LEKSIKOS TYRINĖJIMAI

LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA

REVIEWS, NOTES, CRITIQUES

COLLECTING AND STUDYING LITHUANIAN ONOMASTICS

A considerable part of the lexicon of every language consists of proper words, or onomastics: personal names (anthroponyms), place names (toponyms), water names (hydronyms), names of peoples and tribes (ethnonyms), and so on. There are hundreds of thousands of such names in Lithuanian. They are not all equally common in the literary language, and some do not occur there at all. Many of them—for example, the names of small localities or other minor features (microtoponyms), and certain personal nicknames—are known and used only within very limited areas (a few villages, and often just one village) by the people who live there; they form part only of the vocabulary of the local dialects characteristic of those areas.

Proper names arose at different times. The age of some is more or less clear, confirmed by historical events or sources. For example, the so-called Christian names entered the Lithuanian language with the introduction of Christianity (the end of the 14th century to the beginning of the 15th century). Somewhat later, mainly in the 16th–17th centuries, Lithuanian surnames took shape. New personal names, like other proper words, are coined even today. At the same time, many proper words originated in the remotest antiquity, and their age can be determined only approximately and tentatively. For instance, many names of inhabited places (oikonyms) and bodies of water that are used in present-day Lithuania are attested as early as the 13th century and in even earlier historical sources. The celebrated Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Būga emphasized in more than one of his works that the names of many rivers, lakes, and larger settlements often remain unchanged in human speech not only for hundreds but for thousands of years. For this reason, the study of proper words provides much valuable information for linguistic science and helps reveal pages from the distant past of peoples.

Interest in Lithuanian proper words has a long tradition. The earliest works in this field were attempts to compile lists of proper words. The oldest known ones are probably lists of Lithuanian place names. From the late 18th century (1784), the Central State Historical Archive of the Lithuanian SSR preserves a fairly large handwritten collection of place names from twelve deaneries of the Diocese of Vilnius. Several other publications prepared for practical church purposes, which list many Lithuanian inhabited places and their names, also provide considerable data for linguistic science¹. Many Lithuanian place names were included in the multivolume “Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic Countries”². Even more significant are the collections of Lithuanian proper words published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: J. Spruogis’s collection, comprising about 10,000 place names,

¹ Synodus Dioecesana Vilnensis, Vilnae 1744; Executorium decretum de limitibus dioecesis Vilnensis, Vilnae, 1854; Executorium decretum de limitibus dioecesis Telsensis seu Samogitiensis, Vilnae, 1854; ir kt.

² Słownik geograficzny królestwa polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, t. I—XIV, Warszawa, 1880—1895.

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“A Geographical Dictionary of the Ancient Samogitian Land of the 16th Century”³, E. Volteris’s “Lists of Inhabited Places in Suwałki Governorate”⁴, J. Tumas-Vaižgantas’s Lithuanian place names (“Sanrazas geografiszkuju Lietuvos vardu”⁵), personal and place names collected by V. Kalvaitis from the Klaipėda Region and East Prussia⁶, and so on. Almost all the place-name and personal-name collections mentioned above were compiled by non-linguists; some were published in languages other than Lithuanian, and in many respects they no longer meet the requirements of modern scholarship. Moreover, all of them have become bibliographical rarities.

K. Būga was the pioneer of systematic collection and scholarly study of Lithuanian onomastics. In a relatively short time, he assembled a fairly large index of proper words (about 47,000 names), and used the material he had collected—or synthesized it—in works of great importance to linguistic science and history, such as “On Lithuanian Personal Names,” “Kann man Keltenspuren auf baltischem Gebiet nachweisen?,” “Studies of River Names and the Antiquity of the Aestii and Slavs,” “The Past of the Aestii in the Light of Place Names”⁷, and others. Most of these works have lost none of their significance, either scientifically or methodologically, even today. Some ideas advanced by K. Būga (for example, the claim that in prehistoric times the Baltic territory extended much farther east and south than its present-day ethnographic boundary) are substantially confirmed by toponymic research by many Soviet and foreign linguists, as well as by the work of archaeologists and historians. Through his published works, K. Būga laid the foundations of Lithuanian onomastics—the branch of linguistics (more precisely, lexicology) that studies proper words.

Recognizing the importance of collecting and studying proper words, and understanding the immense scale of this work, K. Būga appealed to the Lithuanian public on several occasions: “If we truly wish to learn about the unwritten past of our own nation, we must collect all place names and publish them in an alphabetically arranged dictionary.” On the basis of such a dictionary, “the linguist-historian will be able to tell us what people or peoples lived in Lithuania before the Lithuanians came to this land”⁸. K. Būga’s appeal began to be put into effect only after his death, when the Surname and Place-Name Commission was established in 1933 and the “Instructions for Recording the Lithuanian Land Names” were published (1934). By 1940, following these instructions, mostly primary-school teachers, foresters, land surveyors and land-management specialists, students, and other local-history enthusiasts had recorded a large portion of the onomastic material from local residents. It is now held at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR. Linguists J. Balčikonis, A. Salys, J. Senkus, and others made a considerable contribution at the time by directing the collection of personal and place names, collecting them themselves, and organizing the onomastic archives. The Second World War interrupted this unfinished work for a dozen years.

For a long time after K. Būga, systematic study of proper words in Lithuania also came to a halt. Individual onomastic data were used to a greater or lesser extent

³ И. Спрогис, Географический словарь древней жемойтской земли XVI столетия, Вильна, 1888.

⁴ Э. Вольтер, Списки населенных мест Сувалкской губернии, С. Петербург, 1901.

⁵ Dirva – Žinynas, 1904, I (Nr. X), II (Nr. XI).

⁶ W. Kalwaitis, Lietuwiszku Wardu Klėtele, Tilžėje, 1910.

⁷ K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, t. I–III, Vilnius, 1958–1961. Kaip gausiai K. Būga, spręsdamas įvairius lituanistikos, baltistikos ar indoeuropeistikos klausimus, naudojo tikrinius žodžius taip pat rodo jo „Rinktinių raštų“ indeksas.

⁸ K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, t. III, p. 642–643.

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only in linguistic works in other fields. For example, in P. Skardžius’s well-known study, devoted essentially to the formation of common nouns⁹, the formation of more than 1,500 proper nouns—personal names and place names—is also explained. Other important works in Lithuanian studies, a shortage of specialists, and other reasons prevented broader onomastic research from beginning for some time after the Second World War. The first postwar works in this field were mostly written for a general readership and intended for the public at large¹⁰

Onomastic work in Lithuania intensified considerably at the end of the 1950s¹¹. The growing interest in the Lithuanian name stock, not only among Baltists but also among Indo-Europeanists, as well as the practical needs of the standard language, presented Lithuanian linguists with important and urgent tasks: a) resume the unfinished collection of proper nouns, especially place names; b) systematize the collected name-stock material and begin publishing it; c) begin scholarly research into the name stock.

To this end, a Toponymy Group was established at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature in 1959, becoming the core of all onomastic work in the republic. The following year, a new “Instructions for Place-Name Collectors” was prepared and published, describing the scholarly significance of these names and setting out uniform principles for recording them. Under these instructions, the following information was to be provided: the literary forms of place names, as well as all dialectal and known historical forms; descriptions and locations of the features; folk explanations of the names’ origins; folklore associated with the place name and location; and historical, archaeological, and other information. Toponymic expeditions began to be organized annually to places from which place names had not yet been collected, or had been collected only to a very limited extent—chiefly to the Klaipėda region and eastern parts of the Lithuanian SSR, including the districts of Druskininkai, Dūkštas, Ignalina, Maišiagala, Pabradė, Švenčionys, Varėna, and others. Previously collected material is also checked and supplemented, since some of it had been recorded hastily and inaccurately, many toponyms lacked stress marks, and dialectal forms of place names had not been included. Local teachers provide considerable help with this work by completing questionnaires sent by the Toponymy Group, which contain lists of place names requiring verification.

The collection of toponymic material is one of the most urgent and pressing tasks. Because of the major changes that have taken place and are continuing in the Lithuanian countryside in recent decades—the division of villages into individual farmsteads during the years of the bourgeois order; the collectivization of agriculture and creation of new settlements under Soviet rule; the increasingly extensive drainage works; the construction of hydroelectric power stations; the building of new roads; and so forth—many names, especially microtoponyms, are rapidly disappearing from people’s memory. For this reason, other specialists in Lithuanian studies are also being involved in collecting place names: dialectologists studying dialects for the Atlas of the Lithuanian Language, teachers, and students. In 1960, an appeal by prominent scholars and cultural figures, academicians J. Balčikonis, K. Bieliukas, K. Korsakas, and others, addressed to the public at large and entitled “Let Us Collect Place Names,” was published in the republic’s periodical press and other publications¹². The appeal called for

⁹ P. Skardžius, Lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryba, Vilnius, 1943.

¹⁰ Lietuvių kalbos rašybos žodynas, Vilnius, 1948 (a separate section describes the origin and formation of Lithuanian personal names and place names); S. Tarvydas, Lietuvos vietovardžiai, Vilnius, 1958; and others.

¹¹ E. Grinaveckienė and J. Senkus wrote about the collection and study of toponymic material in Lithuania up to the beginning of the 1960s; see Вопросы языкознания, Москва, 1961, No. 6, pp. 130—131; Literatūra ir kalba, vol. VI, Vilnius, 1962, pp. 459—465.

¹² Geografinis metraštis, vol. 3, Vilnius, 1960, pp. 437—439; “Literatūra ir menas,” 1960.VII.2; “Tarybinis mokytojas,” 1960. VII.3.

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The task of collecting all place names in the Lithuanian SSR and recording, in K. Būga’s words, our republic’s “language of the land” remains highly relevant and must be kept constantly in mind.

Personal names are collected alongside place names. Most Lithuanian surnames had been recorded from living speech before the Second World War. In recent years, anthroponyms have increasingly been collected from old (16th–18th-century) historical and state documents, handwritten parish registers, various other writings, and archival sources. This is valuable material for research into the formation and development of Lithuanian surnames.

Thus, the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature has already amassed vast collections of onomastic material, which are augmented each year by a further 7,000–8,000 newly recorded items. At present, the collections contain about 300,000 place names and more than 400,000 personal names. The handwritten place-name index comprises about 30,000 names of inhabited places and about 11,000 names of rivers and lakes; the largest share consists of land names: names of fields, gravel pits, hills, valleys, escarpments, meadows, pastures, marshes, peat bogs, swamps, forests, clearings, thickets, roads, grazing grounds, and other features. Historical land names also make up a considerable portion of the names of uninhabited places: names of hillforts, burial mounds, giant burial mounds, various war graves, sacred sites, ravines, stones, and other features. The personal-name index, which covers given names, surnames, and nicknames, shows that there are more than 50,000 distinct surnames in Lithuania.

These collections are an inexhaustible source of highly important material not only for the study and practical use of the Lithuanian language, but also for researchers of the history of the Lithuanian people as a whole and of its neighbors—the Latvians, Russians, Belarusians, Poles, and other peoples. They contain valuable data for investigating the territorial distribution and linguistic features of long-extinct Baltic tribes that left no written monuments: the Yotvingians, Curonians, Selonians, and Semigallians. It is therefore the task of Lithuanian linguists to systematize this handwritten material and publish it as quickly as possible.

Among the most significant works already completed in this field is the “Gazetteer of the Rivers and Lakes of the Lithuanian SSR,” compiled by a group of linguists¹³. This is the first, one might say, comprehensive collection of Lithuanian hydronyms¹⁴—along with repeated names and variants, it gives about 8,000 river names and about 3,000 lake names. The hydronyms in the gazetteer are marked for stress (with their accentuation paradigms also indicated), and their locations are specified. An effort was made to provide all attested forms of the hydronyms and, at the same time, “select from them the most accurate and most widely used forms and recommend them as normative for use in the Lithuanian literary language”¹⁵. The completeness and accuracy of the material naturally enhance the scholarly value of this gazetteer: many names of smaller features (rivers and lakes) had previously been unknown to scholarship, while some hydronyms had circulated in linguistic and other literature in various distorted and inaccurate forms. The gazetteer received a lively response and favorable reviews both in the republic and beyond its borders¹⁶.

¹³ Lietuvos TSR upių ir ežerų vardynas, compiled by B. Savukynas, A. Vanagas, V. Vitkauskas, K. Vosylytė, and I. Ermanytė; edited by E. Grinaveckienė (responsible editor) and J. Senkus. Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR, Vilnius, 1963.

¹⁴ Until then, the most complete list of river names had appeared in the publication “Cadastre of the Rivers of the Lithuanian SSR” (Vilnius, 1959). Many hydronyms can also be found in other publications, for example: A. Basalykas, Lietuvos upės, Vilnius, 1956; K. Bieliukas, Lietuvos ežerai, Vilnius, 1956. However, all these publications were intended not for the needs of linguistics, but for specialists in other fields.

¹⁵ Dictionary of Lithuanian SSR rivers and lakes, p. VI.

¹⁶ Cf. reviews: J. Balčikonis, Lietuvos TSR upių ir ežerų vardynas, “Research Papers of the Higher Schools of the Lithuanian SSR, Linguistics,” vol. 10, Vilnius, 1964, pp. 281—283; V. Mažiulis,

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In recent years, a new edition of the “Administrative-Territorial Division of the Lithuanian SSR” has been prepared, covering the names of all present-day populated places in Lithuania and intended primarily for practical (administrative) purposes. Publications of this kind listing the names of Lithuanian populated places were also issued in earlier years¹⁷. They contributed considerably to the standardization of Lithuanian oikonymy, but all these publications also had quite a number of shortcomings from a linguistic point of view: they gave only the genitive forms of oikonyms (from which the nominative is not always clear), and many of them were inaccurate. In the latest edition, prepared by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR in cooperation with linguists from the Toponymy Group of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, oikonyms will be given in the nominative, with the genitive also indicated where necessary (when it is not clear from the nominative form). The name forms in it are authentic: they have been verified against the data in the Name Archive of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature and, as far as possible, against data from contemporary spoken language. In addition, the names of populated places (there are about 25,000 of them) are given here with stress marks. In this respect, it is the first publication of its kind to cover all Lithuanian populated places¹⁸. It will therefore not only contribute to the further standardization of these names, but also serve as a reliable source of material for scholarly purposes and for the study of Lithuanian oikonyms.

On the basis of the manuscript collections mentioned above, other name dictionaries will also be prepared. In response to the most important practical and scholarly needs of the Lithuanian language, work has begun first on a comprehensive dictionary of surnames.

Increasingly more is being written in the republic’s periodical press about the spelling, pronunciation, and other standardization issues concerning place names and personal names. Particularly many articles devoted to this purpose, often including complete lists of proper names in need of correction, are published in the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature’s journal “Kalbos kultūra” (published since 1961, with two issues appearing each year). Such articles in this journal have been published by V. Grinaveckas, A. Jonaitýtė, J. Lipskienė, V. Maciejauskienė, K. Pakalka, Z. Rabačiauskaitė, A. Rosinas, B. Savukynas, V. Vaškevičiūtė, A. Vanagas, A. Vidugiris, V. Vitkauskas, K. Vosylytė, Z. Zinkevičius, and others. Proper names with stress marks are sometimes also included in various other linguistic works not specifically devoted to onomastic issues¹⁹.

Rich manuscript collections and the growing number of published sources of factual material encourage the intensification of research into Lithuanian onomastics. Some work in this field has already been done. The larger works devoted to the study of hydronyms should be mentioned first: A. Vanagas’s “Formation of Hydronyms in the Lithuanian SSR” (Vilnius, 1970) and B. Savukynas’s “Lake Names.”

A. Vanagas’s monograph (written on the basis of the candidate’s dissertation “Formation of River Names in the Lithuanian SSR,” defended in 1966, and expanded to include lake names) consists of

¹⁶ Mūsų vietovardžiai, „Tiesa“, 1963.XI.19; K. Morkūnas, Svarbi lietuvių kalbos mokslui ir praktikai knyga, „Pergalė“, 1964, Nr. 4, p. 164—166; K. Papečkys, 7000 upių, 3000 ežerų, „Kauno tiesa“, 1963.X.9; S. Tarvydas, „Tarybinis mokytojas“, 1963.X.24; M. Hasiuk, „Lingua Posnaniensis“, t. 11, Poznań, 1966, p. 159—160.

¹⁷ Lithuania’s populated places, Kaunas, 1925; Administrative-territorial division of the Lithuanian SSR, Vilnius, 1949; Administrative-territorial division of the Lithuanian SSR, Vilnius, 1959.

¹⁸ An incomplete list of stress-marked names of only the larger populated places in Lithuania (along with other proper names) had already been provided in the aforementioned “Dictionary of Lithuanian Spelling.”

¹⁹ Cf., for example, the explanations of abbreviations in the academic “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language”; Z. Zinkevičius, Lietuvių dialektologija, Vilnius, 1966; and others.

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two most important parts. The first part explains the more general theoretical questions related to the study of Lithuanian hydronymy and provides a critical review of earlier research on this problem. The second part of the monograph, drawing on extensive concrete toponymic material, examines in detail the formation of the names of all Lithuania’s rivers and lakes. The derivational types of hydronyms are distinguished here according to the principles of structural-grammatical classification, which the author had already set out in his previously published article “On the Study of Hydronym Formation”²⁰. The monograph, which for the first time has brought into focus the formation of the entire system of Lithuanian hydronyms, will make it possible to address other pressing questions of toponomastics more successfully and swiftly: to explain the origins of individual river and lake names, conduct comparative studies of hydronymy, and so forth. The monograph is supplemented, and made easier to use, by 35 maps (showing the distribution of the more important derivational elements of Lithuanian hydronyms) and an index of all the hydronyms examined.

B. Savukynas’s work is devoted to etymological studies of Lithuanian lake names. In explaining the origins of these names, the author first compares them with other place names and personal names, seeks parallels in Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian onomastic material, and then relates the names being etymologized to the corresponding common words in the Baltic languages. In many cases, in order to bring out more clearly the original semantics of lake names, he also draws on the lexicon of other Indo-European languages. Part of this etymological study (lake names beginning with the letters A—G) has been published in the publications of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature²¹. It is unfortunate that in recent years the author has ceased writing and publishing this necessary work, which is nearly halfway complete.

Antroponymy, too, has been the subject of certain substantial research works. First to be mentioned here is J. Dumčius’s extensive monograph “Ancient Proper Names in the Lithuanian Language,” as well as J. Jurkėnas’s work “Old Bitematic Personal Names in the Writings of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.” These are candidate dissertations, of which so far only abstracts²² and individual chapters have been published, namely: J. Dumčius’s “Ancient Names in the Lithuanian Folk Language” and “Ancient Proper Names in Lithuanian Writings”²³, and J. Jurkėnas’s “Морфологические типы древних литовских сложных имён”, “Некоторые компоненты литовских древних сложных личных имён”, “О появлении сочетания al вместо дифтонга au в литовских древних личных именах“²⁴.

In addition to the substantial research and synthetic works already completed or currently under way, numerous articles addressing various questions of Lithuanian onomastics appear each year in the scholarly publications of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences and higher education institutions, in the journal “Baltistica” (published since 1965), and in other publications²⁵.

²⁰ The Morphological Structure of the Lithuanian Language and Its Development (Questions of Lithuanian Linguistics (hereafter — LKK), vol. 7), Vilnius, 1964, pp. 207—220.

²¹ See LKK: vol. 3, 1960, pp. 289—300; vol. 4, 1961, pp. 219—226; vol. 5, 1962, pp. 191—198; vol. 8 (The Development of Lithuanian Lexicon), pp. 183—194.

²² I. Dumčius, Ancient Proper Names in the Lithuanian Language, Vilnius, 1958; J. Jurkėnas, Ancient Compound Names in the Written Records of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius, 1966.

²³ Scholarly Works of Vilnius State V. Kapsukas University, History and Philology Series, vol. 3, Vilnius, 1957, pp. 171—185; vol. 4, 1958, pp. 81—108.

²⁴ Scholarly Works of Higher Education Institutions of the Lithuanian SSR, Linguistics, vol. 13, Vilnius, 1965, pp. 57—65; vol. 15, 1967, pp. 43—56.

²⁵ See the bibliographic indexes: Lithuanian Linguistics 1944—1960, Vilnius, 1963; Lithuanian Linguistics 1961—1964, Vilnius, 1965; Lithuanian Linguistics 1965—1968, Vilnius, 1971 (section “Onomastics”).

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The toponymy and hydronymy of individual Lithuanian regions are examined in J. Senkus’s article “Tributaries of the Šešupė and Jiesia”²⁶, K. Vosilytė’s “Names of Settlements in the Vabalninkas Area”²⁷, and others. Also worth mentioning here are publications of the Society for the Protection of Monuments and Local History of the Lithuanian SSR: “Žervynos” (Vilnius, 1964), “Ignalina Region” (Vilnius, 1966), “Dieveniškės” (Vilnius, 1968), “The Gaidė and Rimšė Areas” (Vilnius, 1969), “Merkinė” (Vilnius, 1970), and “Dubingiai” (Vilnius, 1971), which, among other information, present and examine the toponymy of the areas described there (K. Eigminas, I. Erm anytė, S. Karaliūnas, and others).

Among the more significant published articles examining toponyms belonging to individual derivational groups are B. Savukynas’s “Lithuanian Place Names in the Genitive”²⁸, J. Senkus’s “Diminutive Hydronyms in Lithuanian”²⁹, A. Vanagas’s “Akmenà, Lašmūõ and Other River Names of Similar Formation,” “Lithuanian Suffixal Hydronyms Derived from Other Hydronyms,” “Lithuanian Settlement Names Derived from a Singular Personal Name”³⁰, Z. Rabačiauskaitė’s “Prepositional Place Names”³¹, and others.

Onomastic material is used to investigate substrate elements in the Lithuanian language. For example, the articles devoted to traces of the Yotvingian substrate in Lithuanian toponymy include B. Savukynas’s “К проблеме западнобалтийского субстрата в югозападной Литве”³² and K. Kuzavinis’s “Gãrbus – a Yotvingian word”³³. The formants -aja, -ajai, -ajas, -ajė, -ajis, -ajys; -asas, -esa, -esas may also be associated, perhaps, with a substrate of a distinct Baltic tribe in Lithuanian hydronymy; in part, -ykščia, -ykštis, -ėta, -ėtas, -ėtis (chiefly in northeastern Lithuania, the presumed territory of the Selonians), -alė, -alis (in western Lithuania, the presumed territory of the Curonians), as well as hydronyms with the stressed ending -ùs (in southern Lithuania, the Yotvingian territory). A. Vanagas reaches this conclusion in the article “К вопросу о диалектной дифференциации балтов, обитавших на территории Литвы (по данным гидронимии)”³⁴.

Many articles are also devoted to explaining the derivation or origin of individual proper names. These include J. Balčikonis’s “Širvydas or Sirvydas”³⁵; V. Grinaveckis’s “On the Origin of Certain Place Names”³⁶ (which explains the origin of the names Dievytis and Keklys); V. Mažiulis’s “On the Name Neringos”³⁷; A. Vanagas’s “On the Name of the River Danė (Danija, Dangė)”³⁸, “On the Formation and Origin of the Place Name Labguvà”³⁹, “On the Origin of the Lithuanian River Names Dunojus and Dniepras”⁴⁰, and others.

²⁶ LKK, vol. 6, 1963, pp. 213—234.

²⁷ Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR, Series A, vol. 1(14), Vilnius, 1963, pp. 229—237.

²⁸ LKK, vol. 6, pp. 235—246.

²⁹ Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR, Series A, vol. 2(15), 1963, pp. 249—260.

³⁰ LKK, vol. 4, 1961, pp. 227—232; Grammatical Structure of the Lithuanian Language (LKK, vol. 9), 1967, pp. 231—238; Baltistica, vol. III(1), Vilnius, 1967, pp. 111—116.

³¹ Studies in Lithuanian Grammar (LKK, vol. 11), 1969, pp. 243—255.

³² Baltistica, vol. I(2), 1966, pp. 165—176.

³³ Ibid., vol. IV(1), 1968, pp. 65—67. See also A. Vanagas, “Salient Features of the Toponymy of the Panemunė Dzūkai,” in “Panemunė Dzūkai,” Vilnius, 1970, pp. 33—42.

³⁴ Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR, Series A, vol. 1(26), 1968, pp. 143—155.

³⁵ Scholarly Works of Higher Education Institutions of the Lithuanian SSR, Linguistics, vol. 11, Vilnius, 1965, pp. 143—144.

³⁶ LKK, vol. 3, 1960, pp. 321—324.

³⁷ Ibid., pp. 301—316.

³⁸ Ibid., pp. 317–320.

³⁹ Baltistica, vol. I(2), pp. 185–189.

⁴⁰ Development of Lithuanian lexical vocabulary (LKK, vol. 8), 1966, pp. 173–182.

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Onomastic data also provide the main basis for new explanations of the origins of some Baltic ethnonyms: the etymologies of Aistians, Nadrava (Nadruva), Scalvians, and Selonians⁴¹, published by K. Kuzavinis; of Curonians⁴², by J. Kazlauskas; and of Samogitians⁴³, by V. Grinaveckis, among others. The etymology of the name Lithuania proposed by K. Kuzavinis, deriving it from the river name Lietava (>dialectal hybrid Lietáuka), “a right-bank tributary of the Neris,” in Čiobiškis and Kernavė⁴⁴, has attracted particular attention.

A few works on onomastics by Lithuanian linguists have also been published outside the republic: J. Balčikonis’s article “Названия литовских населённых пунктов, образованные от названий рек и озер”⁴⁵, and a paper on Lithuanian elements in Belarusian onomastics, presented by A. Vanagas together with Belarusian linguist M. Birila at the VI International Congress of Slavists (in Prague) and published as a separate book⁴⁶.

Understandably, not all the views expressed by the authors in the works on onomastics mentioned here and elsewhere can be accepted. Some of their claims still require further research, more thorough proof, and stronger substantiation based on more reliable factual material. Critical comments on these works can also be found in various reviews, although, in general, the work of Lithuanian linguists in this field is still reviewed too little.

Some broader aspects of collecting, publishing, and studying Lithuanian onomastic material, as well as questions concerning the origin, development, and other aspects of individual proper names, are often discussed at the republican dialectological-toponymic meetings organized by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences, and at scholarly conferences of Lithuanian philologists—faculty and students—from Vilnius University and the Vilnius and Šiauliai pedagogical institutes. Lithuanian linguists deliver papers on various onomastic questions at conferences in other republics, at union-wide conferences, and at international conferences⁴⁷.

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“Recently, the study of Baltic onomastics, especially toponymy, has acquired particular urgency on an international scale”⁴⁸. Linguists and historians from other nations and countries therefore also contribute to solving problems in Lithuanian onomastics. Especially many

⁴¹ Baltistica, vol. I(2), p. 177 ff.

⁴² Ibid., vol. IV(1), 1968, pp. 59–63.

⁴³ Scholarly Works of Higher Education Institutions of the Lithuanian SSR, Kalbotyra, vol. 19, 1968, pp. 45–50.

⁴⁴ Scholarly Works of Higher Education Institutions of the Lithuanian SSR, Kalbotyra, vol. 10, 1964, pp. 5–18; see also the same author’s article “Lithuanian river names lie-(lei-)” (ibid., vol. 17, 1967, pp. 135–137).

⁴⁵ Lingua Posnaniensis, vol. 7, Poznań, 1959, pp. 240–252

⁴⁶ М. В. Бирила, А. П. Ванагас, Літоўскія элементы у беларускай анамастыцы, Мінск, 1968.

⁴⁷ See Всесоюзная конференция по топонимике СССР (Тезисы докладов и сообщений), Ленинград, 1965; III республіканська ономастична (гідронімічна) конференція (Тези), Київ, 1965; Конференция по топонимике северо-западной зоны СССР (Тезисы докладов и сообщений), Рига, 1966; Проблемы славянских этимологических исследований в связи с общей проблематикой современной этимологии. Международный симпозиум (Программа. Тезисы докладов), Москва, 1966; Перша беларуская анамастычная канферэнцыя (тэзісы дакладаў), Мінск, 1967; Орониміка, Москва, 1969; IV республіканська ономастична конференція (Тези), Київ, 1969; Congressus tertius internationalis fennougristarum (Тезисы, I), Tallinn, 1970.

⁴⁸ K. Korsakas, Baltistikos uždaviniai ir perspektyvos, „Pergalė“, 1970, Nr. 10, p. 177.

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Among the works devoted to Lithuanian onomastics are those by the Polish linguist J. Otrębski; cf. the articles: „La formation des noms physiographiques en lithuanien“. „La formation des noms de lieux en lithuanien“⁴⁹, „O badaniach nad nazwami wodnymi i miejscowymi na obszarze Litwy“⁵⁰, „Slawizacja litewskich nazw wodnych i miejscowych“⁵¹, and others. He also explains the formation and origin of many proper names in his largest work, „Lietuvių kalbos gramatika“⁵². Some topics in Lithuanian onomastics are addressed in recent articles by L. Gumeckaja (cf. footnotes 53 and 54), V. Rūkė-Dravinia („Diminutive bei Familiennamen im Lettischen und Litauischen“⁵⁵), T. Buch („Litewskie nazwy miejscowe w powiatach Sejny i Suwałki“⁵⁶, „Litewskie nazewnictwo osobowe w powiatach Sejny i Suwałki“⁵⁷, „Nazwy toni rybackich jeziora Gaładuś“⁵⁸), K.-O. Falk („Ze studiów nad slawizacją litewskich nazw miejscowych i osobowych“⁵⁹, „O metodach slawizacji litewskich nazw osobowych i miejscowych; o genezie i rozpowszechnieniu nazw na --ńce⁶⁰), A. Obrembska-Jabłońska („Elementy litewskie w mikrotoponimii wschodniej Białostoczyzny“⁶¹), and others. Also worth mentioning is the work „Mūsų pavardės ir jų atsiradimas“⁶² by the Lithuanian linguist P. Jonikas, who lives in the United States.

The successful study of Lithuanian proper names is most closely connected with advances in this field in the other Baltic languages.

Important works in onomastics have already appeared in Latvian linguistics. A. Bielenstein was among the first to begin collecting Latvian place names. However, the place names of Kurzeme and Vidzeme that he recorded at the end of the nineteenth century largely remained in manuscript. The eminent linguist Jānis Endzelīns continued this work most successfully. Thanks largely to his efforts, a considerable number of Latvian place names were collected in the early 1920s and published in two books⁶³. The largest and most important

⁴⁹ Lingua Posnaniensis, t. 1, 1949, p. 199–243; t. 2, 1950, p. 4–43.

⁵⁰ I międzynarodowa slawistyczna konferencja onomastyczna, Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków, 1961, p. 49–58.

⁵¹ Z polskich studiów slawistycznych, seria 2, Językoznawstwo, Warszawa, 1963, p. 267–287.

⁵² J. Otrębski, Gramatyka języka litewskiego, t. II, Nauka o budowie wyrazów, Warszawa, 1965. See also footnote 106.

⁵³ Вопросы теории и истории языка (Сборник в честь проф. Б. А. Ларина), Ленинград, 1963, p. 84–87.

⁵⁴ Дослідження і матеріали з української Мови, т. 6, Київ, 1964, p. 121–132.

⁵⁵ Scando-Slavica, t. 2, Copenhagen, 1956, p. 41–47.

⁵⁶ Onomastica, t. 7, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków, 1961, p. 221–229.

⁵⁷ Same journal, vol. 9, 1964, pp. 312–320.

⁵⁸ Same journal, vol. 12, 1967, pp. 109–123.

⁵⁹ Scando-Slavica, t. 9, 1963, p. 87–103.

⁶⁰ Språkliga bidrag, vol. 4, No. 19, Lund, 1964, pp. 1–16. See also footnote 83.

⁶¹ Studia z filologii polskiej i słowiańskiej, t. 8, Warszawa, 1969, p. 261–270.

⁶² Literatūros metraštis, t. 2, Chicago, 1954, p. 111–146.

⁶³ Latvijas vietu vārdi, vol. I, Vidzeme names, collected with the participation of A. Ābele, J. Kauliņš and P. Šmits, compiled and edited by J. Endzelīns, Riga, 1922; Latvijas vietu vārdi, vol. II, Kurzeme and Latgale names, collected with the participation of A. Ābele, Ž. Grauda, E. Hauzenberga, F. Jākobsons, L. Paule, J. Plāķis, B. Spūlis, J. Turpūkins, compiled, edited and published by J. Endzelīns, Riga, 1925. Drawing on the place names of Vidzeme published in Part I of this work, K. Būga wrote an extensive study in which we find new and interesting conclusions about names of Finnish origin in places now inhabited by Latvians and Lithuanians, the territorial distribution of certain Baltic tribes, individual phenomena of the Baltic languages and the chronology of their emergence, etc.; see his Rinktiniai raštai, vol. III, pp. 612–648.

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J. Endzelīns’s work in this field is crowned by his monumental work “Latvian SSR Place Names,”⁶⁴. Although it does not include all Latvian place names, but only those most important to linguistics, this work is one of the largest and most significant in the history of Baltic toponymy research. Published and manuscript material from Lithuanian onomastics, preserved at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, has also been used extensively in explaining the origins of Latvian toponyms. After J. Endzelīns’s death, this unfinished work has been continued mainly by his student V. Dambe, who contributed considerably to preparing the volumes already published for print and also conducted other significant studies of Latvian toponymy⁶⁵. Among linguists who have undertaken larger or smaller projects collecting, publishing and studying Latvian proper names are E. Blese⁶⁶, J. Plāķis⁶⁷, M. Rudzytė, R. Gryslė and others.

Studies of proper names in extinct Baltic languages or their dialects are of great importance both to linguistics and to history.

One of the most important works of this kind remains the book published half a century ago by J. Gerulis, a former professor at the University of Leipzig (Lithuanian by origin)⁶⁸, which gathers about 2,900 place names from the ancient land of Prussia—mostly from various unpublished sources—including names of towns, castles, villages, lakes, rivers, fields, meadows, forests and other places. Lithuanian and Latvian place names, counterparts of the Prussian names, are also given for many of these names. In his favorable review of the book, K. Būga wrote: “Even if the Prussian people had perished without leaving behind a single text in their language, the place names alone collected by Gerulis would make it clear that the Prussian language was of the same origin as Lithuanian and Latvian”⁶⁹. R. Trautmann’s work on Prussian personal names, published at almost the same time, is no less valuable⁷⁰. Prussian proper names are also given some attention in several more recent works by foreign linguists; cf. J. Otrębski’s article “Über der Herkunft des Preussennamens”⁷¹, J. Powierski’s “Najdawniejsze nazwy etniczne z terenu Prus i niektórych obszarów sąsiednich”⁷², F. Lorentz’s “Preußische Ortsnamen und Appellative in Namen in Raum links der unteren Weichsel”⁷³, H. Górnowicz’s “Dialekty kociewskie i malborski Pomorze Gdańskie”⁷⁴, and others.

The characteristics of the Yotvingian language are explained chiefly on the basis of toponymic research. Toponymic data also help establish the territory of this extinct Baltic tribe—

⁶⁴ J. Endzelīns, Latvijas PSR vietvārdi, d. I, t. 1 (A-J), d. I, t. 2 (K-Ō), Rīgā, 1956–1961.

⁶⁵ V. Dambe, Blīdienes place names as witnesses to the past (Collected papers dedicated to Academician Professor Dr. Jānis Endzelīns in commemoration of the 85th anniversary of his life and the 65th anniversary of his work, Riga, 1959, pp. 391–452); В. Ф. Дамбе, Исследования по вопросам топонимики Латвийской ССР (Доклад на соискание степени кандидата филологических наук), Riga, 1962; and others. See also footnote 99.

⁶⁶ E. Blese, Latviešu personu vārdu un uzvārdu studijas, Rīgā, 1929.

⁶⁷ J. Plāķis, Latvian place names and Latvian family names, part I, names of Kurzeme (Writings of the University of Latvia, Faculty of Philology and Philosophy series, vol. 4, no. 1, Riga, 1936); J. Plāķis, Latvian place names and Latvian family names, part II, names of Zemgale (ibid., vol. 5, no. 5, Riga, 1939).

⁶⁸ Die altpreußischen Ortsnamen gesammelt und sprachlich behandelt von Dr. Georg Gerullis, Berlin und Leipzig, 1922.

⁶⁹ K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, t. II, p. 383–384.

⁷⁰ R. Trautmann, Die altpreußischen Personennamen, Göttingen, 1925.

⁷¹ Lingua Posnaniensis, t. 5, 1955, p. 76–77.

⁷² Komunikaty Mazursko-Warmińskie, Olsztyn, 1965, Nr. 2, p. 161–183.

⁷³ Zeitschrift für Slawistik, t. 11, sąs. 2, Berlin, 1966, p. 243–250.

⁷⁴ Pomorze Gdańskie, Literatura i język, Gdańsk, 1967, Nr. 4, p. 147–172.

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the territorial distribution. In recent years, the highly controversial problem of the Yotvingians has attracted particular interest among Polish and other scholars: J. Otrębski („Язык ятвягов“⁷⁵, „Dainavā — название одного из ятвяжских племен“⁷⁶, „Das Jatwingerproblem“⁷⁷, „Udział jaćwingów w ukształtowaniu języka polskiego“⁷⁸), A. Kamiński⁷⁹, J. Nalepa⁸⁰, J. Antoniewicz („Terytoria plemienne ludów bałtyjskich w okresie starożytnym w świetle badań archeologii i hidronimii“⁸¹), A. Wolf („W sprawie nazwy Jaćwięgów“⁸²), and others. Also valuable for resolving this problem are the works of foreign linguists, which present and substantiate the Baltic toponyms and hydronyms of the Suwałki region of the Polish People’s Republic⁸³. Some Soviet historians, too, rely on toponymic evidence when identifying the territory inhabited by the Yotvingians: V. Sedov („Курганы ятвягов“⁸⁴, „Заселяли ли ятвяги южную Литву?“⁸⁵), A. Tautavičius („Lietuvių ir jotvingių genčių gyventų plotų ribų klausimu“⁸⁶), and others.

Substratal traces of the Baltic languages in East Slavic hydronymy have received a thorough and detailed analysis in major studies by the well-known Moscow linguists V. Toporov and O. Trubachov⁸⁷. Baltic elements in Ukrainian toponymy and hydronymy are studied more extensively by the Kyiv linguist A. Nepokupny („Словосложение как балтийский элемент в топонимии Украинского Полесья“⁸⁸, „Українсько-балтійські студії“⁸⁹). Some new data and original ideas concerning the links between Baltic and Slavic toponymy were also put forward by the Muscovite E. Pospelov („О балтийской гипотезе в севернорусской топонимике“⁹⁰), the Latvian linguist A. Rekena

⁷⁵ Questions of Slavic Linguistics, vol. 5, Moscow, 1961, pp. 3–8.

⁷⁶ Ibid., vol. 7, 1963, pp. 3–6.

⁷⁷ Journal of Linguistics, vol. 9, issue 2, Wiesbaden, 1963, pp. 157–167.

⁷⁸ Acta Baltico-Slavica, vol. 1, Białystok, 1964, pp. 207–216.

⁷⁹ A. Kamiński, Jaćwież (Terytorium, ludność, stosunki gospodarcze i społeczne), Łódź, 1953.

⁸⁰ J. Nalepa, Jaćwięgowie (Nazwa i lokalizacja), Białystok, 1964. Taip pat plg. jo straipsnį „Przyczynek do znajomości toponomastyki i mowy Jaćwięgów“ (Acta Baltico-Slavica, t. 3, 1966, p. 127—133).

⁸¹ Masurian-Warmian Communications, 1965, No. 4, pp. 513–530.

⁸² Acta Baltico-Slavica, vol. 3, 1966, pp. 187–190.

⁸³ Cf. the articles by the Swedish linguist K.-O. Falk in the following publications: Acta Baltico-Slavica, vol. 3, pp. 69–75; Studia językoznawcze poświęcone profesorowi doktorowi Stanisławowi Rospondowi, Wrocław, 1966, pp. 359–370; Språkliga bidrag, vol. 4, No. 20, 1965; vol. 5, No. 22, 1966. Cf. also notes 56–58, 61, and 104.

⁸⁴ Советская археология, Москва, 1964, Nr. 4, p. 36—51.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 1968, No. 2, pp. 82–92.

⁸⁶ Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR, Series A, 2(21), 1966, pp. 161–182. For V. Sedov’s and A. Tautavičius’s critical remarks on the question of the Yotvingian boundaries, see also Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR, Series A, 1(26), 1968, pp. 177–190; for the interpretation of linguistic data (mostly proper names containing -da and -up-) in these authors’ works, see the A. Vanagas article mentioned above, „К вопросу о диалектной дифференциации балтов, обитавших на территории Литвы“ (see note 34).

⁸⁷ V. N. Toporov, O. N. Trubachev, Linguistic Analysis of the Hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper Basin, Moscow, 1962; O. N. Trubachev, Names of the Rivers of Right-Bank Ukraine, Moscow, 1968. Cf. also notes 101–103.

⁸⁸ Conference on the Toponymy of the Northwestern Zone of the USSR (Abstracts of Papers and Communications), Riga, 1966, pp. 100–102.

⁸⁹ Мовознавство, Київ, 1968, № 6, p. 33—42. Plg. dar 109 išnašą.

⁹⁰ Questions of Linguistics, No. 2, 1965, pp. 29–38.

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(“Latvian linguistic contacts with Lithuanian and Slavic languages according to toponymic data”⁹¹) and M. Semionov (“On the question of Slavic-Baltic linguistic contacts, according to the toponymy of the Latvian SSR”⁹²), L. Trubė of Gorky (“On Baltic elements in the hydronymy of Gorky Region. In connection with determining the eastern boundary of the ancient settlement of the Baltic tribes”⁹³), V. Žučkevičius of Minsk (“On the question of the links between the toponymy of Belarus and the toponymy of Lithuania and Latvia”⁹⁴), and others. Toponymic evidence is also used to study the contacts of the Balts with the Germanic peoples, the Illyrians, and others; cf. O. Trubačiovas’s “Notes on etymology and onomastics: on the material of Balto-Germanic relations”⁹⁵, and V. Toporov’s “Several Illyrian-Baltic parallels in the field of toponomastics”⁹⁶.

In addition to the foreign linguists already mentioned, Lithuanian proper names are also studied and used in their works by the Poles S. Rospond, M. Rudnicki, J. Safarewicz; the Germans W. Fenclau, H. Krahe, J. Prinz; the Frenchman A. Schmittlein; the Swiss scholar A. Senn; and many others⁹⁷. Some of their works have been reviewed by Lithuanian linguists A. Sabaliauskas, B. Savukynas, V. Urbutis, and A. Vanagas⁹⁸.

A considerable number of linguists from other Soviet peoples and from abroad have also published in the linguistic journals of the Lithuanian SSR their recent works addressing both general and specific issues of Lithuanian or Baltic onomastics. The more significant articles include V. Dambė’s “Some observations on the toponymy of the southern part of the Latvian SSR”⁹⁹, M. Rudzytė’s “Some hydronyms of the Salaca basin”¹⁰⁰, V. Toporov’s “On Baltic traces in the toponymy of Russian territories” and “On the question of toponymic correspondences in Baltic territories and west of the Vistula”¹⁰¹, O. Trubačiov’s “From the experience of studying the hydronyms of Ukraine”¹⁰², V. Toporov and O. Trubačiov’s “Baltic hydronymy of the Upper Dnieper region”¹⁰³, T. Buch’s “From onomastic research in northern Sejny region”¹⁰⁴, H. Šalio

⁹¹ Conference on the Toponymy of the Northwestern Zone of the USSR (Abstracts of Papers and Communications), pp. 121–125.

⁹² Ibid., pp. 112–114.

⁹³ Ibid., pp. 106–108. Cf. also the abstracts of V. Sedov’s paper “Hydronymy of the Goljad” (ibid., pp. 128–132).

⁹⁴ Ibid., pp. 94–97. Cf. also B. A. Žučkevič, Toponimika Belarussii, Minsk, 1968.

⁹⁵ Друга республіканська ономастична нарада (Тези), Київ, 1962, p. 9–12; Питання ономастики, Київ, 1965, p. 16–24. Dar plg. 105 išnašą.

⁹⁶ Problemy indoevropejskogo jazykoznanija, Moskva, 1964, p. 52–58.

⁹⁷ Plg. Onoma. Bibliographical and information bulletin, Vol. XIV (1969), 3 (Bibliographia onomastica 1964–1965), International centre of onomastics — Leuven (Belgium), p. 479–482 (lietuvių onomastikos tyrinėjimų bibliografinę rodyklę sudarė A. Vanagas).

⁹⁸ Žr. Literatūra ir kalba, t. II, Vilnius, 1957, p. 397–403; LKK, t. 6, 1963, p. 320–325, 330–333; Lietuvių kalbos morfologinė sandara ir jos raida (LKK, t. 7), 1964, p. 221–231, 236–239; Baltistica, t. II(1), 1966, p. 297–102; t.V(2), 1969, p. 210–217; Iš lietuvių leksikologijos ir leksikografijos (LKK, t. 12), 1970, p. 194–200; Acta Baltico-Slavica, t. 2, Białystok, 1965, p. 494–497.

⁹⁹ LKK, vol. 6, 1963, pp. 247–267.

¹⁰⁰ Baltistica, vol. II(2), 1966, pp. 199–202.

¹⁰¹ LKK, vol. 2, 1959, pp. 55–63; Baltistica, vol. I(2), 1966, pp. 103–111.

¹⁰² Baltistica, vol. IV(1), 1968, pp. 31–54.

¹⁰³ LKK, vol. 4, 1961, pp. 195–217.

¹⁰⁴ Scientific Works of Higher Schools of the Lithuanian SSR, Linguistics, vol. 14, 1966, pp. 51–55.

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“Baltische Gewässernamen im Flußsystem „Obere Havel“ (Südost-Mecklenburg)”¹⁰⁵, J. O. Otrębski’s “Balt. *leita”, “Lit. Ukmergė”¹⁰⁶, P. Aristė’s “Wie der Este Litauen und der Litauer nennt”, “Lati „латвийский, латышский, Латвия“ в топонимии Эстонии”¹⁰⁷, J. Duridanov’s “Südslawisch-baltische Übereinstimmungen im Bereiche der Wortbildung”¹⁰⁸, A. Nepokupno’s “Географические термины и топонимы украинского Полесья и балтийские (иранские) названия рельефа”¹⁰⁹.

The interest shown by philologists of various nations in Baltic proper names and their studies, which are by no means all cited here¹¹⁰, contribute greatly to the more rapid and successful resolution of complex issues in Lithuanian onomastics, and encourage an even more intensive and wider-ranging investigation of these issues.

K. Morkūnas

¹⁰⁵ Baltistica, vol. II(1), 1966, pp. 7–42.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid., vol. III(2), 1967, pp. 201–203; vol. VI(2), 1970, pp. 213–215. For J. Otrębski’s hypothesis about the origin of the names Lietuva, lietuviai, see also his Gramatyka języka litewskiego, vol. I, Warszawa, 1958, pp. 2–8.

¹⁰⁷ Baltistica, vol. III(2), 1967, pp. 205–207; vol. V(1), 1969, pp. 97–100.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid., vol. V(1), pp. 21–27.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid., vol. VI(1), 1970, pp. 11–26.

¹¹⁰ Not to mention the works in this field carried out and published after 1970, that is, after this survey had already been submitted for publication.

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