets, yellowed somewhat by time, one can count dozens of different surnames, including, for instance, those of the well-known linguist A. Salys, the word collector S. Dabušis, and others. As noted, about 35,000 cards in the file were written in K. Būga’s own hand, that is, almost half of the entire collection. K. Būga recorded onomastic material from spoken language, especially place names, mostly in his native region, though many records also come from other places. Nevertheless, K. Būga was more concerned with place names, personal names, ethnonyms, and so on, attested in historical documents—he made considerably more handwritten extracts from these than from spoken language. The card file contains onomastic material from many written works and documents. However, cards with place and personal names from such written sources as the following are particularly numerous: W. Pierson. Altpreussischer Namenkodex, 1835; Scriptores rerum Prussicarum (Leipzig, 1861–1874, B. I–IV); Preussisches Urkundenbuch (Königsberg, 1882, 1909, B. I–II); A. Bielenstein. Die Grenzen des lettischen Volksstammes und der lettischen Sprache in der Gegenwart und im 13. Jahrhundert (St. Peterburg, 1892); Vaišgantas. Sąrašas geografiškųjų Lietuvos vardų („Dirva–Žinynas“, Kaunas, 1904, Nr. 10, 11); Słownik geograficzny królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich (Warszawa, 1880–1895, t. I–XIV); Russian chronicles, and others. While compiling the card file for a Lithuanian dictionary, K. Būga cut up some old printed dictionaries and pasted the cut-out words onto standard cards7. Place names found in such dictionaries were also cut out, pasted onto cards, and added to the nomina propria card file. There are relatively few of them, however. It should be emphasized that K. Būga compiled only one nomina propria card file—it included place names, personal names, ethnonyms, and everything else belonging to the onomastic corpus. The extensive onomastic card file amassed by K. Būga provided a sufficient foundation for taking up the pen and studying Lithuanian place names and personal names, as well as those of all the Balts in general. As we shall see, K. Būga did this superbly. 6 RR III 910. 7 Ibid., p. 485. 9 The work of collecting names, which K. Būga pursued with such enthusiasm, also had another impact: it created favorable conditions and a suitable atmosphere for continuing the collection of names after the scholar’s death. A favorable public opinion was formed and a tradition fostered, making this work easier for the generations of linguists who came after K. Būga. The merit of the founder of our onomastics, of course, lies not only in collecting names himself and rallying others to help. Here we must especially emphasize that K. Būga demonstrated the importance of collecting names, particularly place names, through his work—the public became convinced that names are indeed the property of the entire nation, not merely of individual linguists. Without describing in detail the subsequent course of collecting Lithuanian names, it may simply be recalled that collection continued after K. Būga’s death, albeit with fairly long interruptions. It was especially intensive in the 1940s and after the war, in Soviet Lithuania. During this period, the collections of Lithuanian names grew considerably—we now have about a million records of place names, personal names, zoonymns, and other kinds of names. The alphabetical index of place names collected from living speech alone now contains about half a million cards. The alphabetical index of Lithuanian surnames comprises about 300,000 cards, and so on. Excerpts from historical documents are not yet so numerous, but they too already number in the tens of thousands. What does this mean? It means that K. Būga’s nomina propria index is no longer the most important collection of names: the new indexes and collections are far more impressive. Yet K. Būga’s index has not lost its value even today, both as an important item in its own right among K. Būga’s legacy and as a source containing facts that are absent from present-day collections or have changed considerably. Thus K. Būga’s nomina propria index retains lasting value, and all those who will compile dictionaries of Lithuanian place names and surnames or undertake other synthetic studies in Lithuanian onomastics will be able—and need—to use it. The Study of Names K. Būga made very intensive use of the amassed wealth of names—a glance through his “Collected Writings” will readily convince anyone of this. However, it is virtually impossible to say how many works on onomastics, or how much onomastic text, K. Būga wrote, since he uses and examines name-related facts not only in specialized works devoted exclusively to problems of names, but also in various other articles and the like. For instance, in his “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” K. Būga included not only common nouns but also proper nouns. Thus, in K. Būga’s work, matters of onomastics and appellative vocabulary are often intertwined and go hand in hand. This, of course, does not mean that onomastics cannot be discussed in these works at all. K. Būga also published many specialized studies, articles, short articles, and reviews devoted solely to problems of names. They would number about 60–70, including such substantial studies as: “On Lithuanian Personal Names”8, “Studies of River Names and the Antiquity of the Aesti and Slavs”9, “The Settlement of Lithuanians in Present-Day Lithuania”10, “Kann man Keltenspuren auf baltischem Gebiet nachweisen?”11, “Material on Lithu- 8 RR I 201–269. 9 RR III 493–550. 10 Ibid., pp. 551–583. 11 RR I 496–530. 10 Lithuanian, Latvian and Prussian mythology12, etc. Many onomastic topics are discussed in the introductory chapter of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, “The Lithuanian Nation and Language and Its Closest Relatives”13, in the article “Славяно-балтийские этимологии”14, and elsewhere. K. Būga’s onomastic research covers four principal fields: anthroponymy, ethnonymy, theonymy, and toponymy. Anthroponymy As noted, the first scholarly work in onomastics was the article “The Suffix -eikia- and -eiko- in Surnames”15, published in 1907 in “The Lithuanian Nation.” In this article, K. Būga argued very convincingly, against J. Spudulis’s view, that the surname suffix -eik- is Baltic, not Slavic. The author provided both common and proper nouns showing that Lithuanian surnames with -eik- (-eika, -eikis) have counterparts in other Baltic languages too—Latvian (Penn-ekie, Tad-aiki, Zaraiki) and Prussian (Argan-eyko, Bar-eyke, Drun-eike), among others. Derivatives of this suffix are especially numerous in Lithuanian—Mažeikis, Drąseikis, Juodeikis, and so on. Derivatives with the suffix -eik- formed from words that are unquestionably Lithuanian (mažas, drąsus, júodas) leave no room for doubt about the Lithuanian origin of the suffix itself, especially since it is also common in common nouns (atbul-eikis, neval-eika, živ-eika ‘little fish,’ etc.). K. Būga’s most substantial work in anthroponymy is the study “On Lithuanian Personal Names”16. For the first time in the history of our linguistics, it examined the structure of ancient two-stem personal names and established the authenticity of personal names ending in -a and -as. The impetus for writing this study came from articles by J. Spudulis and M. Venslovas, which claimed that compound surnames had to end in -is or -ys, while compound surnames ending in -a and -as indicated that such surnames were non-Lithuanian. K. Būga understood perfectly that “the study of the names of princes and of present-day surnames will have no firm foundation until we have thoroughly investigated ordinary (appellativa) compound, two-stem words”17. To this end, he collected from spoken language and written sources 220 compound nouns and a number of adjectives ending in -a or -as. In terms of their formation, these compound common nouns, with what may be called a relatively unchanged final stem of the second constituent, differ in no way from compound personal names But-vilà, Dár-butas, Dàu-nora, Gėd-gaudas, and so on. It should be noted that words formed in this way are not recent coinages—they also occur in other Indo-European languages: Latin (agricola, pari-cida, sangu-sūga), Old High German (wâr-quèto), Slavic (voje-voda), Latvian (slep-kava), Russian (bemno-гон), Greek (ὑδρο-φόρος), and so on. Today, while agreeing with K. Būga’s view on the antiquity of compound words and personal names ending in -a and -as, we could add that Lithuanian compound personal names ending in -a and -as, 12 Ibid., pp. 143–189. 13 RR III 85–282. 14 RR I 433–495. 15 Ibid., pp. 140–142. 16 Ibid., pp. 201–269. 17 Ibid., p. 206. 11 matyt, nėra jaunesni už šios rūšies darinius su galūnėmis -is, -ys ir, pridėtina, -ius (plg. Butnorius): Priešingai, būtų pamato manyti, kad pirmieji jų yra labai archaïškos darybos reliktai, o antrieji gali būti net ir antriniai, tam tikri būdvardiniai „vediniai“ iš pirmųjų. Šią prielaidą parem ia kad ir tokios sudurtinių asmenvardžių — dabartinių pavardžių (ar iš jų kilusių vietovardžių) poros: Daũ-baras: Dau-bãris, Kaũ-baras: Kam-barỹs (< *Kaũ-baras: *Kan-barỹs), Kĩm-baras: Kĩm-baris, Dar-butas: Dar-būtis, Eĩ-butas: Ei-būtis, Gĩm-butas: Gim-būtis, Nár-butas: Nar-būtis, Nár-būtas: Nar-būtis, Skir-butas: Skir-būtis, Sũ-daras: Sū-daris, Sĩ-daugas: Si-daugis, Gin-eitas: Gin-eitis, Bar-gãila: Bar-gailis, Min-gãila: Min-gailis, Skir-gãila (plg. Skir-gailãi k.), *Skir-gailis (plg. Skir-gailiai k.), Mãm-gaudas: Mam-gaũdis, Mém-gaudas: Mem-gaũdis, Mil-gaũdas: Mil-gaũdis, Mim-gaudas: Mim-gaũdis, Viz-gaudas: Vis-gaũdis, Daũ-gilas: Dau-gilis, Daũ-girdas: Dau-girdis, Eĩ-girdas: Ei-girdis (plg. Ei-girdžiai mstl.), Daũ-jotas: Dau-jõtis, Bù-kantas: Bu-kantìs, Daũ-kantas: Dau-kantìs, Der-kintas: Der-kintìs, Mil-kintas: Mil-kintìs, Skir-mantas: Skir-mantìs, Beĩ-noras: Beĩnoris: Beĩ-norius, But-noras: But-noris: But-norius, Ei-noras: Ei-noris: Ei-nõrius, Daũ-noras: Dau-noris: Daũ-nõrius, Sau-noras: Sau-noris: Sau-nõrius, Vaikš-nõras: Vaikš-noris, Vaĩ-noras: Vaĩ-noris: Vaĩ-nõrius, Vaĩš-noras: Vaĩš-noris: Vaĩš-nõrius, Beĩ-naras: Beĩ-naris: Beĩ-narỹs: Beĩ-narius, Daũ-naras: Dau-naris, Vỹ-tartas: Vi-tartis, Bù-tautas: Bu-tautìs, Gin-tautas: Gin-tautìs, Gõ-tautas, Gõ-tautis, Jõ-tautas: Jo-tautìs, Min-tautas: *Min-tautis (plg. Min-taũčiai k.), Bãr-vainas: Bar-vainis: Bar-vainius, Gird-vainas: Gird-vainis, Kánt-vainas: Kánt-vainis, Tár-vainas: Tar-vainis: Tar-vainius, Jõ-vaiša: Jo-vaišìs, Nár-vaišas: Nár-vaišis, Nór-vaišas: Nor-vaišis: Nor-vaišius, Tól-vaišas: Tol-vaišis: Tol-vaišys, Bar-vydas: Bar-vỹdis, Beĩ-vydas: Bei-vỹdis, Buì-vydas: Bu-vỹdis, Mil-vydas: *Mil-vỹdis (plg. [Mil-vỹdžiai k.), Réi-vydas: Réi-vỹdis, Sĩr-vydas: Sir-vỹdis, Tár-vydas: Tar-vỹdis, Ter-vydas: Ter-vỹdis, Ged-vilas: Ged-vìlius, Gend-vilas: Gend-vìlis, Ger̃d-vilas: Gerd-vìlis, Gĩrd-vilas: Gird-vìlis, Jãs-vilas: Jãs-vilis, Maž-vilas: Maž-vìlis, Nór-vilas: Nor-vìlis ir kt. Sprendžiant iš dabartinių šios rūšies sudurtinių pavardžių, matyti, kad vis dėlto dauguma jų turi tik variantus su galūnėmis -a, -as, o su -is, -ys, -ius — neturi. Darinių su nepakitusiu antrojo sudurtinių žodžių sando kamiengaliu didesnį senumą jau yra pastebėję kiti kalbininkai18. In his study, K. Būga regards compound personal names as semantically motivated. He believes that “Taut-gina, But-gina, Vaiš-nóra, etymologically speaking, denote persons who ‘defend the people,’ ‘…defend the dwelling,’ ‘desire a feast…’19. He goes on to observe: “But the verbal stem of a compound word may also stand in first position, cf. čiūp-kula, kláus-žada, griau-medis. Thus, alongside Taut-gina(s), Vaiš-nora(s), But-gina(s), the language also has Gin-tauta(s), Nór-vaiša(s), Gin-buta(s)”20. 18 Skardžius P. Lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryba. V., 1941, p. 28; Balčikonis J. Rinktiniai raštai, 1978, t. 1, p. 259; Urbutis V. Daiktavardžių daryba. — Kn.: Lietuvių kalbos gramatika. V., 1965, t. 1, p. 447—448; 457. 19 RR I 223. 20 Ibid. 12 While agreeing with K. Būga that the old compound personal names of Lithuanians and other Indo-European peoples were semantically motivated, that they meant something even when their components changed places (Būt-vilas: Vil-butas, Gin-tautas: Taut-ginas, Mańt-vilas: Vil-mantas, Min-vydas: Vyd-mintas, Rim-tautas: Taut-rimas, Mańt-rimas: Rimantas < *Rim-mantas, Vytautas < *Vyd-tautas: Taut-vydas, Vil-tautas: Taut-vilas, Nór-vaišas: Vaiš-noras, Vid-mantas: Mańt-vydas, and so on), it must nevertheless be added that common nouns do not allow such free, or indeed any free, interchange of components as compound personal names do. This is a serious indication that the semantic relationship between the two components of compound personal names may be disrupted or even be optional, not always necessary. Admittedly, K. Būga gives three examples in which the first components of compound appellatives are verbal—čiūp-kula, kláus-žada, griau-medis. As is well known, there are many compound nouns of this type with a verbal second component. However, this is quite different from what we see in compound personal names, since the components of compound appellatives do not switch places in the same words (we have Gin-tautas and Taut-ginas, but alongside čiūp-kula there is no *kul-čiupa21). Consequently, the formation of compound appellatives does not explain why the components of compound personal names can change places entirely freely. Without even attempting to solve this extraordinarily complex problem, for now we wish only to recall that free interchange of the components of compound personal names is not a feature of Lithuanian alone. This phenomenon has been observed in the Old Prussian name stock: Buti-gede: Gede-buth, Gayle-minne: Mynne-gayle, Gawde-wis: Wisse-gawde, Monte-myle: Myle-munt, and so on. The components often exchange places in Old Slavic personal names: Miro-liubov: Liubo-mir, Slavi-bor: Bori-slav, Slavo-liub: Liubo-slav, and others. A similar phenomenon was characteristic of the old name stock of many other peoples as well—cf. Old German Bald-wig: Se-bald, Fridu-bert: Sieg-fried, Iranian Vanhu-data: Aipi-van-hu, Old Indian Mano-rama: Vasu-manas, Celtic Boduo-gnatus: Ate-bodua, Old Greek Διό-δωρος: *Εν-διος, and so forth.22 Thus, component interchange in compound personal names is not only widespread but also a very old feature. Apparently, in any case, it is a specific characteristic most typical of old compound personal names. However, it may not be a genetic archaism of compound personal names, since, above all, all old names were semantically motivated: they meant something and had meanings wished upon the bearer of the name. When the components changed places, the semantics of the whole name could not remain intact. There is therefore reason to think that component interchange was caused not by word formation, but by entirely different reasons, in a certain sense even non-linguistic ones. Let us take the classic example of Old German compound personal names, whose components change places without any constraint. Scholars of German personal names have long since explained the causes of this phenomenon. It emerged that there was an Old German tradition of expressing kinship and membership in the same family as follows: one component of a compound personal name was passed on to a son, grandson, or the like—that is, it became, as it were, inherited—while the other was changed. For instance, in the Song of Hildebrand there is 21 In compound appellatives formed from two nouns, component interchange is sometimes possible—cf. gaīd-vīstis: vīst-gaidis, Ežerēt-šlaitis: Šlait-ežeris, and so on. 22 Pavyzdžiai iš Fick A. Die griechischen Personennamen. Göttingen, 1874. 13 such a sequence of names: grandfather Heri-brant, father Hilti-brant, son Hadu-brant²³. Children’s names could also be formed from different elements of their father’s and mother’s names: father Gēr-hard, mother Gund-hild, and son Hild-gēr, daughter Gēr-hild²⁴. This was a widespread phenomenon²⁵. But most importantly, it was characteristic not only of the ancient Germans. Quite a few such or similar facts occur in the naming practices of the ancient Greeks—cf. father Aipo-machos, son Antti-machlos, grandfather Hippo-krates, and his grandsons Hippias and Hipp-archos, and so on. Traces of this phenomenon have also been found in the names of some other peoples. Apparently, this is a matter of an Indo-European tradition belonging to a certain period. It is, of course, somewhat later, connected with the social and economic development of society, the emergence of inheritance, the need to emphasize affiliation with one family or another and with a particular kin group, and so on. There is no direct evidence as to whether this tradition was also characteristic of the naming practices of the ancient Lithuanians. However, the fact that the unrestricted alternation of elements in compound personal names is not supported by the formation of common nouns, and that the Indo-European tradition of this phenomenon may also have influenced Lithuanian naming practices, suggests that the alternation of elements in ancient Lithuanian compound personal names is not a regular continuation of common-noun formation. It may also have been conditioned by causes similar to those mentioned above. Apparently, we are dealing with a phenomenon that would be difficult to isolate from the much broader Indo-European context. Alternation of elements is especially common in Slavic naming practices (in addition to the personal names mentioned above, cf. also cases of alternation in place names and personal names Мир-о-слав-: Слав-о-мир-; Добр-о-дом-: Дом-о-жир-; Жир-о-вит-: Вит-о-слав-; Мир-о-гощ-: Жит-о-мир-, etc.); in the opinion of some scholars, this is the result of the desemanticization of the elements: having lost their original meaning, they become certain typical formatives²⁶. In the study “On Lithuanian Personal Names,” K. Būga examined which Russian vowels replace the vowels of Lithuanian names in documents from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. This part of the study enabled the author to establish the genuine, most authentic forms of the names of the Lithuanian dukes. The names of the dukes he proposed are still universally recognized and used today: Mindaugas, Vaišvilkas, Treniota, Traidėnis, Vytenis, Jogaila, Lengvenis, Vytautas, Švitrigaila. K. Būga’s study “On Lithuanian Personal Names” laid a solid scholarly foundation for further research into ancient Lithuanian personal names and, more broadly, those of all the Baltic peoples. The most notable continuator of this work today is J. Jurkėnas, who wrote a candidate-of-philological-sciences dissertation on the subject and published several articles. K. Būga left no further specialized works devoted solely to the analysis of personal names. This, of course, does not mean that he did not study personal names thereafter. In the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” as well as in articles and reviews concerning place names, personal names are often used in the etymological analysis of toponyms. In such cases, of course, the object of study is already place names, while personal names merely help explain the origins of toponyms. ²³ Fleischer W. Die deutschen Personennamen. Geschichte, Bildung und Bedeutung. Berlin, 1964, S. 18. ²⁴ Ibid., p. 32. ²⁵ Dar žr. Gottschald M. Die deutschen Personennamen. Berlin, 1955, S. 8. ²⁶ Подольская Н. В. Восточнославянские типовые исходные топоосновы. – В кн.: Имя нарицательное и собственное. М., 1978, с. 112. 14 Etnonimika K. Būga is the most prominent researcher of Baltic ethnonyms. He explained the origins of most Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian ethnonyms or, no less importantly, established the precise, authentic forms of Baltic ethnonyms. The key to K. Būga’s success in explaining ethnonyms was his sound methodological position. Despite the fact that there had been almost no study of Baltic ethnonymy before K. Būga, and that he was the first to break new ground, he grasped a very important principle: the most characteristic model for the formation of Baltic ethnonyms is their derivation from other place names. K. Būga wrote: “A people often gets its name from the name of the land in which it lives, or from the name of a river or lake on whose banks some kind of political or cultural center has formed”27. Later studies of Baltic and Indo-European ethnonymy fully confirmed K. Būga’s assumption28. Aisčiai, áistis. K. Būga was the first to establish these forms and propose their use. He also explained that at first the Aisčiai “must have been the name used only by the tribe of the Prussians, closest to the Goths, which lived near the mouth of the Vistula and Frisches Haff, which the Lithuanians until recently still called Aismarėmis, that is, the Aisčiai lagoon”29. Later, all Prussians may have been called by this name. From the 10th century onward, the name Aisčiai is no longer mentioned—in its place appears the ethnonym prūsai. This circumstance allowed K. Būga to draw the following conclusion: “Since the name Aistis is no longer needed to refer to the Prussian people from the 10th century onward, we could use it today as the name for the entire family, whose members include not only the Prussians (the true Aisčiai of antiquity), but also the Lithuanians, Latvians, Semigallians, Selonians, and Curonians”30. Thus, K. Būga was the first to propose using the term Aisčiai for all Balts. This ethnonym was used in that sense not only in K. Būga’s writings—it remained widespread for a long time, until only a few decades ago, when it was finally supplanted by the term báltai, recommended in the preface to F. Nesselmann’s book “Die Sprache der alter Preussen,” published in 1845. K. Būga did not provide an etymology for the ethnonym áisčiai. Later researchers tried to fill this gap. In our view, the most convincing is the version proposed by K. Kuzavinis, according to which the ethnonym áisčiai is primarily associated with the river Aistà (a tributary of the Širvinta, Bartninkai). This hydronym is not unique in the Lithuanian name corpus—cf. Lake Aisetą (Labanoras), river Éisra (Pagėgiai), Jiesią < * Eisia river (Garliava), and others.31 Thus, the ethnonym áisčiai would be of hydronymic origin. Prūsai, prūsas. This is one of the Baltic ethnonyms that has attracted the most attention32. Despite numerous attempts, no one has managed to explain its origin satisfactorily. Among more recent explanations, we will mention those of J. Otrębski, V. Mažiulis, and S. Karaliūnas. J. Otrębski linked the ethnonym prūsas with Old Indic púruṣa-ḥ. The meaning of this word is not entirely clear, but it may be similar to that of Old Indic pú-mān ‘person,’ 27 RR III 629. 28 Kuzavinis K. Lietuvos vardo kilmė — Kalbotyra, 1964, t. 10, p. 8; Суперанская А В. Групповые обозначения людей в лексической системе языка. — В кн.: Имя нарицательное и собственное. М., 1978, с. 74. 29 RR III 730—731. 30 Ibid., p. 731. 31 Kuzavinıs K. Etymologica. I. Baltų etnonimų kilmės klausimu. — Baltistica, 1966, t. 1, p. 177. 32 For references, see Fraenkel E. Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg. Göttingen, B. 1, S. 659; Фасмер М. Этимологический словарь русского языка. М., 1971, т. 3, с. 389 (and the articles cited below). 15 man”33. Such semantics are indeed characteristic of ethnonyms34, but linking it directly, without any intermediate stages, to words in Old Indian is far-fetched. V. Mažiulis has expressed the view that the ethnonym prūsas may have a hydronymic origin35, but to date no one has managed to identify the corresponding hydronym. Probably the last to etymologize this ethnonym was S. Karaliūnas, linking it to Lithuanian prūsti, “to grow well, thrive...,” Latvian prausties “to become stronger, grow, thicken...” and other related words in the Baltic languages36. In form, too, this association is not new—the ethnonym prūsas had already been compared with Lithuanian prūsti, praūsti, prusna and the like by earlier researchers—O. Trubačiovas37 and, to some extent, V. Mažiulis38. What is new in S. Karaliūnas’s etymology is that he explains the semantics of the ethnonym prūsas quite convincingly (from the standpoint of ethnonymic methodology). However, this hypothesis, too, is not without its shortcomings. In our view, its weakest point is the difficulty of understanding how the reconstructed Prussian appellative *prūsis or *prūsas, from which the adjective prūsiškan and adverb prūsiškai were formed, could have acquired the meaning “people” or “nation,” if the Baltic appellatives under discussion do not have these meanings. In general, these meanings cannot be proved incontrovertibly either through internal reconstruction or by comparative linguistics. K. Būga himself did not etymologize prūso, but offered various other observations concerning its emergence, changes in meaning, and so forth. In our view, one of these observations is fundamental. We have in mind K. Būga’s emphatic assertion that prūsas is a relatively recent ethnonym: “The name Prūso cannot be older than the tenth century. If the name of the Prussian had arisen as early as the sixth to eighth centuries, then Poles and Russians would today pronounce *Prysy instead of Prusy, since at that time all Slavs still pronounced the ancient u where the sound y (Russian ы) is heard today”39. It would be premature today to claim that K. Būga’s opinion is indisputable40, but for the time being the phonetic argument seems hardly open to question. Unfortunately, later authors paid little attention to this view of K. Būga’s, which was also supported by other researchers41 (with the possible exception of E. Frenkelis42). This is, in fact, a crucial question—is this ethnonym recent or ancient? If, for example, it were to emerge that K. Būga was right, many hypotheses about the origin of this ethnonym (including those mentioned by us) would automatically fall away. Then, of course, willy-nilly, one would have to try to search 33 Otrębski J. Über die Herkunft des Preussennamens. — Lingua Posnaniensis, 1955, t. 5, S. 76—77. 34 Трубачев О. Н. Ранние славянские этнонимы — свидетели миграции славян. — Вопросы языкознания, 1974, № 6, с. 54; Суперанская В. А. Указ. соч., с. 73. 35 Prūsų kalbos paminklai. Parengė Mažiulis V. V., 1966, p. 15 (39 išnaša). 36 Karaliūnas S. Dėl prūsų etnonimo reikšmės ir kilmės. — Baltistica, 1977, t. 13, p. 372—373. 37 Трубачев О. Н. Заметки по этимологии и ономастике. — В кн.: Питання ономастики. Київ, 1965, с. 16—24. 38 Mažiulis V. Ibid. 39 RR III 731. 40 It is worth recalling a hypothesis that, although questionable, nevertheless exists, concerning the possible much broader ethnonymic, anthroponymic, and toponymic context of the ethnonym prūsas—see Топоров В. Н. К фракийско-балтийским языковым параллелям. II. — В кн.: Балканский лингвистический сборник. М., 1977, с. 81—83. 41 Mažiulis V. Min. veik., p. 13; Нелокучный А. П. Балто-северославянские языковые связи. Киев, 1976, с. 103. 42 Fraenkel E. Min. veik., p. 659. 16 other, perhaps even fundamentally new, ways of solving the problem of the origin of the ethnonym prūsas, paying particular attention, alongside the appellative vocabulary of the Baltic languages, to the extensive area of toponyms containing prūs-, which earlier researchers had also noted43 and whose overall picture was presented by A. Nepokupnas44. Latvians, Latvian. According to K. Būga, the name of the Latvians derives from the river name *Leta, *Latā45. The name must have originated where the river Lat(v)os, Let(v)os flowed46 (cf. Latavā, Latuvā, a river in Anykščiai, a tributary of the Šventoji). Lithuanians, Lithuanian. K. Būga mentions this ethnonym many times in his writings, interprets it extensively, gives its historical attestations, and so on, but does not explain its origin. After K. Būga’s death, interest in the Lithuanian did not wane. Of the many explanations, three could be mentioned—that of J. Otrębski, J. Ochmański, and S. Tarvydas. J. Otrębski associated the choronym Lietuvą with the river name Leitė (Šilutė), as well as with other related proper and common words47. J. Ochmański also considers the choronym Lietuvą to be of hydronymic origin. He points to the river name *Letovia: mentioned in Mindaugas’s letter to the Livonian Brothers of the Sword: “in ripam Lettoviae que dicitur de Lettawie (Lettowie)”48. J. Ochmański identifies this river name in historical documents with the present-day river name Latavā, Latuvā (Anykščiai, a tributary of the Šventoji)48. S. Tarvydas came closest to solving the problem of the origin of the name Lietuvõs. He observed that the name Lithuania must have originated where, in the 9th–12th centuries, a territorial, state-like entity—a semi-feudal duchy known as the Land of Lithuania—took shape. In his view, the Land of Lithuania lay south of the lower Neris, along the right bank of the middle Nemunas. S. Tarvydas continues: “There seems to be no stream called Leitė in this territory, but a stream with that name may have existed there in ancient times, and people may have forgotten its name”49. When the “Gazetteer of the Rivers and Lakes of the Lithuanian SSR” was published in 1963, it became clear that such a stream had indeed existed: it was a stream in the Gelvonai area, a right-bank tributary of the Neris, Lietáuka, Liẽtauka. Later, another variant of this river name was found—Letava. Thus S. Tarvydas’s conjecture was confirmed. K. Kuzavinis later added three more variants to the set of forms of the river name Lietáuka: Letáuka, Letávka, Litávka. K. Kuzavinis is also credited with explaining the origin of Lietuvõs. On the basis of dialectal variants and historical attestations of this river name, he established that its older form was Lietavā. As is known,50 43 See Bialatowicz J. Kilka uwag o szeskich i polskich nazwach miejscowych Prusy i t. p. — Slavia occidentalis, 1933, vol. 12, pp. 301—303; Антоневич Е. „Prussy“ в топонимике северной Польши и новгородской Руси. — In: Феодальная Россия и всемирно-исторический процесс. М., 1972, pp. 252—261. 44 Непокупный А. П. Указ. соч., с. 93—103 (čia ir tolesnė literatūra). 45 RR III 629. 46 Ibid., p. 737. 47 Otrebski J. Über die Vervollkommnung der Forschungsmethoden in der indoeuropäischen Sprachwissenschaft. — Lingua Posnaniensis, 1963, t. 9, s. 27. 48 Ochmański J. Noms des terres lituaniennes au XIIIe siècle — Lituanie, Nalszczany et Dziawoltwa. — Lingua Posnaniensis, 1963, t. 9, p. 171. 49 Tarvydas S. Lietuvos vietovardžiai. V., 1958, p. 22. 50 Kuzavinis K. Lietuvos vardo kilmė. — Kalbotyra, t. 10, p. 9 (ten ir išsami literatūros apžvalga). 17 Lithuania had a cognate or earlier form, Lietavà, as well. Thus, the key to the etymology had been found, and K. Kuzavinis very successfully brought to completion the efforts of many researchers, which, as we have seen, had led toward this goal. Curonians, kuršis. First and foremost, we owe K. Būga a debt of gratitude for definitively proving and establishing the forms kuršas, kuršiai, kuršis51. In addition, he explained the origin of the ethnonym, connecting it with Slavic korsto: Ukrainian kors “clearing, felling (of woodland), new clearing, новь,” Czech krs “a stunted, bare tree,” Polish karślak “a low, branchy, crooked tree unsuitable for firewood.” “The underlying meaning of the name Kuršo may have been ‘clearing,’ ‘felling,’ ‘Rodeland,’ or a land of ‘low, stunted trees’ and ‘bushes,’ ‘Buschland.’”52 Later there were other attempts as well,53 but all of them, including perhaps the most recent one by J. Kazlauskas,54 are, in our opinion, less successful than K. Būga’s. Semigallians, žiemgalis. The ethnonym and the name of the land, Žiemgala, were established by K. Būga. These forms of the words are still the most commonly used today. K. Būga’s proposed etymology of the ethnonym is also the most acceptable of those put forward. According to K. Būga, it is a compound word whose first element, žiem-, is related to Lithuanian žiémiai “north” and Latvian ziemelis “the same,” while the second, gal-, meant “edge, side”; compare Latvian galā “at the edge” (viņš dzīvo mūsu galā), Lithuanian gãlas “edge, side.”55 E. Frenkel later supported K. Būga’s etymology56. In 1968 V. Grinaveckis published a different hypothesis, according to which the first element in the name žiemgalių might be not žiem- (žiemiai), but žem-. V. Grinaveckis derives this element from Lithuanian žemė, žemas and relates it to numerous other Lithuanian and Latvian place names and personal names containing the root žem- (Žemalė, Žemupis, Žemaičiai, Žemygala, etc.)57. However, in our view, this hypothesis is unlikely to be able to compete with K. Būga’s, since K. Būga clearly demonstrated that the root of the ethnonym was žiem-. This is fully confirmed by the 11th-century Scandinavian forms Seimgala, Seimgaler58 and the Russian chronicle forms Зимигола and Зимгола. The root vowel i in the latter forms can only derive from ei (cf. eiti: ūmu). It is difficult to believe that these are irregular, accidental spellings. To assume this would require accepting that the diphthong ei could have appeared in historical documents in place of Lithuanian e. The monophthongization of the diphthong ei is another matter; it is reflected in many later spellings (Semigalli, Semegallen, and so on). As J. Šliavas’s studies show, the diphthong ei > ie could regularly have developed into e in the dialect.59 The fact that the root žem- is more common than žiem-, žeim- in Baltic onomastics (for the latter, cf. Žeimis, Žeimėlis, Žeimenà, Žeimikė, Žeimenys and Žiemiškis, Žiemragis, Žiembalės, Žiemgaraistis, etc.) proves nothing. What matters is which root (žem- or 51 RR II 232–234; III 246–251. 52 RR III 234. 53 See Фасмер М. Указ. соч., 1967, т. 2, с. 338; Frenkelis E. Baltų kalbos. V., 1969, p. 58. 54 Kazlauskas J. Dėl kuršių vardo etimologijos. – Baltistica, 1969, t. 4, p. 59–63. 55 RR III 253, 737. 56 Frenkelis E. Cited work, p. 59. 57 Grinaveckis V. Dėl žemaičių vardo kilmės. – Kalbotyra, 1968, t. 19, p. 46, 48. 58 RR III 252–253. 59 Šliavas J. Kai kurios pastabos žiemgalių klausimu. – Kn.: Kraštotyra. V., 1967, p. 52 (ten ir kita literatūra šiuo klausimu). 18 žeim-) can be reconstructed from historical records (the ethnonym *žiemgalis or the like is not attested in living speech). Selonians, sėlis. The ethnonym sėlis, like žiemgālis, has not survived in living speech. K. Būga established these forms on the basis of historical records and place names suspected of preserving the same root sėl-: Sėlpilis and Sėlė (or Sėlė?). He also reconstructed the name of the country—Sėla (or Sėluona)60. However, K. Būga did not explain the origin of the ethnonym itself. And after K. Būga’s death, little attention was devoted to the Selonians61. The most comprehensive of the later explanations is that of K. Kuzavinis. In this author’s view, there is supposedly grounds for considering the ethnonym sėlis and the regional name Sėla to be of hydronymic origin. True, no hydronym as clear as, for example, Lietuvõs is known in this case. K. Kuzavinis attempts to reconstruct it: from the present-day stream name Sėl-iupis, Sėl-iupỹs (Daugailiai, a left tributary of the Šventoji), the hypothetical proto-form *Sėlia, *Sėlė is reconstructed, from which, in the author’s view, the ethnonym sėliai, sėlis and the regional name Sėla may have originated62. Yotvingians, jótvingis. K. Būga derived this ethnonym from the name Ямба, recorded in 1516 for a river flowing in the Lida district, which the Poles called Jatfa. Its Baltic form may have been *Jātvā > Lithuanian *Jótva. Later scholars, including A. Nepokupnas63, supported this etymology. It seems that even today this is the most plausible account of the origin of the Yotvingians. Following K. Būga’s research, interest in the Yotvingians did not diminish; on the contrary, it continued to grow. It is enough to recall the Comprehensive Yotvingian Expedition, which has been underway for more than thirty years, and the many other linguistic and historical studies64, including the international symposium on the Yotvingian question held in Białowieża in 197365, among others. Many of those who have studied the Yotvingian problem have, in one way or another, also addressed the origin of the ethnonym. Among the original hypotheses most worthy of attention is, above all, that of J. Nalepa. This specialist on the Yotvingians proposes, and attempts to substantiate in great detail, the idea that the Yotvingians received their name from the river name Ančia. According to J. Nalepa, the oldest stem of the Yotvingians was *Ant-iv-ing-, where ant- is the root Ančia < *Antjā (or *Antia) of the river name, while ant- and -ing- is a suffix. It is not easy to explain the element -iv-, although the author tries to do so on the basis of Prussian-language data66. Thus, according to J. Nalepa, the Yotvingians would be *Ant-iv-ing-ai. Although this etymology is sufficiently attractive and well-argued, in our view it cannot yet, at least for now, claim to provide a definitive solution to the origin of the ethnonym Yotvingians, since the difficulties in explaining its phonetic development are considerable. 60 RR III 274. 61 The subject is discussed briefly, for example, by E. Fraenkel and O. Trubachev — Fraenkel E. Min. work, pp. 59—60; Трубачев О. Н. Ранние славянские этнонимы — свидетели миграции славян, с. 55. 62 Kuzavinis K. Etymologica, p. 179—180. 63 Непокунный А. П. Указ. соч., с. 109. 64 A broader overview is presented in the following recent works: Kamiński A. Jaćwież. Łódź, 1953; Nalepa J. Jaćwięgowie. Nazwa i lokalizacja. Białystok, 1964; Burek K. Starożytnicy i archeolodzy. Z dziejów badań archeologicznych na Białostocczyźnie. Pojezierze... Olsztyn, 1977. 65 Simpoziumo medžiaga žr. Acta Baltico—Slavica, 1976, t. 9. 66 Nalepa J. Ten pat, p. 32—33. 19 Even less convincing is O. Trubachov’s rather categorical, but not substantiated in greater detail, opinion that jótvingiai means “a crowd, a detachment”⁶⁷. Sūduviai, sūduvis. K. Būga was the first to connect this ethnonym with the river name Sūdonia⁶⁸ (Liudvinavas, a left tributary of the Šešupė). Later researchers have supported K. Būga’s etymology with comparative unanimity⁶⁹. It is true that they disagree over the interpretation of its semantics. For example, V. Mažiulis and J. Otrębski considered the ethnonym to be of hydronymic origin, whereas B. Savukynas and A. Nepokupnas would be inclined to treat Sūduvą as a land of marshes, lowlands, or the like. In our view, the first version is more acceptable. O. Trubachov’s assumption—that Sudowia means < “one’s own”⁷⁰—is left aside; the author himself offers no justification for it. Galindai, galindas. K. Būga explained this ethnonym as follows: “I derive the name Galindo from galo ‘edge’: galindas is Russian украинец ‘one who lives at the edge (of Prussian land)’⁷¹.” Later researchers supported K. Būga’s etymology⁷². P. Skardžius⁷³ and B. Savukynas⁷⁴ substantiated it particularly well with new evidence, especially from word formation. J. Otrębski disagreed with this etymology of the ethnonym galindai; in his view, the etymological meaning of * Galindā was ‘strength, crowd, multitude’⁷⁵. V. Mažiulis, essentially agreeing with K. Būga and B. Savukynas, also raises the question: “Could *Galind- perhaps also be of hydronymic origin?”⁷⁶ It seems that V. Mažiulis’s question has a solid basis—and J. Nalepa, as if he had heard it, answered it⁷⁷. In the very center of the former Galindian territory, this researcher found a lake whose name may have given rise to the ethnonym galindai. In historical sources, the lake’s name is recorded in various forms: Galent, Galanten, Gellant, Gelland, Galland, Gieląd, Gehland -See, and others⁷⁸. It seems that J. Nalepa’s hypothesis can be considered a fairly convincing and well-founded etymology of the ethnonym galindai. Daināviai, daināvis. K. Būga believed that this ethnonym, too, derives from a river name: “The name of the region Dainuvà (Prussian Dainavō), as the river and lake of the same name show, is pro- 67 Трубачев О. Н. Указ. соч., с. 55. 68 RR III 156. 69 Mažiulis V. Min. work, pp. 18–19; Savukynas B. On M. Rudnickis’s etymological interpretations of Galinda, Prieglius and Sūduva. — In: Issues in Lithuanian Linguistics, 1963, vol. 6, pp. 323–325; Otrębski J. Das Jatwingerproblem. — Die Sprache. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 1963, vol. 9, p. 158; Непокупный А. П. Указ. соч., pp. 111–112. 70 Трубачев О. Н. Указ. соч., с. 55. 71 RR III 117. 72 Endzelīns J. Senprūšu valoda. Rīgā, 1943, p. 8; Frenkelis E. Min. veik., p. 62; Fraenkel E. Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, S. 130; Kiparsky V. Finnougrier und Slaven zu Anfang der historischen Zeit. — Ural-altaische Jahrbücher, Wiesbaden, t. 42, 1970, S. 5; Фасмер М. Этимологический словарь русского языка. М., 1964, т. 1, с. 434. 73 Skardžius P. Lietuvių vandenvardžiai su -nt-. Jų daryba, kilmė ir reikšmė. — Kn.: Lituanistikos darbai, t. 3, p. 55–56. 74 Savukynas B. Min. veik., p. 322. 75 Otrębski J. Zagadnienie Galindów. — In: Studia Historica w 35-lecie pracy naukowej Henryka Łowmiańskiego. Warszawa, s. 40. 76 Mažiulis V. Min. veik., p. 18 (74 išnaša). 77 Nalepa J. Próba nowej etymologii nazwy Galindia czyli Gołę̨dzi. — In: Nalepa J. Opuscula Slavica. Lund, 1971, t. 1, s. 93–115 (arba Acta Baltico-Slavica, t. 9, s. 191–209). 78 Ibid., pp. 95–96. 20 named not after the singing of its inhabitants, but after their way of life Dainavõs paupiais79. However, K. Būga did not identify the river and lake names. Later researchers were also unable to localize the hydronym more precisely. Thus, further efforts in this direction are still desirable. Admittedly, the problem of Dainavõs has received ample attention—as the detailed explanations by A. Kamiński, J. Otrębski, J. Nalepa, and especially A. Nepokupny suffice to show80. None of them contradicts K. Būga’s view that dainãviai, Dainavà may be of hydronymic origin. J. Otrębski alone, while agreeing that Dainavà derives from a river name, regards this regional name as a derivative formed with the suffix -ava from the river name *Daina or *Deina, supposedly just as Léita – Lietuvà, and so on.81 But this view of the regional name Dainavà is apparently inaccurate. First, as we have seen, Lietuvà is not a derivative formed from a river name with the suffix -uva (-ava, -va); rather, the river name became the regional name Lietuvà (* Lietava, *Lietva). Apparently, Dainavà, too, must have derived from the river name *Dainava (i.e., a derivative with the suffix -ava or a similar suffix). Without claiming to offer a definitive answer, one may nevertheless suppose that the river name which gave rise to the corresponding ethnonym may have included the name Dainavà, borne by a stream near Varėna that flows into Lake Vard aunia. The distribution of the oikonyms and other place names Dainavà does not seem to contradict this assumption82. When discussing the Yotvingians, Dainavians, and Sudovians, the question of the meaning of these ethnonyms always arises. Without undertaking a more detailed review of the literature or assuming responsibility for resolving this rather complex problem83, I would like for now to emphasize that, to standardize usage, it would be advisable to use the term jótvingiai in what might be called two senses—a broad and a narrow one. In the broad sense, by agreement, we could use Jótvingiais to refer to all three groups of ethnic communities, groups (or whatever one might call them): the jótvingius themselves (that is, the jótvingius in the narrow sense), the sūduvius, and the dainavius. The ethnic affinity of these Baltic tribes is beyond doubt. As for the dainãvių and the jótvingių, it has even been suggested that the dainãviai, Dainavà are, as it were, Lithuanian names, while the jótvingiai, Jótva are Slavic names for the same ethnos—certain isoglosses of Baltic–Slavic ethno-territorial contacts84. Future research will show whether this assumption is borne out. Historical attestations are particularly important to this question. Such records, for example, reveal a close territorial proximity or even identity between Dainavõs and Jótvos. For example: “Denava tota, quam etiem quidem Jetwesen vocant”85; “на лѣсу Дионова Ятвязь”86; “на поущи Дионова Ятвеж”87, and so forth. However, the fact that Traidenis called himself 79 RR III 144. See also pp. 143, 156. 80 Kamiński A. A. Min. cited work, pp. 80 ff.; Otrębski J. Dainavà — the name of one of the Yotvingian tribes. — In: Questions of Slavic Linguistics. Moscow, 1963, issue 7, pp. 3–6; Nalepa J. Jaćwięgowe, pp. 46 ff.; Непокупный А. П. Указ. соч., pp. 105–111. 81 Otrębski J. Ibid., p. 4. 82 For the geographies, see Непокупный А. П. Указ. соч., p. 106; idem. Linguogeographical connections between Lithuanian and Belarusian forms of the names of the town of Dyatlovo and its surroundings. — In: Balto-Slavic Studies. Moscow, 1974, p. 147. 83 Непокупный А. П. Указ. соч., pp. 108 and 147–148, respectively. 84 Ibid., p. 108; ibid., pp. 147–148. 85 Mindaugas’s letter of 1259—see Preussisches Urkundenbuch. Königsberg i Pr., 1909, B. 1. Zweite Hälfte, S. 70. 86 Полное собрание русскихъ лѣтописей. С.-Петербургъ, 1907, т. 17, с. 368. 87 Ibid., p. 237. 21 “him the grand duke of Jotva and Dainava” (Троцень… и прозовется великим князем Ятвезским и Доновским⁸⁸) shows that Jotva and Dainava cannot be completely equated. Thus, for the time being, there is reason to speak of Jotvingians, Dainavians, Sudovians, all of whom, for convenience, could when necessary also be called by a single name—Jotvingians. The principal Baltic ethnonyms that K. Būga interpreted in one way or another have been mentioned here. But this is far from all that K. Būga accomplished in this field. Among other things, he also interpreted in considerable detail the names of many other parts, territories, and lands of Lithuania, Latvia, and Prussia, and the like. It is particularly important that K. Būga established the forms of the names of the parts of Prussia, most of which, in the forms established by K. Būga, are still in use today. Pamėdė — Prussian Po-median: Prussian po “by, under” and median “forest, woodland, timber”⁸⁹. Pagudė — Prussian Po-gudian: Prussian po “by, under” and Prussian gudde “bush”⁹⁰. Most later researchers accepted this etymology⁹¹. It is true that V. Mažiulis, following K. Būga’s etymology, cautiously notes that the root gud- in *Pa-gud- may also be of hydronymic origin, and links it with Lithuanian Gùd-upis (Gaūd-upis?). In our view, a link with Gùd-upis is possible in principle, but the Lithuanian hydronymic root gud- can hardly have anything to do with Prussian gudde “bush.” Given the ablaut, which is difficult to explain in this case, an allusion to Gaūd-upis is probably not unwarranted after all. Without claiming to offer a definitive solution, we nevertheless wish to draw attention to the view of J. Endzelīns and especially R. Ekblom⁹², undeservedly neglected in our opinion: the Prussian word gudde meaning “bush” may not be authentic at all, and its genetic relationship with the ethnonym gūdas “Belarusians” is entirely possible⁹³. Among other things, this relationship is strikingly confirmed by the entire Baltic onomasticon. What is meant is the multitude (several hundred) of Lithuanian and quite numerous Latvian toponyms and anthroponyms whose relationship with the ethnonym gūdas is beyond the slightest doubt. In our view, it would be very risky to exclude only the Prussian onomasticon from this context. There is no basis for the contrary assumption that Lithuanian and Latvian toponyms and anthroponyms might somehow be connected with the Prussian word gudde “bush,” since these two languages have no such appellative. Nor can we suppose that they once had one, because a word that gave rise to so many place names and personal names could not simply have disappeared without a trace. Thus, willy-nilly, the question arises whether Pagudė (Prussian Po-gudian) might simply mean “land of the gudai,” where gud- meant “the Gudai, Belarusians,” or even “the Goths.” It goes without saying that a definitive answer to this question can come only from a very thorough analysis of all Baltic nomina propria and nomina appellativa containing gud-. For now, we can only raise the question, bearing in mind also that Prussian gudde has no convincing etymology and is a very isolated word. ⁸⁸ Там же, с. 238. ⁸⁹ RR III 113. Dar žr. Mažiulis V. Min. veik., p. 16; Endzelīns J. Min. veik., p. 7; Frenkelis E. Min. veik., p. 60; Трубачев О. Указ. соч., с. 55. ⁹⁰ RR III 113–114. ⁹¹ Mažiulis V. Min. veik., p. 17; Endzelīns J. Min. veik., p. 7; Frenkelis E. Min. veik., p. 60; Трубачев О. Указ. соч., с. 55. ⁹² Endzelīns J. Min. veik., p. 182; Ekblom R. Balt. gudas und. schw. Gute „Gotländer“. — In: Rakstu krājums veltījums… Jānim Endzelīnam. Rīgā, 1959, S. 91–99. ⁹³ I would not be inclined to endorse without reservation R. Ekblom’s hypothesis concerning the connection between Prussian gudde and Swedish Gute “Gotlanders”. 22 Vārme – Prussian Vārme ‘Red’: Prussian wormyan ‘red’94. Nōtanga – Prussian Nōtangō or Nā tangō, Nōtungō95. K. Būga made a passing connection between this name and Lithuanian nōtung-aris ‘a bulky, clumsy person’. It is clear that this connection is insufficient to explain the origin of the region name, especially since the word nōtum-garis is itself an obvious Germanism; compare also Lithuanian nōtangaris ‘sloven, good-for-nothing’ < and German dialect Natanger96. The German dialect word, in turn, may be connected with the region name Nōtanga (German Natanger means an inhabitant of Nōtanga, a ‘Nōtangian’), though its meaning has changed. Thus K. Būga’s etymology is undoubtedly mistaken. V. Mažiulis later explained the origin of Nōtanga. In his view, “the name Nōtanga (Latin Notangia, Nattangia), from which we have nō tangus (Latin Nottangi), may also have originated from a river name: *Not-ang-, compare, for example, Lithuanian Not-a and (as regards the suffix) Al-ang-a97.” This hypothesis seems plausible. Clearly, the name Nōtanga cannot be derived either from Lithuanian Notà (a river near Žasliai), or from Nōtē || Notijà (a river near Salantai), or the like. The name of the river (or lake) from which Nōtanga was formed still needs to be “dug up” from the historical place-name record. That such a name is possible, and may also have existed in Prussia, is confirmed, among other things, by the Prussian place names Notis, Notkaymen98 and the like. Place names, including hydronyms, that may have contained the root not- also occur in the Yotvingian name inventory; compare, for example, Načwidek (Noczwidok), a lake near Šlamai, in whose name K.-O. Falk reconstructs the root *Nāt-99. In our view, particular attention should be paid to the lake name Notist100. This lake name has survived to the present day in Polish as Notyst101. In German it was written Gross Notister See102. The village name later developed from the lake name (the lake covers about 160 ha): Polish Notyst (Dolny, Mały i Wielki)103. The lake (and villages) lies in Olsztyn Voivodeship, in Mrągowo County—that is, precisely in the area where K. Būga surmised the Nōtanga region had been104. The lake name Notyst, whose Lithuanian form may have been *Not-istas or similar, should be regarded as a derivative formed with the suffix -ist(as) from the root Not- < *Nāt-. For such derivatives, compare Lithuanian Sav-istas (a lake near Daugai), Ab-istà (a river near Daugai), and Pekl-ystà (a river near Naujamiestis). 94 RR III 114. See also Mažiulis V. Min. work, p. 17. 95 RR III 114–115. 96 Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, vol. 8, p. 872. It is worth noting that a few pages later this dictionary also gives the word nōtungaris, taken from K. Būga’s writings, meaning ‘a bulky person, a clumsy oaf’ (the sentence quoted from K. Būga reads: “The name Notangos may be of the same origin as the word nō-tung-aris used by the Lithuanians of Sūduva”), which for some reason is no longer considered a Germanism and is not even connected with nōtangaris, although its relationship to the latter word, nōtangaris, is obvious. 97 Mažiulis V. Min. work, p. 17. 98 Gerullis G. Die altpreussischen Ortsnamen. Berlin und Leipzig, 1922, S. 109–110. 99 Falk K.-O. Summary of selected sections of the work “Ze studiów nad nazwami wód suwalskich“. Lund. 1973 (typescript), p. 28. 100 Gerullis G. Min. work, p. 110. 101 Leyding G. Dictionary of Place Names of the Masurian District. Part II. Physiographic Names. Poznań, 1959, p. 87. 102 Ibid. 103 Spis miejscowości Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej. Warszawa, 1967, s. 749. 104 RR III 119. 23 Sémba – Prussian Sembō; Sembō105. K. Būga wrote about the origin of this place-name: “I derive the name of Semba from the obsolete word sembas ‘one’s own, Sippenangehöriger, socius’, which I connect with the Slavic word sebr, ‘the same’: Russian сябр...”. This etymology is supported by O. Trubačiovas106. Regarding this explanation of the origin, it can be said that it is entirely acceptable in theory, but the difficulty is that, as V. Mažiulis rightly observed, “it is impossible to determine the quality of the initial consonant of the word (whether the Prussians pronounced *s- or *z-)”107. For this most important reason, there is now simply no basis for the etymology. In that case, of course, other explanations can only be regarded as hypotheses, including that of V. Grinaveckis, who says of the place-name Sémba that “the land of the Baltic tribe, the so-called Semba, Sambija, was most likely called Žemė (Žemija) until historical times.” Its inhabitants would have called themselves žemiai108. Nadruvā – Prussian Nadravō109. K. Būga notes that the origin of the region’s name is unclear. It can supposedly be connected either with Prussian nadruw-isman “hope, Hofnung,” <na “on” and druwit “to believe” (nadruwjas would then mean “one who relies, a person of hope”), or considered a derivative with the prefix na “on” from the word *dravis “dravis, борть”. Nadruvā, according to K. Būga, would mean “On-Dravė.” V. Mažiulis regards the name Nadruvā as being of unclear origin, but suggests that it may derive from a hydronym: *Na-drav- < *Ne-drav-, compare Lithuanian Ne-vardā, dialectally Na-vardā. V. Mažiulis compares the hydronymic root drav- with Prussian Drew-ancz (Drav-anta)110. In our view, a hydronymic origin for the place-name Nadruvā would probably be the most plausible. In a study by K. Kuzavinis published at almost the same time as V. Mažiulis’s, it is argued quite convincingly that the hydronym that gave rise to the place-name Nadruvā may have been the river name Drūoja (Išrutis, a tributary of the Prieglius). The relationship between the present form Drūoja and the presumed earlier *Drava would be similar to Knituoja: Knituvā, Knitavā; Breslavia: Latvian Braslava, and so on. K. Kuzavinis, in our view, rightly argues that *Nadrava, Nadruvā means “the region situated on the banks of the Drava River” (Prussian na “on”)111. Skalvā – Prussian Skalvō. K. Būga did not explain the origin of the name. In V. Mažiulis’s view, this place-name, too, may derive from a river name; compare Lithuanian Skalvỹs (a river in the Šiauliai area)112. K. Kuzavinis substantiated this origin of the place-name and supplemented it with new facts113. Bārta – Prussian Bārtā. K. Būga noted that “the name Bārta may be of the same origin as the Curonian river name Bārtuva”114. This connection would be acceptable only if, 105 RR III 115. 106 Трубачев О. Указ. соч., с. 55. 107 Mažiulis V. Cited work, pp. 17–18. 108 Grinaveckis V. Cited work, p. 47. 109 RR III 115. 110 Mažiulis V. Cited work, pp. 19–20 (footnote 91). 111 Kuzavinis K. Etymologica, p. 179. 112 Mažiulis V. Cited work, p. 20. For the river name Skalvỹs and its relationship to Skalā (a river in the Žasliai area), see Schmid W. P. Zur primären -u Ableitung in einigen baltischen Gewässernamen. – Donum Balticum. Stockholm, 1970, S. 476. 113 Kuzavinis K. Cited work, p. 179. 114 RR III 118. 24 even if the regional name Bārta were, as V. Mažiulis115 surmises, of river-name origin. In our view, its hydronymic origin seems quite possible—compare, for example, the variant or even older form Bārtuva, the river name Bartwa116, the river name Bārtis (in the vicinity of Krekenava), and so on. Sasna. K. Būga linked this regional name with Prussian sasnis ‘hare’ and suggested that the name of a river in the Sūduva region, Sasnā (in the vicinity of Sasnava), and the town name derived from it, Sasnavā, should be considered of Prussian origin117. A. Nepokupnas118 also agrees with this hypothesis of K. Būga. Kulmas. K. Būga considers this name Polish—the Poles call it Chełmno: Slavic хълмъ ‘hill’119. Liubavas. K. Būga likewise considers this name Polish—compare Polish Lubów, Lubowo120. Besides Prussia, K. Būga also explained the names of many regions of Lithuania and Latvia and identified the forms most suitable for accepted usage. For example, he noted that “the western part of the Lithuanian nation, having gradually lost the name Lithuanian, today calls itself only žemaičiai [Samogitians]. From historical documents we know that the name Lithuanian was still current among the Samogitians in the fifteenth century.” K. Būga supports this idea with evidence from historical documents, including a letter from Vytautas to King Sigismund121. K. Būga goes on to write that “the names Aukštaitis and žemaitis were coined by Lithuanians not to denote nationality (Nationalitätsbezeichnung), nor descent, but to mark the character of the area of residence (Wohnsitzbezeichnung)… History tells us that both Aukštaičiai and Žemaičiai are Lithuanians of the same stock, since both have the same language and the same people, to use Vytautas’s words—unum idioma et uni homines122.” K. Būga believes that the inhabitants of the uplands (the Vilnius–Ukmergė–Zarasai region) acquired the name aukštaičiai in the thirteenth century, while the inhabitants of the lowlands (the Nevėžis basin, as far west as the Dubysa and Venta, and almost as far north as the Mūša) acquired the name žemaičiai at the same time123. K. Būga also mentions the regions of Latvia in antiquity, sometimes commenting on their origins124. In concluding this survey of K. Būga’s writings on ethnonymy, it should also be added that K. Būga was interested not only in Baltic ethnonyms. Among his more original explanations of ethnonyms of neighboring peoples, one might mention gūdą, vókietį, rūsą, lýbį. Gudai, gūdas. K. Būga convincingly demonstrated that the ethnonym gūdas, meaning ‘Belarusian’, dates from the period (around 400 or 300 BCE) when the Goths themselves, some of whose subjects were Slavs, pronounced their name *gutaz as *ghudas (*ghudos). After the Goths moved away and Slavs remained in their place, the Lithuanians transferred to the latter the name gūdo ‘Goth’125. 115 Mažiulis V. Cited work, p. 18. 116 Žr. Vanagas A. Lietuvos TSR hidronimų daryba. V., 1970, p. 105. 117 RR III 118. 118 Nepokupny A. P. Balto-North Slavic linguistic relations, p. 104. 119 RR III 112. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid., p. 85. 122 Ibid., p. 86. 123 Ibid. West of the Venta, according to K. Būga, Curonians still lived in the eighteenth century—the boundary between the Curonians and Lithuanian Žemaičiai ran along the upper Venta in 1250 (ibid., p. 559). 124 Ibid., pp. 556–559. 125 RR II 87—88; III 124, 782—783. 25 Vōkiečiai, vōkietis. In K. Būga’s opinion, vōkietis is a derivative of the region’s name Vōkia (Lat. Vāca), just as šiaulietis is derived from Šiauliai, or the like.126 He derives the region’s name Vōkia from the name of a people in southeastern Scandinavia, Vagoth, mentioned in the writings of the sixth-century historian Jordanes, which K. Būga considers may have developed from *Wāk(ia)-goth127. But here K. Būga qualifies his claim: “Whether my conjecture … is possible, I leave to the Germanists themselves to decide.”128 As the research of M. Schönfeld, a noted specialist in this field, shows, the origin of the ethnonym Vagoth may be different as well—from *WagōR, or the like.129 Thus, as E. Fraenkel also observes, the question of the origin of Vōkia remains unresolved130. Rūsai, rūsas. This is an ethnonym that has few equals in the attention it has received from scholars131. In S. Rospond’s words, discussion of the origin of this ethnonym has been going on for 800 years, since the compilation of the “Tale of Bygone Years”132. K. Būga was a staunch proponent of the theory that the ethnonym rūsas is of Scandinavian origin. He wrote: “In ancient times (9th–11th centuries), it seems, only those Swedes who settled among the Slavs of Novgorod, the Krivichians of Polotsk, and the Polyanians of Kyiv were called ruso (Finnish ruotsi, ruossi, Greek ῥῶς). But from the 11th century onward, the name ruso, ‘Swede,’ also came to be applied to all the small Slavic peoples living under the rule of the Swedish Rus’”133. Later scholars, some supporting the Scandinavian-origin version of rūso, others attempting to find the ethnonym’s roots in the Slavic languages themselves134. Lýbiai, lýbis. K. Būga did not explain the origin of the ethnonym. In this case, however, K. Būga’s view on the Lithuanian form of this ethnonym is important, since two competing variants are now used in our writing, including linguistic works: lybis and lyvis. K. Būga favored the first form—lybis. He used this form in his writings, and in a letter to M. Vasmer unequivocally argued, citing, among other things, Latvian libietis and Old Russian ли́бъ, that the root consonant must be b, not v. It seems to us that the form lýbis (with consonant b) could be adopted for future use, since there are no particularly compelling arguments for the form with v (lyviai). Theonymics K. Būga is also a pioneer of Baltic theonymics and one of its most prominent representatives. His largest work in this field is a series of articles published in 1908–1909 in “Lietuvių tauta” under the collective title “Materials for Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian Mythology”135. Among his other articles that also examine the names of Baltic gods, “Prū- 126 RR I 550—552; II 226—230; III 824. 127 RR II 229—230. 128 Ibid., p. 230. 129 Schönfeld M. Wörterbuch der altgermanischen Pesonen- und Völkernamen. Heidelberg, 1965, S. 250. 130 Fraenkel E. Min. veik., p. 1272. 131 For the most recent works, see Rospond S. Pochodzenie nazwy Rusb. — Rocznik Slawistyczny, 1977, vol. 38, part 1, pp. 35—50; Трубачев О. Н. Лингвистическая периферия древнейшего славянства. Индоарийцы в Северном Причерноморье. — In: Slavic Linguistics. VIII International Congress of Slavists. Moscow, 1978, pp. 401—403. 132 Rospond S. Min. veik., p. 35. 133 RR II 88. 134 For the literature, see Rospond S. Min. veik. 135 RR I 143—189. 26 the gods Pilvyžas and Zvaikgštias,” “Panikas and Ukapirmas”136, “Waidelotte”137, “The Gods Pikulas and Patulas,” “The Prussian God Kurka,” “Krivė”138, “Patrimpas and His Kinsmen”139, “The Prussian God Aušautas,” “The Prussian God Gardaitas”140, “Žinčius,” “Romuva”141, printed in “Kalba ir senovė” (1922). K. Būga also mentions or discusses individual names of gods in other works. For example, in the introduction to the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” when speaking about the Yotvingians, he lists the Yotvingian–Prussian gods Ockopirmus, Aws chawts, Peckols, Gardoyths, Puschenkayts142; in his review in “Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung” he examines the name of the Prussian god Sūaitix143; in the study “Славяно-балтийские этимологии” he explains the name of the Prussian god Curche144; and in “Aistiški studijai” he discusses the name of the Prussian god (patron of navigation) Gardaitas145, among others. K. Būga’s letter to R. Bertuleit is also worth mentioning; in it he analyzes most Prussian theonyms in considerable detail146. After K. Būga’s death, the study of Baltic theonymy was not intensive. In recent decades, the development of theonymics has also been noticeably slower than that of Baltic onomastics in general. K. Būga’s work in this field therefore remains of primary importance. Among the most recent studies, the first to mention is V. Toporov’s series of articles on Baltic mythology, above all the study “Заметки по балтийской мифологии,” in which, on the basis of the distribution of theonyms in the surviving lists of Prussian gods, an attempt is made to reconstruct an overall picture of the entire Prussian pantheon147. The names of Prussian gods are also analyzed in great detail in V. Toporov’s book “Прусский язык”148. A more detailed review of the literature and a comprehensive bibliography can be found in the works by V. Toporov cited above and elsewhere149, as well as in N. Vėlius’s monograph “Mitinės lietuvių sakmių būtybės”150. Toponymy Among K. Būga’s works on Lithuanian onomastics, studies of place names occupy the largest share. We could regard his 1909 article “Воротута. Ариогала. Veredava”151 as the first clearly scholarly work in this field, in which K. Būga very convincingly— 136 RR II 155—156. 137 Ibid., p. 139. 138 Ibid., pp. 78—79. 139 Ibid., pp. 77—78. 140 Ibid., pp. 98—99. 141 Ibid., pp. 32—33. 142 RR III 132—133. 143 Ibid., p. 674. 144 RR I 448—449. 145 Būga K. Aistiški studijai. Peterburgas, 1908, d. 1, p. 8. 146 RR III 808—810. 147 Toporov, V. N. Notes on Baltic Mythology. — In: Balto-Slavic Collection. Moscow, 1972, pp. 289—314. 148 Топоров В. Н. Прусский язык. Словарь, А—Д. М., 1975. 149 See also Иванов В. В., Топоров В. Н. Исследования в области славянских древностей. М., 1974. 150 Vėlius N. Mitinės lietuvių sakmių būtybės. V., 1977. 151 RR I 131—137. 27 This proved that Mindaugas’s castle Varuta cannot be identified with either Ariogala or Veredava. Somewhat later, in “Corrections and Additions,” he argued that Varuta should be sought in eastern Lithuania, between Medėnai (in the Sudeikiai area), Kalviai (6 km from Tauragnai), Maleišiai (4 km northwest of Linkmenys), Latava (9 km from Anykščiai), Tauragnai, Užpaliai, and Utena152. Later, K. Būga wrote a dozen or so more works on toponymy, among which the following may be mentioned: “Apie senovės prūsų ir lietuvių tikrinius vardus”153, “Kann man Kelten-spuren auf baltischem Gebiet nachweisen?”154, “Upių vardų studijos ir aisčių bei slavėnų senovė”155, “Aistiškos kilmės Gudijos vietovardžiai”156, “Aisčių praeitis vietų vardų šviesoje”157, “Zarasai (Ežerenai) ir jų įkūrėjai sėliai”158, “Upių vardai – istorijos šaltinis”159, “Lietuvių įsikūrimas šių dienų Lietuvoje”160, “Dvina”161, “Jotvingių žemės upių vardų galūnė -da”162, “Sirinčia ir Страча”, “Laukesa”, “Утроя ir Вторая”, “Spera, Kena, Gauja, Neris”, “Palanga”, “Jeznas”, “Dūkštas”, “Sožies paupio lietuviai”163, “Vietų vardų šviesoje”164, “Vietovardžių atsikartojimas”165, “Upėvardžiai Adula ir Одла”166, reviews of J. Endzelīns’s book “Latvijas vietu vārdi”167 and G. Gerullis’s book “Die altpreussischen Ortsnamen”168, and others. Many place names are discussed in the introductory section of “Lietuvių kalbos žodynas,” “Lietuvių tauta ir kalba bei jos artimieji giminaičiai”169, in “Lietuvių kalbos žodynas” itself170 (since, as is known, K. Būga included in the Dictionary not only common nouns but also proper names), and in some articles not specifically devoted to place names (“Славяно-балтийские этимологии”171, “Lituanica”172, “Kalbų mokslas bei mūsų senovė”173, “Priesaga -ng-”174, and others). K. Būga very often discusses the origins and spelling of place names in his letters, especially those written to J. Basanavičius, J. Endzelīns, and M. Vasmer. 152 Ibid., p. 132. 153 Ibid., pp. 419—428. 154 Ibid., pp. 496—530. 155 RR III 493—517. 156 Ibid., pp. 518—550. 157 Ibid., pp. 728—752. 158 RR II 19—23. 159 RR III 491—492. 160 Ibid., pp. 551—583. 161 Ibid., p. 600. 162 Ibid., pp. 601—602. 163 Same place, pp. 607–611. 164 Published after K. Būga’s death, RR III 786. 165 Published after K. Būga’s death, RR III 786. 166 Published after K. Būga’s death, RR III 788. 167 RR, p. 612–648. 168 Same place, pp. 676–677; RR II 383–385. 169 Same place, 85–282. 170 Same place, pp. 283–480. 171 RR I 323–338; 433–495. 172 Same place, pp. 339–383. 173 Same place, pp. 401–410. 174 RR III 789–797. 28 It should also be noted that the origins of many place names are explained in the card index of K. Būga’s etymological dictionary of the Lithuanian language175. In these works K. Būga touched on so many place names and other related questions, especially those concerning the ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Balts, that it is impossible in this article to review them all, much less assess them. Therefore, setting aside the examination of individual place names and the survey of place-name etymology, we shall try to outline and establish, in broader terms, K. Būga’s contribution to Lithuanian and Baltic toponymy in general. In his toponymic works K. Būga examined various place names—the names of villages, hills, forests, meadows, marshes, and other features. Without a doubt, however, he devoted the greatest attention to hydronyms, first and foremost river names. It may be said that most of the major conclusions about the Balts’ past, their migrations, and their former territories arose from the analysis of hydronyms. K. Būga examined the names of bodies of water, like other place names, mainly from an etymological perspective. In the field of hydronym etymology, K. Būga attained a degree of maturity that even researchers today, with a far better foundation—first and foremost, a greater wealth of onomastic material and the overall development of onomastics—seldom manage to achieve. K. Būga did not write a specialized study devoted to the principles of the etymology of hydronyms or of place names in general. Yet his etymological practice alone already gives us a fairly clear picture of how K. Būga understood the method of explaining the origins of place names. Most importantly, however, in his works he sometimes also discusses what place-name etymology should be like. The most important exposition of such etymological principles appears in the article “Studies of River Names and the Antiquity of the Aists and Slavs” (published in 1923). In it K. Būga wrote: “In comparative potamology (the study of rivers), one must proceed as one does in the comparative (etymological) dictionary of any language. In an etymological dictionary, words—that is, common (appellative) names—are compared, whereas in potamology river (lake) names must be compared with river (lake) names, that is, proper (proprial) names. And only once river names of the same origin have been compared with one another and the geographical area of their distribution established shall we have the right to seek an etymology for the river name under investigation; this is found by comparing the proper river name with common nouns. When the lake name Мороги… was still being compared with the Lithuanian common noun márgas ‘variegated’, Yca… with úosiu ‘ash tree’, Уша… with ūžiu, ūžti ‘roar’…, comparative potamology did not yet exist. It emerges only when linguists begin comparing river names with river names176. Also still relevant to the methodology of place-name research is K. Būga’s broadly formulated principle for the etymology of common words, close to the methodology of so-called internal reconstruction: “A Lithuanian who has set his heart on tracing the origin of any word should not, as soon as he has pulled some little word out of a dictionary, dash off to distant India, Greece, or (so fashionable today) even Armenia, without any connection to the others. First of all, we seek an explanation for the word being etymologized in a Lithuanian dictionary. Having dealt with our own” 175 The card index is kept at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR. 176 RR III 510. 29 language dictionaries, we go to our linguistic brothers, the Latvians and Prussians. From there we proceed to the land of the Slavs. And only after dealing with those do we earn the right to glance at the dictionaries of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Germanic, Celtic, and other related languages”},{177. These etymological principles are, one might say, classical and have not lost their relevance even today. A sound method for explaining the origins of place names, K. Būga’s immense linguistic erudition and competence in Baltic, Slavic, and Indo-European studies in general, and his exceptional scholarly integrity were the conditions that made possible the rare precision with which he explained the origins of particular place names. Even now, more than five decades after K. Būga’s death, most of his etymologies remain virtually unaltered and provide a solid foundation for the further development of the etymology of Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian place names, and partly also those of the East Slavs—above all, hydronyms178. For K. Būga, explaining place names was not an end in itself—he belonged to those linguists who understood that, alongside its immanent tasks, linguistics also has much broader ones, extending far beyond the bounds of specialized linguistic inquiry and serving more general purposes connected both with the history of the Lithuanian nation and with its present status. K. Būga demonstrated in all his works that the science of language, especially the study of place names, can help solve problems in this field. He also repeatedly emphasized this purpose of linguistics in explicit terms: “Linguists’ research has shown that language is the best source for history. One must only know how to use it”179; “Our language can serve the historian-linguist as an archive in which historical documents are made up not only of common but also of proper names. The land can tell us where a people lived in ancient times: one need only know how to question it and understand its answer”180; “Through place names, the land itself speaks to us. The words of its language are the names of towns, villages, rivers, lakes, marshes, forests, hills, and so on”181; “To study the unwritten history of peoples, the so-called prehistory, comparative linguistics has two sources, one consisting of the language of people, the other of the language of the land (toponomastics). The language of people comprises common names (nomina appellativa). The language of the land, by contrast, consists of proper (nomina propria) place names, which designate inhabited and uninhabited places on the earth’s surface. The names of countries, cities, towns, villages… forests, islands, and other places on the earth’s surface make up the language of the land”182 and so on.183 Alongside the “language of people,” K. Būga studied the “language of the land” very intensively and reached a wide range of important conclusions. It is enough to recall that, very often, drawing on studies of place names (or proper nouns in general), K. Būga identified linguistic features of the Baltic tribes—the Selonians, Yotvingians, Semigallians, and Curonians—and their former 177 RR II 260. 178 “We owe Būga numerous etymologies of hydronyms, and a significant portion of these etymologies may be counted among the unquestionable achievements.” — In: Toporov, V. N., Trubachev, O. N. Linguistic Analysis of the Hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper Region. Moscow, 1962, p. 7. 179 RR I 402. 180 RR III 491. 181 Ibid. 182 Ibid., p. 493. 183 See also ibid., pp. 560, 568, 633, 728, 743; II 547. 30 territories, their migration routes and directions, and even the timing; he explained the relations between the Baltic languages and other neighboring languages, including the Finno-Ugric languages, as well as the interrelations and contacts among the Baltic languages and dialects themselves, and the time of their formation, etc. Most of K. Būga’s statements and findings of this kind remain valid today, so in many cases a more detailed discussion is simply unnecessary—those interested need only study K. Būga. Needless to say, the further development of Baltic onomastics has often refined or revised some of K. Būga’s conclusions and explained some matters somewhat differently. For example, the Latvian linguist V. Dambe demonstrated in her study “Blīd(i)ene Place Names as Witnesses of the Past” that in Semigallian, the palatalized consonants k’, g’ had not yet turned into the affricates c, dz by the 13th century184, while the tautosyllabic n in mixed diphthongs had been retained185. K. Būga held the view that the Semigallians pronounced c, dz in place of k’, g’186, and no longer had tautosyllabic n187. However, such substantial corrections to K. Būga’s conclusions are not common in later literature. In discussing K. Būga’s toponymic works, it seems appropriate to single out that part in which he examines Baltic place names beyond the borders of Lithuania. In the history of research into the Baltic toponymic substrate in the onomasticon of the East Slavs and, in part, the South Slavs, these works constitute, without exaggeration, an entire epoch—they not only stimulated further research in this field188, but also greatly influenced the approaches and directions taken in solving the problem of Baltic ethnogenesis. K. Būga established189 and proved beyond doubt that far to the east and southeast of present-day Lithuania, throughout the territory of the present-day Byelorussian SSR (with the possible exception of its southwestern part), there is a significant stratum of Baltic place names, above all Baltic hydronyms. On the basis of this fact, K. Būga concluded that the ancestral homeland of the Balts must have been in the places where he identified the area of the substrate Baltic place names. K. Būga believed that the subsequent history of the “eastern” Balts was connected with the arrival of the Slavs in these lands—that this had happened around the 6th century AD190. After the Slavs arrived in the former Baltic lands, the Balts, under Slavic pressure, retreated westward continuously, and only in the 6th–7th centuries did they occupy the territories of present-day Lithuania and Latvia191. Before reaching the Baltic lands, the Slavs had lived south of the Balts: “the ancestral homeland of the Slavs is to be sought in present-day Poland and Volhynia (Волынь), approximately in the area lying between the Vistula, the Carpathian Mountains, and the Dnieper from Kyiv to the mouth of the Pripyat”192. Thus, according to K. Būga, the Slavs came into the Baltic lands from the south, from beyond the Pripyat193. The Balts, driven by the Slavs, retreated westward to the Baltic coast, where “even as late as the 6th century, along the Nemunas, there still lived 184 Dambe V. Blīd(i)enes vietvārdi kā pagātnes liecinieki. — In.: Rakstu krājums veltījums… Jānim Endzelīnam. Rīga, 1959, p. 433. 185 Ibid., pp. 438–439. 186 RR III 256—257; 266—267. 187 Ibid. 188 For a broader overview of them, see Топоров В. Н., Трубачев О. Н. Указ. соч., с. 3 и след. 189 For an overview of research prior to K. Būga, see ibid. 190 RR III 551, 730. 191 Ibid. 192 Ibid., p. 730. Elsewhere, K. Būga wrote that “the Slavs have no own names for the rivers Dnieper, Dniester, and Danube, or for the Carpathian Mountains; this fact shows that the Slavs’ ancestral homeland did not extend as far as the Dnieper, Dniester, or Danube, nor the Great Carpathian Mountains” (ibid., p. 716). 193 See also ibid., pp. 744, 103. 31 our Somians”194. K. Būga creates a fairly coherent picture of the migration of all the Balts to the Baltic region. According to him, “Of all the eastern Aestians, the Lithuanians must have lived farthest east. West of the Lithuanians there must then have lived the Latvians... and the Semigallians... West of the Latvians and Semigallians lived the Selonians and Curonians... When the Slavs began to push into ancient Lithuania, the Lithuanians were forced to retreat westward... Driven by the Slavs, the Lithuanians drove the Latvians and Semigallians into the land of Vilnius, from which, perhaps around 550–650 (700) AD, the Latvians–Semigallians moved north and settled beyond the Daugava in the land of the Sēmi..., which was later called Latgale... From Latgale, the Latvian expansion proceeded into Vidzeme... By a route unknown to me, the Semigallians found themselves west of the Latvians even before the ninth century, although their name would suggest that they ought to be settled north of the Latvians... Before the ninth century, driven by the Lithuanians, the Curonians too reached the Baltic Sea near Klaipėda, Palanga and Ventspils, and expelled or assimilated the ancient local Somian inhabitants from all of what later became Courland...”195. K. Būga attempts to substantiate this scheme of Baltic migration, among other things, by what he calls the “recurrence of place names.” For instance, he observes that the inhabitants of the Baltic coast (near Sloka and Riga) must have come from the Vilnius region, since recurring place names are found in those areas: Latvian Speras – Lithuanian Spėra (a lake in the vicinity of Musninkai196), Latvian Gaujinu purvs – Lithuanian Gaujā (a river in the vicinity of Dieveniškės197), Latvian Cena – Lithuanian Kenà (a river in the vicinity of Šumskas198), Latvian Neriņš – Lithuanian Neris (Vilnius). In K. Būga’s view, the Latvian equivalents of Lithuanian place names were brought from the lands of Vilnius199. K. Būga likewise considers the names of the Suvalkija rivers Siesartis and Širvintà to have been brought from the Vilnius region, where both Siesartis and Širvintõs are also found200. K. Būga wrote that “From the names of rivers which the Slavs brought with them from their ancestral homeland into the lands of the Aestians and Finns, it is even possible to determine from which part of their ancestral homeland the Slavs came”201. He believes, for example, that the river name Vilija202 and the name of the town by the Vilija, Šumskas, were brought by the Slavs from Volhynia, where the Hypatian Codex mentions in 1232 the river Белы и and the town Шюмьскъ beside it203. According to K. Būga, there are quite a number of such place names in the Baltic lands, brought from beyond the Pripyat204. With regard to the area of Baltic hydronyms and the ethnogenetic problems associated with this phenomenon, it should be said that later studies of this and other related fields have substantially supplemented K. Būga’s findings, while also significantly revising some of them. First of all, V. Toporov and O. Trubachov demonstrated in their well-known work205 that the area of Baltic place names is much larger than K. Būga believed206, while the Bal- 194 Ibid., p. 744. 193 Ibid., pp. 737–738. 196 K. Būga, it seems, writes Spėra somewhat inaccurately. 197 Today, many more place names with gauji- are known in Latvia—Gauja (river), etc. (see Endzelīns J. Latvijas PSR vietvārdi. A—J. Rīga, 1956, d. 1, s. 1, p. 303–304). 198 The modern form Kenà seems to be a later development from Kinė. 199 RR III 608–609. 200 Ibid., p. 513. 201 Ibid., p. 503. 202 The Neris’s second name. 203 Ibid., pp. 503, 741. 204 Ibid., pp. 503–507. 205 Топоров В. Н., Трубачев О. Н. Указ. соч. 206 Cf., for example: “East of the Sozh, there were scarcely any Aists living.” — RR III 550. 32 Baltic place-names are incomparably more numerous, about 700–800 in all207. It is true that even after this work appeared, the boundaries of the Baltic place-name area were continually refined, especially in the north-east and east; what is meant here is the work of V. Toporov, V. Sedov, A. Nepokupnas, E. Kotonova, R. Ageeva, and other Soviet linguists208. Secondly, what V. Toporov and O. Trubachev demonstrated is that the Slavs’ arrival in former Baltic lands did not cause a mass migration of the Balts westward, as K. Būga believed; rather, most Balts were gradually assimilated by the Slavs in place209. In general, the picture of Baltic prehistory and their migration pattern as imagined by K. Būga now seem excessively schematic—one might say, excessively rigid and precise (even chronologically, for example, the claim that the Latvians-Semigallians moved north from the Vilnius region around 550–650 CE, and so on). It seems doubtful that we can speak so unreservedly of, say, sixth-century Selonians, Semigallians, and Curonians, their former territories far from their historical lands, and so forth, especially if we believe K. Būga and V. Urbutis that even the Lithuanians separated from the Latvians relatively late—in the seventh century CE210. As mentioned, the Semigallians still lacked in their language, up to the thirteenth century, the phonetic features that later distinguished them from the Lithuanians and brought them closer to the Latvians. There seems to be no basis for fully agreeing with K. Būga, either, that the Lithuanians and Latvians arrived in their present lands relatively late—in the sixth or seventh century CE. Among other things, this view of K. Būga’s is contradicted by the fact that archaic hydronyms are abundant in Latvia and especially in Lithuania211, whose presence in these territories can hardly be explained solely by their having been brought from former homelands. Despite these and certain other revisions that the subsequent development of onomastics has introduced into K. Būga’s concepts, now, in summing up K. Būga’s toponymic research, we must acknowledge that our great linguist remains right in many respects even today. Considering that Baltic toponymy was only taking its first steps in the early decades of the twentieth century, and that the collection of names was likewise only at its inception, one simply cannot help being astonished by the results achieved by one person in a relatively short time. Here we have been able to touch upon only briefly one or another aspect of K. Būga’s toponymic research. Some matters have been left aside because their interpretation is still not entirely clear. One such matter might be the question of the Finno-Ugric substrate in the Baltic name-stock. The author could also forgo considering other, more specific topics—first and foremost, supplementing and revising the etymologies of individual hydronyms—partly because this is intended to be done, at least in part, in another, more specialized study. The ethnogenetic issues in K. Būga’s writings were also discussed only quite briefly. Thus 207 Там же, с. 236. 208 For a somewhat fuller discussion, see Vanagas A. P. The Maximum Area of Baltic Hydronymy and the Problem of the Origin of the Balts. — In: Problems of the Ethnic History of the Balts. Abstracts of Papers. Riga, 1977, pp. 129 ff.; Ageeva R. A. Problems of Interregional Research on Toponymy of Baltic Origin in East Slavic Territory. — In: Ethnolinguistic Balto-Slavic Contacts in the Present and Past. Preliminary Materials. Moscow, 1978, pp. 66–67. 209 Toporov V. N., Trubachev O. N. Op. cit., p. 236. 210 RR III 103; Urbutis V. How the Lithuanian and Latvian Languages Became Old. — Kalbotyra, 1962, vol. 4, p. 386. 211 Vanagas A. P. Op. cit., pp. 130–131. 2. 599 33 I had to proceed in this way mainly because the problem itself, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, is so broad, complex, and intricate that greater precision and more exact solutions would often still be far from possible at present. In general, it would simply be too difficult, within the scope of a single article, to attempt even a broad summary of the current body of research into Baltic ethnogenesis. As is well known, K. Būga examined the questions of the Balts’ origins, their homeland, and migration almost exclusively from a linguistic perspective. Today, several disciplines (or groups of disciplines) have become involved in this field, above all archaeology, history, ethnography, and anthropology; K. Būga must therefore be assessed in the light of many fields of scholarship. This is evidently a subject for a separate study. It can only be added that specialists in all fields who investigate problems of the Balts’ more distant past draw on K. Būga’s work today. The account of K. Būga’s onomastic activities presented here, though very concise and fragmentary, shows that this son of a Lithuanian peasant from Pažiegė, who succumbed prematurely to exceptionally intense scholarly and other work and to harsh living conditions, accomplished a feat that continues to astonish all of us who encounter his scholarly legacy. Indeed, when speaking of K. Būga, the word “legacy” would be better placed in quotation marks, since, in scholarly terms, K. Būga’s work is not a fact of the past, but a phenomenon of the living scholarly life of our own day, grown into it with all its branches and roots, and continuing to stimulate its development. Lithuanian linguistics and research into the Baltic past would simply be inconceivable without K. Būga. As we honor the father of Lithuanian linguistics, the founder of Lithuanian onomastics and its most distinguished representative, Kazimieras Būga, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, we should also remember that his work has, as it were, come to life anew in the scholarly world of our day and was able to become part of it so organically thanks also to the efforts of Prof. Zigmas Zinkevičius, through whose care it was meticulously collected, furnished with an excellent scholarly apparatus, and published in a three-volume edition of “Selected Works.” А. ВАНАГАС K. BŪGA – FOUNDER OF LITHUANIAN ONOMASTICS Abstract The two principal areas of K. Būga’s onomastic activity should be considered the collection and study of Lithuanian and, more generally, Baltic nomina propria. K. Būga, both on his own and with the help of the wider public, compiled a card file of nomina propria containing approximately 75,000 cards. From spoken language and written sources, K. Būga personally recorded about 35,000 toponyms, anthroponyms, theonyms, and other onyms. K. Būga’s scholarly legacy can be divided into anthroponymy, ethnonymy, theonymy, and toponymy. Toponymy occupies the predominant place in K. Būga’s onomastic work. Among the principal results of K. Būga’s research in Lithuanian onomastics, which have fully retained their significance to this day, one can first of all include a highly expert analysis of the structure 34 and the origins of a large number of Baltic onyms. The well-substantiated fact that an extensive area of Baltic toponyms lies east and southeast of present-day Lithuania has also retained its significance. To this day, K. Būga’s observations on the problem of the ethnic differentiation of the Balts, based mainly on onomastic materials, and much else, remain relevant. 2*