K. Būgos laiškai J. Basanavičiui, E. Volteriui(?), J. Būgienei

K. BŪGA’S LETTERS TO J. BASANAVIČIUS, E. VOLTERIS(?), AND J. BŪGIENĖ Prepared by J. Karaciejus The three letters by K. Būga printed here from the manuscript collection of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, written at different times and to different people (J. Basanavičius, E. Volteris (?), and his wife), clearly demonstrate K. Būga’s dedication to the science of language and are valuable for his biography. In the first letter (Signature F 1—2209), written to J. Basanavičius on April 2–5, 1908, K. Būga examines the origin of the Lithuanian words “vaivorykštė” and “savaitė.” K. Jaunius’s influence is still comparatively strong in this letter—not only in the explanations of the origins of the words mentioned, but also, to some extent, in the spelling. The letter is interesting because, when we compare it with K. Būga’s later works, we can see how the linguist’s scholarly thinking changed. The letter’s language, spelling, and punctuation have not been corrected; consequently, it contains abbreviations that are inconsistent and somewhat unusual (e.g.: Greek. and Gr. = Greek; Lat. = Latin; Latv. = Latvian; Lith., Lit. and Li. = Lithuanian; Sanskr. and Scr. = Sanskrit, etc.). An effort was made to standardize only underlining and letter spacing, since, as we know, in his manuscripts K. Būga would underline words or parts of words under examination with two, three (or more) strokes to set them apart, and sometimes would also insert a dotted line between them. All the footnotes to this letter are K. Būga’s. The second letter (January 4 (17), 1914) appears to be addressed to E. Volteris (Signature F 7—30). In it, K. Būga informs the recipient of his illness and regrets that so much of his time has gone to waste. The third letter by K. Būga (Signature F 7—13), written to his wife on October 13, 1924, from the Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic of the University of Königsberg. In this letter, after his health has improved somewhat, K. Būga first mentions the dictionary and only later informs his family about his health and the costs of treatment. The letter is printed without any corrections. [1] To J. Basanavičius St. Petersburg, April 2, 1908 Dear compatriot! In response to your letter (March 30, 1908), I can provide the following explanations about “vaivõrykštę” and “savaitę”: I. That anyone should call “Regenbogen,” “ра́дугу,” “teçę” “Vaivo rykštė” (two separate words!), is something neither I nor the late Professor Jaunius ever heard. So-called 86 *Vaivo rykštė is everywhere, wherever this word is known, one word (not two!), as its pronunciation shows. In Kvėdarna and Rietavas this word sounds like vaivõrykštis msc., in Kuliai (Telšiai County) like vaivorykštė f. The first form of the word was also known in Stonis’s dialect: wayworiksztys (Historyia Szwenta ysz łotynyszka liżuwia pardieta ant Żemaytyszka. Par Symona Stanewicze Żemayty. Wylnuje 1823 p. 7,₁₅). Prop. Jaunius saw no rykštė ‘rod’ in the word vaivõrykštis: he divided the word into these two parts: vaivõr-ykštis, in the first of which he saw a word corresponding to Greek Hom. ἠὼ ὅρας = *dangús’ < *FāFīp, and in the second—a diminutive and dependent suffix (suffixum) -ykštia-, found in the following words: šeimyn-ykštis, band-ykštis, vakar-ykštis, pern-ykštis. According to Jaunius’s glossary, vaivõr-ykštis means ‘caelestis (sc. arcus)’ (see my notes from Jaunius, vol. III, p. 270). Vaivõr-ykštis is further, according to Jaunius, related to the word vaivõras ‘bilberry = vaccinium myrtillus < *caeruleus = of the color of the sky.’ In my opinion, vaivõr-ykštis means not ‘caelestis’ but the actual ‘arcus’ (= German [Re-gen-] bogen, Lithuanian di[n]gnã ‘tęcza’; see my “Aist. Stud.” § 70²⁰: Slavic dǫga ‘hoop’)¹. A new fact, unknown to Jaunius, compelled me to propose an etymology for vaivõr-ykštis different from that of prop. Jaunius: namely, that vaivõr-ykštis also has a second variant form, namely varvõr-ykštė (Butrimonys, Vilnius Governorate). The Butrimonys form varvõr-ykštė shows us most clearly that vaivõr-ykštis is related neither to Greek ἠὼ ὅρας (Jaunius), nor to the unattested vaivas ‘bright’ (Dr. Basanavičius. 1897, “Varpas,” p. 86), nor to vaiva ‘misfortune’ (Brückner, Starożytna Litwa 67)². I, together with my teacher prop. Jaunius, compare the word vaivõras (Kvėdarna, Rietavas, Šiauliai) = vovõras (Klaipėda, Kuršaitis) ‘bilberry’ with vaivõr-ykštis and assign it the original meaning ‘caeruleus (from *caeluleus ‘sky-blue’, by way of alteration—through dissimilation of two l’s: caelum ‘sky’; see Walde, Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 81) = of the color of the sky, bluish’. That vaivõras v. vovõras once had the meaning ‘of the color of the sky’ may be indicated by this epithet for a girl: vovor-akýtė mergėlė (Klaipėda) = vaivor-akíkė mergėlė (Kvėdarna) ‘a girl with blue eyes’ (: žýdras, -á ‘blue-colored = bláivás’ Kvėdarna, Rietavas). Vaivõras vovõras in the sense ‘caeruleus = *caeluleus’ is derived, with the help of the suffix -a-, from the consonant-stem noun vaivõr-, vovõr-, which originally meant ‘caelum’: Latvian vet[e]s-a- ‘old’ (: Greek Fétos ntr. Latin vetus, -eris), žēm-a-s (: Avestan zam- ‘humus’), Greek πε[F]αφ-ό-ς, Sanskrit pīvar-ā-s ‘fat’ (: Greek πῖαρ ‘fat, lard’). We now arrive at the conclusion that in the ancient Lithuanian language there was a word vaivõr- vovõr-, which meant ‘sky.’ As we have already seen, alongside the word for ‘sky,’ vaivõr- vovõr-, there was also a third variant form, varvõr-[ykštė]. To these three variant forms of the word for ‘sky’ we can add a fourth, vąvor- (from the older form vanvór-), found among the Samogitians ¹ Cf. Finnish ¹taivaan kaari, ²ukon kaari, ³sateen kaari ‘the rainbow’ = ‘sky arc, ²Ukko’s (= f. Ukko ‘the highest god of the pagan Finns’) arc, ³rain arc: kaari ‘arc’ ² In Brückner, l. c., vaivõr-ykštė means = ‘rod of misfortune’. In giving this etymology, Br-is undoubtedly had Finnish vaiva in mind, although he does not mention it. 87 in the word vaŋvoras ‘Schwarzbeere’³. The disagreement among the four variant forms of one and the same word shows that the original form (Grundform) of this word must have been such that vaivór-, vovór-, vaŋvór- and varvór- could all easily have developed from it. All these forms of the name for ‘sky’ could only have arisen from the Baltic original varavār-, in which the three-syllable sequence ara developed from the Indo-European sound sequence which scholars now call “r sonans” (see my “Aist. Stud.” §§ 53–56). In the Baltic languages the three-syllable sequence ara at the end of a word has the following distribution: a) it remains a if it stands in an accented syllable (sub accentu), b) or becomes i if this a is unaccented (sine accentu). This change of short, unaccented a into i caused the ancient word varavār- in Proto-Baltic to acquire the following accent-dependent ablaut: Nom. sg. virivār-s, Acc. sg. várivār-am or virāvār-am (because of the alternation of accent between the first and second a in the three-syllable sequence ara; compare barágas = bīragas ‘стогъ’ “Aist. Stud.” § 56⁴, from the older Nom. sg. *birág-s: Gen. sg. *birig-és > acc. sg. bárig-am. The intermixture of the forms birág-s bárig-am gave rise to the innovations Nom. sg. barágas [instead of *birágas] and biragas [instead of *bárigas]). From Acc. sg. várivār-am, the new Nom. sg. varivār-s was formed; from this form, through dissimilation of the two r’s (per dissimilationem duorum r), arose the stem va[r]ivār⁴ = vaivór-. Nom. sg. varivār-s should regularly have become va[r]ivār-s: “a short pretonic (antetonica) vowel disappears,” Aist. Stud. §§ 27, 28; compare pat[i]s-ai, an[a]s-ai, etc. The stem varvār- should then have become vār-: “the first part of a diphthong undergoes lengthening in Proto-Baltic,” cf. Aist. Stud. § 16, p. 31. From the stem vār-, by dissimilation of the two r’s, either va[r]vār- arose (compare Lithuanian kut-rús from *krut-rús: kru-tėti), or vānvār- (compare Latin cancer ‘crab’ from < *carcer: Greek χαρά-ινος, Latvian kan-kara- ‘Lumpen’ < kar-kar-a-: skar-ti), from which the modern words vovór-a-s and vaŋvór-a-s are derived (dialectal). The undissimiliated vārvar- survives in the Butrimonys word varvór-ykštė ‘Regenbogen’. Related to all the names for the “drunkard’s nest” and “Laumė’s sash” reviewed above is also the Latvian varav-ýksne ‘der Regenbogen’. The Latvian word varav-ýksnė arose by dissimilation from varav[r]-ýksne. The suffixes -ýkštis/ė and -ýksne (= ykšnė⁵) in the words vaivór-ykštis and varav[r]-ýksne are related to each other in the same way as in the words mókestis and mókės-nis, važiuo-tė šienau-tė and karió-nė bijó-nė. Word form (Wortform) varav(r)-, the random form in the word varavyksne, arose from an older varav[a]r-⁶: Aist. gen. sg. varavar-és ‘of the heavenly =bow’. In place of the word-form varavar-és, if the requirements of the rules (Aist. Stud. § 55) had been preserved in the language, we should expect *viri-vir-és (: unaccented Indo-European ā in the languages related to Aistian becomes ing i Aist. Stud. § 44, II); we have the first appearance of the word according to the laws of the soul (ψυχῆς), which require the elimination of variation in the word’s forms. Varavar- preserved its a unchanged into i under the influence of the following forms—forms in which a was accented: nom. sg. viri-vāri-s (from the older Aistian form varavār-a-s = Indo-European vṛvī-s; Slavic Aist. sáli-s ‘ἅλς’ < sá- 3In Iwiński’s dialect (Kalend. 1862), this word is pronounced vaivór(a)-s. Cf. his leivas ‘slender’. 4Compare žiždra ‘Grandkorn’ < ž[y]ž[g]zdrā < *žveigzdrā < *žvaigzdrā < *žva[r]igzdrā < žvaragzdr- žvir[g]zdras see “Aist. Stud.” p. 182. 5Compare upó-kšnis masculine (Rokiškis) ‘brook’. 6Because of this, v did not become u: the a following v had only recently disappeared. 88 la-s = Indo-European sḷ-s Aist. Stud. § 62), gen. sg. vīrivīr-ēs: acc. sg. vārivir-am or virāvir-am. The stem varavār-, having entered the nom. sg. from the oblique cases (casus obliqui), in the nominative should have become varavār-s (: the first part of the diphthong is lengthened) > vara-vārs > varavārs⁷. From varavār-s, lengthening was also introduced into the oblique cases, through which the stem varavār- arose; we have already encountered it in the Lithuanian words vaivōr-a-s vȯvōr-a-s vaivōr-a-s and vaivōr-ykštis varvōr-ykštė. The stem varavar-, with the short vowel a in the ending, as we have seen, survived in the Latvian name for the “Laumė’s sash,” varav-ykšne. The stem varavār- had the meanings ‘sky’ (: vaivōras ‘*caeruleus > drunkard’s nest’ < caelum) and ‘bow’ (: vaivōr-ykštis ‘Regen-bogen’). That the ‘sky’ gets its name from ‘bending’ may be shown by the following names for ‘sky’: Irish nem, Welsh nef ‘Himmel’ from Indo-European nemo-⁸ < Sanskrit nāma-tē ‘er verbeugt sich’⁹, Lithuanian dangūs, Old Prussian dengūs ‘caelum’, together with di[n]gnā ‘Regenbogen’ Aist. stud. § 70²⁰ < Latvian danga ‘Ecke, Winkel’, Slavic daga ‘Bügel’, Gothic himins, Old High German himil ‘caelum’ < Czech qem(e) ‘to bend’ (compare my notes from Jaunius, vol. V, pp. 259, 404), Latvian kamanas ‘der Schlitten’, Finnish taivas ‘der Himmel; das Himmelsgewölbe’ < taipua ‘sich biegen; gebogen werden’. The Baltic word varavār- ‘caelum = arcus’ has a cognate in Greek: *Ϝορανός > Aeolic ὄρανος ‘caelum’ and *ὀ-Ϝορανός (from which arose) Attic-Ionic οὐρανός, Doric ὠρανός ‘Himmel’; see Kretschmer, KZ XXXI, 444; Brugmann, Griech. Gramm.³, 148, Grundriss I², 824. The Greek word Ϝορανός developed from the older form *ϜορϜαρ-ό-ς: a) the second F disappeared by dissimilation: Attic ὀρθός ‘hoch’ from *ὀρθϝός = Doric ϝορϝός (Prellwitz Et. Wb. d. Griech. Spr.¹ 228), both words from *Ϝορϝός: Sanskrit ūrdhvā-s ‘hoch’, compare Lithuanian overis (Kaunas) from voverė; b) the second ρ became ν through dissimilation: τανθαρυζω ‘zittere, erbebe’ < *ϝαρ-ϑαρυγ, Slavic drъgati ‘zittern’, Lithuanian drugỹs ‘Fieber’; Anglo-Saxon gnorn = grorn ‘Trauer’, Brugmann, Kurze vergleich. Gramm. 241; Latvian dun-dur-i-s ‘eine grosse Bremse’ < dur-dur-, Homeric θοῦρος ‘stürmend’ from *ϝορ-ϝός, Lithuanian pa-dur-mai ‘ungestüm’; compare Per Persson, Studien zur Lehre von der Wurzelweiterung und Wurzelvariation (Upsala 1891), 59; kankōrėžis from *karkōr- Aist. Stud. § 65¹⁹; Greek στροφός = στ[ρ]οφός, Slavic strъblъ < *strōbrъ ‘durus’, Lithuanian sterblės; Greek ἀρχάνη from *ἀρχάρ-α Aist. Stud. § 65⁷; § 67⁸; Latin tener = Sabine tereno- ‘weich’ from *terero — Aist. Stud. § 37²⁵; Gothic anbar, Lithuanian antras = Latin alter = Slavic vъ[r]torъ, all from *ar-tero-; Greek πέμπ-πον-μι ‘I burn’ < *πιο-τροπ-; drigantās ‘Zuchthengst’ from *drigār-t-a-s Aist. Stud. § 66²; spiñtras = spi[l]tras ‘a beetle’. The Greek word Ϝορ(F)αν[< pl]-ό-ς, or with a prothetic vowel ὀ-Ϝοραν-ό-ς, is the same word as the Baltic varavār-. The Greek word form Ϝορ(F)αν-ό- from *ϜορϜαρ-ό- developed from the Proto-Greek form *ϜαρϜαρ-ό-: the first α[ρ] became ο[ρ] because of the following labial sound. ⁷ In Proto-Baltic, long a under the accent became ā, and without the accent ā; see Aist. Stud. § 16, p. 29. ⁸ The word *nēma-s once also had the meaning ‘sky’ in Lithuanian; the name for the bilberry, ném-ügė, is derived from it and is known in the Joniškėlis parish (see Явниц, Поневѣцкие говоры, ч. II, 27). ⁹ According to Jaunius, the name Nėmūnas is also derived from this root. Nėmūnas or Nėmunas means ‘bent’. 89 10 influences, such as: ὀρθός ‘high’ < *(F)ορθϝός *ϝαρϝός = scr. ūrdhvā-s < Indo-European *vrdhvó-s (: scr. vŕdha-tē ‘raises, makes grow’), πολλά ‘many’ nom. plur. ntr. < *πολϝά *παλϝά = scr. purū < *palúva Aist. Stud. pag. 202,31⁰³ (cf. J. Schmidt, Die Pluralbildungen der indogermanischen Neutra 46). The Proto-Greek name for ‘sky’, *ϝαϝαρ-ó-, like the Aistian *varavár-, is derived from the Indo-European proto-form *vṛvār- (according to the spelling system now accepted by nearly all linguists) or *vₐrₐvₐrₑ (according to my spelling system; see Aist. Stud. pag. 205, 38°), which is the weak-grade form corresponding to the strong-grade form vere-vēr-¹¹ ‘arcus = caelum’. The Indo-European name for “the bow = of the sky” is vₐrₐvēr-[i loc. sg.]; *vₐrₐvₐr-[es gen. sg.] is a reduplicated (reduplicatus) noun formed from the root vere ‘to bend, curve’ (see Aist. Stud. p. 200, 28¹⁷), Oscan uruvo f. ‘curved’ < *vₐrₐ-vó-. Reduplicated words such as Greek γάρ-γαρα ‘swarm’, Sanskrit dar-dara-s ‘burst’, Greek μόρ-μορος ‘fear’ (Brugmann, Grundriss der vgl. Gamm. d. idg. Spr. II², 47) are not foreign to the Baltic languages either. Besides the aforementioned vara-vár-, the following may be cited as examples of reduplicated words: gar-gara-s ‘nag’ Aist. Stud. § 65¹⁷, kir-ku[r]-žė ‘a fir or pine cone’ l. c. § 65¹⁹, de[r]-dervinė l. c. § 67¹, ka[r]-kár-lis ‘long spatula’ l. c. § 69²⁸ (pag. 156), ži-žirbā ‘spark’, ti-tilvis ‘τροχίλος’, Ši-sartis proper name of a river l. c. § 71¹², ger-gulė ‘crowd, group’, Greek γέργερα· πολλὰ Hes. l. c. § 71⁴⁸, gar-galas ‘knot’ l. c. § 71⁵⁰, pur-pulė ‘bud’ l. c. § 71⁵⁸, ka[r]-kar-inė ‘throat’ l. c. § 71⁸⁴, vo-veris ‘squirrel’, Ta-talá proper name of a river in Panevėžys (the root tele ‘to carry = go’); víversis in Pumpėnai¹² = voveršys, vóversi in Prūsėliai (Явь- нись, Поневѣж. говоры. ч. II, 30), voveršis in Dusetos = vi[r]viršys in Kvėdarna = Old Prussian vervirsys V, 733 ‘lark’: all these little words derive from a single Aistian proto-form, *vₐrₐ-vérs-. In many places, vaivór-ykštis /ė ‘rainbow = arcus’ is called by the name orárykštė. Orárykštė is not an ancient word inherited from Proto-Baltic, as it seems to A. Bezzenberger, A. Brückner (Starożytna Litwa, 67), and others. Orárykštė is a remodeled form of the older *ovár-ykštė, produced by folk etymology, which recognized rykštė ‘rod’ in this word. The folk etymology of the name of the town of Anykščiai, recognizing nýkšti ‘thumb’, wrongly explains it as deriving from A(í) nýkšti! (‘I hurt my thumb’)¹³. Anykščiai undoubtedly has the suffix -ykštja- (: band-ykštis), but not the word nýkštis. After the word [v]ovár- ‘arcus’ disappeared from the language, *Ovár-ykštė acquired among speakers a new morphological segmentation, namely *ová-rykštė. Folk etymology, adapting *Ovā-rykštė to ôras ‘air’, then remodeled it into orá-rykštė. 10 α changes to ο not only under the influence of F but also under the influence of v: ὀρ-νῡ-μι < *ὀρ-νῡ- Sanskrit ṛṇōmi, πολύς < *πολυσ Sanskrit purūs, cf. Aist. Stud. pag. 199, 28²³. 11 In Proto-Indo-European, every e (resp. o) standing before the accent (ante accentum) changed into a (Aist. Stud. pag. 197, 25°), which in the Baltic languages passed into i. This a remained a in the Baltic languages if it acquired an accent. 12 Vīversis from *vaivers-ý-s (Aist. Stud. § 38) < *va[r]ivers-ýs: acc. *vārivers-ym. Cf. what has been said about the origin of vaivór-ykštis. 13 Before Anykščiai was founded, an incident occurred from which the town is said to have gotten its name: A man was chopping down a tree and struck his thumb with the axe; from the pain he cried out, ‘Ai, my thumb!’, and that is how Anykščiai got its name. 90 The little word *ovár-y kštė, which folk etymology reworked into orár ykštė, arose through the alteration of two v’s (: [v]overis Kaunas, [v]ívá Dus¹⁴ ‘trace, Russian гужъ’ < and vei- ‘to bend, tie’ = Polish iwa and wiwa ‘willow suitable for weaving, tying, bending’ =: i-vai-rús, i-vij-a-s ‘косвенный’) from *vovár-y kštė; cf. vovór-a-s, vovor-ak jė mergėlė. Vovár- from Aist. vā[r]vār (+ Vocalis) < var[i]vár- (see above): vovér- (e from nom. sg.) > vover-ykštis [v]over-ykštis ‘rainbow’ Geitler Stud. 119, s. v. waiworikszis. From this investigation of ours it is clear that 1) there was no such *Vaivo and his switch; 2) The names for the “Laumė’s sash,” vaivorykštis varvorykštė, etc., are diminutives of vaivór-varvór-, etc., formed with the aid of the suffix -ykštijā-; 3) vaivór-varvór- [v]ovár- vover- etc. turi „lanko=dangaus“ prasmę ir yra išvesti iš aistiškų pirmalyčių vₐrₐvār- vₐrₐvarᵕ vₐrₐvér-; 4) The Baltic little word varavar- fully corresponds to the ancient Greek word *Fopav-ó-ς from Proto-Greek *ΦαφΦαφ-ó-ς ‘sky’; 5) orár ykštė is a product of folk etymology, derived from the no-longer-understood little word *ovár-ykštė, which arose by alteration from *vovar-ykštė. II. Prussian sawaite V. 16 ‘week’ and possi-ssawaite V. 20 ‘Wednesday’ < pusí-savaitė: Lithuanian pūsė ‘half’. The name for ‘Wednesday’ from Prussian, pūs-sevaitė (so it is said around Laukiškis, near Labguva; see Nesselmann, Thesaurus linguae prussicae 138; compare Aist. Stud. § 37¹⁶), entered the Lithuanian dialect nearest the Prussian-language border by way of borrowing. Pūs-sevaitė was therefore borrowed from Prussian at a time when savaitė was still pronounced sevaitė. Dr. Erich’as Berneker’is savo rašte „Die preussische Sprache“ (Strassburg 1896) p. 318 s. v. sawaite priveda lietuvišką „nedėlios“ vardą savaitė su sekančiu patėmijimu: „Laukischken: sawaite für nedēlē ‘üblich’. Iš kur Berneker’is žino, kad savaitė Laukiškyje yra ‘üblich’ vartojamas žodis, mums nepasısako. Lig Berneker’iui savaitė kaipo atskiras žodis buvo nežinomas. Labai abejotina, kad Berneker’is šį žodį būtų girdėjęs Laukiškyje, tuo labiaus kad apie jo kelionę ing šią vietą nieko nežinoma. Mano akyse Bernekerio žodis savaitė yra įtartinas. Jai „nedėlios“ vardas 14 Senobės prūsų Waywensis terra (XIV amž. Script. rerum Pruss. II, 404) neturi nieko bendro nei su vaivór-ykščiu, nei su įtartinu vavas „šviesus“ (Dr. J. Basanavičius, 1897 m. Varpas, p. 86). Senobės prūsų žemėskrčio vardas Waywe (Pierson, Altpreuss. Namencodex s. v. Wewe) „die Gegend, in welcher Mehlsack liegt“ senesniuose dokumentuose yra vadinamas Wewa 1288 m. arba Wewe 1292 m. (žr. Pierson l. c.). Žodylytė Wewᵃle reikia skaityti kaipo Vēvā, Vēvē (NB. prūs. ē = liet., latv. ī Aist. Stud. § 40), kuri pilnai atsako liet. miestelio vardui Vīvīs m. (Vilniaus gub.). Vaivė: Vēvē lit. Vīvīs = pr. snaiga-s V: pr. snēgū nom. plur. Grunau = āt-laikas, sāt̄as kātmas: ātlīkęs s’tas kīmas. Vaive, Vēve lit. Vīvīs, tur’ būti, yra giminės su latv. upės vardu Viva (Bielenstein Grenzen) „*lenktá“: V vei ‘lenkti’. Pavarė Vaivaris (1692 m.: „Varpas“ 1897 p. 86) yra giminė su vietovardžiais: latv. Vaivere (Bielenstein, Grenzen 115) ir liet. Veiveriai (Suvalkų gub.). Vaivaris la. Vaivere li. Veiveriai greičiausia yra išvestiniai žodžiai iš vaiveris ‘das Männlein von Eichhörnchen’ (Milcke DLWb. 144), vaivarys ‘das Männchen vom Ultis, Marder, Eichhorn, Reh u. a. Tieren’ (Nesselmann, Lit. Wb. 58); slg. Voverėnė, panaikintos karčemos vardas (važiuojant Ušpalių vieškeliu į Dusetas, 4-amę varstę nuo Dusętų). 91 If it were called in Laukiškė by a word borrowed from Prussian, then we would expect not *savaitės, but savaitės, cf. pūs-sevaitė. Berneker’s savaitė is a remodelled sevaitė under the influence of the Prussian word sawajte (безсознательная передѣлка); sevaitė, in turn, was taken from Nesselmann’s Thesaurus linguae prussicae 138. Nesselmann, l. c., instructs that the entry waite be deleted from his Lithuanian dictionary, p. 58, and sew aite, Woche, pus-sewaitė, Mittwoch be entered on p. 464. In Nesselmann (Lith. dict. 58), waite “die Woche, ist wohl kaum mehr irgendwo bekannt” arose through his inability to analyze the word pus-sewaite l. c. morphologically. In compiling his Lithuanian dictionary, Nesselmann incorrectly divided pussewaitė into parts: instead of pūs-sewaitė, he read *puse-waite; cf. also Leskien’s Die Bildung der Nomina im Litauischen (Leipzig 1891), p. [425] 575. A. Fick (Vgl. Wb. d. idg. Sprachen, II³, 775) writes *są-vaitė instead of sevaitė, quite unnecessarily, reasoning erroneously that this word meant “ursprünglich die Zeit, worin eine vaite¹⁵ ‘Volksversammlung’ abgehalten wurde”. The Prussian savaitė and Lithuanian sevaitė have no prefix są-, contrary to Fick’s claim. If savaitė were a compound word from są+vaite, it would necessarily sound like *sanvaite in Prussian. Thumb (see O. Schrader, Reallexikon 963) thinks that Old Prussian savaitė is a remodelled word from Greek σάββατον, σάββαττα, which in the New Testament means not only “Sabbath” but also “week” (Woche). Thumb’s view would be close to the truth if savaitė had not developed from the older form sevaitė. A Greek name that entered Prussian by borrowing could only have become *sabata, and in no way savaitė. From what we have said above, it is clear that neither Fick’s nor Thumb’s explanation of savaitė: sevaitė is correct. A much better explanation of the origin of sevaitė is given by Prof. K. Jaunius’s nabāštikas. Jaunius reasons that sevaitė etymologically means the same as Greek ἑβδομάς, Latin septimana, and Slavic сѫдмица ‘Woche’, that is, its name is connected with the numeral seven: Sanskrit saptá, Greek ἑπτά, Gothic sibun ‘7’. Prussian septmas or sepmas ‘septimus’ = Sanskrit saptamá-s. A form such as Greek ἕβδομος and Slavic sedmъ ‘der siebente’, from *sebdmo- (Brugmann, Griech. Gramm.³ 213), would have corresponded in Prussian to *sebdmas or sebmas (cf. sep[t]mas). The form corresponding to Greek ἑπτά ‘septem’ must have looked like *séptan in Prussian. Under the influence of the “ordinal” sébmas, *séptan was remodelled as *séban, just like Gothic sibun ‘ἑπτά’. From séban = Gothic sibun, the ancient Prussians had formed a new “ordinal”, namely séb-a-s ‘septimus’; cf. Sanskrit dáça ‘decem’ > ordinal dvā-daç-a-s ‘twelfth’, Greek ἕ-κατόν, Sanskrit çatá-m, Lithuanian šimtas ‘centum’ > ordinal šimt-á-s + is ‘сотый’. The “ordinal” sébas ‘seventh’, under the influence of the pronoun sévas ‘suus’, which had a variant form sébas ‘suus’, acquired the variant form sévas ‘septimus’. In Prussian, alongside the regular sévas ‘suus = Greek ἑός’ (: savais ‘sávas’), the new formation sébas ‘suus’ arose through dat. sg. sebe i ‘sibi = Slavic себѣ’: gen. sg. seve¹⁶ ‘savè (Kaunas)’ (: Greek ἑέ acc. < * σε/έ Brugmann, Griech. Gramm³. 247). Sébas, through the influence of case forms with stress on the ending (: instr. sg. msc. *sebō etc.), changed into sábas (: neprie- 15 The Finnish word väite, väittö ‘die Behauptung’ was borrowed from Prussian vaitė ‘consilium, concilium’; see Aist. Stud. § 6929 (p. 157). 16 Slavic gen. sg. себѧ is a new formation in place of the original *севѧ. 92 unstressed e becomes a in Aist. Stud. §§ 35—37). Further, sãbas is the instrumental singular masculine of subõ (from sabõ: unstressed a in the position before labial consonants becomes u, according to “Aist. Stud.” p. 197, 26°: upės < *apės < Pr. ãpē ‘fluvius’) the consonant became i sūbas: subba-n Enchiridion (1561) 70² ‘proprium = own’. The use of the word sėvas ‘suus = proprius’ “promiscuus” (indifferent =? mixed) alongside sėbas ‘the same’ resulted in the fact that the homonymous word sėbas ‘seventh’, although polysemous, also acquired the variant form *sėvas ‘seventh’, which must have been used interchangeably with sėbas ‘seventh’. By the time the Old Prussians formed the name of a day of the week, sėbo had already been entirely supplanted by sėvas ‘seventh’. In the Old Indian language there is a suffix -taja-, with the help of which adjectives are formed from numerals with the meaning “von so vielen Abteilungen oder Arten” [‘consisting of so many divisions or kinds’]: saptá-taja-, tri-taja- etc. Whitney, Indische Grammatik § 1245, a. From sėvas ‘seventh’, the Prussians had made an adjective with the suffix -taja- *sėva-taja-s m. ‘composed of seven parts’, *seva-tajā f. 17. In Proto-Prussian, *sevatajā must regularly have developed into *savat[a]jā (: unstressed e develops into a Aist. Stud. §§ 35—37; a short pretonic vowel disappears l. c. §§ 27, 28) > *savatjā > *savaṭjā: “a (: e: u)+Consonans+j” in Prussian develops into “ai (: ei, ui)+Cons.+j” > ai (: ei: ui)+palatal consonant” (: epenthesis); see Aist. Stud. § 10, 5°. From the nom. sg. savai’tjā came the accus. sg. sėva’tjam, which must have developed into sėva’tjem (: weakly stressed ā develops into ē Aist. Stud. § 31) and finally into sėva’tēm (: j disappears after a cluster before ē). The accus. sing. sėva’tēm gave rise to a new nom. sg. sava’tė (: unstressed e develops into a) or seva’tė (: with e generalized from the accus. sg.). The Lithuanian sevaitė, found only in the compound pūs-sevaitė, was borrowed from the Prussian word seva’tė. Prussian séva’tei can correspond in Lithuanian only to *sevatė, never to sevaîtė, since epenthesis is foreign to Lithuanian. The suffix -taja-, with which Prussian sava’tė was formed, is found by the late K. Jaunius in the Lithuanian words tritañis ‘one third’, ketvirtainis ‘quarter, quadrilateral’, < from Proto-Lithuanian *tritajū (: gen. *tritain-ės) from trí-taja-s, cf. ruduo < rūdas. K. Būgà Finished writing on April 5, 1908. [2] E. Volteriu (?) St Petersburg, January 4 (17), 1914. Dear Friend! At last I have got out of bed. I had to lie ill for more than four and a half days. The illness caught me on the evening when I was at your place, and you came to my place—without my knowing—at about 9 in the evening, where, of course, you found no one. I have 17 On the shifting of accent see mėlynas: mėlyną, ōbulmušas arklys: obulmušā kumėlė Kvedarna. 93 At first I did not want to believe that, while on your way to Remikis, you had called on me, but at last, after the maid confirmed it, I learned that the guest who had asked for Būgienė was indeed you. I am very sorry that you made such a long journey in vain. Juzė was supposed to return from Dailidė’s at eight, but came back much later. I apologize that you were unwillingly misled: I said that she had stayed at the party for the children under my care, and she had indeed been there, but only after eight o’clock. I took to my sickbed on Sunday evening. I was seriously ill: for the first three days my temperature reached 39.4° and 39.5°. On the second day I was even delirious. I had a cold. That illness alone would not have been severe, but I also had a second ailment, namely an unbearable runny nose (слога насморкъ), which so damaged my nose that it bled as many as five or six times a day. It has not stopped bleeding even now, after I got out of bed. I lost a great deal of time in vain during that illness. Yesterday, the first day after my illness, I could do nothing; even walking was difficult, as though something kept pushing me aside. As soon as I fell ill, I asked you to inform my wife and Dailidė by letter that because of my illness I could not come to celebrate New Year’s Eve and, at the same time, wish you a Happy New Year. Because of my illness, Juzė also ended up not going to Lauckaimis. The doctor will not let me leave the house. He tells me to wait until I have fully recovered. So I will not be able to visit you during the Three Kings’ feast either, under any circumstances. Perhaps I will be able to leave the house only on 8 I. My reply to Shakhmatov about my scholarship has been terribly delayed because of my illness. I wanted to enclose with that letter my article on the matters he had raised. For now I am still unable to write the letter, since speaking is quite difficult after the illness. The copies of my article, which you will receive by post, please deliver to Shakhmatov, mentioning that I was unable to do so myself because of my illness. I hope to see you at the bookshop on 8 I. Greetings, Yours, Kazimieras Būga Мал. Дворянская 7 кв. 47. [3] J. Būgienei Königsberg, 13 October 1924 My dear! I sent you a postcard letter. I am sure that Vireliūnas and Varnas have found their way into the dictionary editorial office through postcards. Vireliūnas and Varnas can work in the dictionary editorial office during the hours that Būgienė and Salys are able to agree upon. My speech is getting better day by day. I hope to return to Kaunas by November 15. Good people have deposited the clinic money with the consul in my name. I will need about 250 or 300 dollars. It would be best to have 250 dollars and 500 litas deposited with the consul in my name through the ministry. 94 There is no need for you to travel. A carriage will be needed for the journey. I take a walk in the garden for 2–3 hours every day. Warm greetings to everyone at home, Kazys From the 2nd of X, my speech began to improve, even in German. I understand myself, the nurses, and the doctors.