RECENZIJOS

HYDRONYMY OF THE UPPER DNIEPER REGION AND THE BALTIC PAST

В. Н. Топоров и О. Н. Трубачёв, Лингвистический анализ гидронимов Верхнего Поднепровья, Москва, 1962, 270 p.

The presence of Baltic toponymy far to the south and east of the territory of today’s Lithuanian SSR is now beyond doubt. The only question is how much of it there is, how far it extends, who its bearers were, and where they disappeared. Scholars have already tried to answer these questions many times. Reviewing the history of research on these problems (from A. Kočiubinskis and L. Pogodin to K. Būga and M. Vasmer), we can readily see how the conclusions of these studies have changed. If the first steps in this field were tentative and the boundaries of the distribution of Baltic toponymy remained very indefinite, the studies of K. Būga and M. Vasmer provided relatively precise answers to some of the questions mentioned above. V. Toporov and O. Trubachov’s monograph “Linguistic Analysis of the Hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper Region” is a logical continuation of these studies, confirming the opinion of earlier researchers, especially K. Būga, regarding the presence of Baltic place names southeast of present-day Lithuania. Baltic toponymy, however, is found in much greater abundance, and the boundaries of its distribution are considerably extended.

Given the abundance of the material examined, the precision of its method, and the breadth and novelty of its conclusions, this book will evidently be of decisive importance for illuminating certain questions concerning the past of the Balts and Slavs. With this in mind, in this brief article we do not seek to assess the book in any detail, but merely wish to touch on one or two questions of particular importance to Baltic studies.

First of all, some methodological matters deserve attention. The book stands out for its undeniable advantage over earlier works in this field: rather than examining a single area or linguistic-ethnic stratum of the toponymy of the selected territory, it carefully investigates the hydronymy of the entire territory, seeks within it as a whole to identify certain productive types or lexical strata, and only then draws conclusions. Another positive methodological feature of the book is that, for the first time, the formation of hydronyms in the Upper Dnieper region is examined so broadly and consistently, with analysis of their formation taken as the foundation, while etymological (lexical) study of hydronyms is regarded as important, indeed very important, but merely auxiliary.

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The toponymy of the Upper Dnieper region may have undergone a very complex history. In territories occupied by Slavs, Baltic place names were subject for many centuries to the laws governing the development of the Slavic languages. Under the influence of those laws, many of them changed beyond recognition through substitution and folk etymology. Bearing in mind one of the book’s principal conclusions—that the assimilation of the local Balts took place at different times and not all at once, and that a period of bilingualism may have occurred—we may suppose that the development of hydronyms in the Upper Dnieper region, especially their phonetic development, must have been highly distinctive. For these reasons, the authors are justified in advancing, and practically adhering to, the view that in this case, when comparing Upper Dnieper hydronyms with Prussian, Lithuanian, and Latvian place names, one can no longer rely solely on the traditional phonetic laws of the Baltic and Slavic languages, established mainly on the basis of the common Baltic and Slavic lexicon, since the exceptional linguistic and historical conditions of the Upper Dnieper region must have seriously impeded and disrupted the operation of those laws. Moreover, many Baltic place names may have entered the Slavic languages after certain laws of those languages had ceased to operate, or, conversely, may have been altered under the influence of local sound laws. For these reasons, lexical analysis cannot always be fruitful. The authors understood that the most reliable criterion for explaining the genesis of hydronyms could only be their affixation.

This method of research, which in our view is correct, was one of the most important factors enabling the authors to reach highly significant conclusions, the main ones of which we shall list here.

First of all, it should be emphasized that the area of distribution of Baltic hydronymy is considerably extended both southward and southeastward. Until now, the Pripyat had been regarded as the southern boundary, which the Balts had never crossed. On the basis of the presence of large clusters of Baltic hydronyms on the left bank of the Pripyat and the Baltic hydronyms they have discovered for the first time south of the Pripyat, the authors conclude that the Pripyat was not an isolating southern boundary of Baltic distribution. This is also indicated, among other things, by the recurrence of Baltic place names north and south of the Pripyat (Случье, Сажелка, Виша, etc.).

For a long time, linguists denied the presence of Baltic place names east of the Dnieper, specifically in the Sozh basin. Even our great toponymist K. Būga acknowledged the presence of Baltic place names in the Sozh basin only in his 1923 article “Lithuanians of the Sozh River Valley.” M. Vasmer, too, had noted the presence of Baltic toponymy in this river basin. V. Toporov and O. Trubachov find many more Baltic place names in the Sozh basin and, from their even distribution along the entire length of the river, conclude that the presence of the Balts did not end at the Sozh basin. The authors proceed farther east and find about a hundred Baltic hydronyms in the middle and upper reaches of the Desna, where Baltic elements, it may be said, had not previously been identified. There are fewer of them in the Desna basin than in the Sozh basin, however, which, in the authors’ view, indicates that the eastern boundary of Baltic territory lies nearby. The eastern boundary can be established definitively once the hydronyms of the upper Oka have been studied.

One of the most important and novel conclusions of this monograph concerns the determination of the southeastern boundary of the distribution of Baltic place names and, at the same time, of the Balts and

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the ascertainment of direct contacts between Iranian languages. The authors place this boundary much farther to the southeast than has been done hitherto, in the basin of the Seim River, where they find about twenty Baltic river names. It is noteworthy that almost all of them are on the right bank of the Seim. For our part, we wish to emphasize that the Baltic character of most of them is beyond doubt.

Linguists, especially in recent years, have observed a considerable number of lexical commonalities between the Baltic and Iranian languages. However, explaining these commonalities has always presented many difficulties, since until now the prevailing view has been that there were no direct contacts between the Baltic and Iranian languages. Moving the southeastern ethnic boundary of the Balts to the Seim basin, where there are almost indisputable Iranian traces, allows the authors to conclude that at some point the Seim was a place of direct contact between the Baltic and Iranian languages.

The book also offers a wholly new account of the fate of the Baltic tribes that left such striking traces in the toponymy of the Upper Dnieper region. K. Būga maintained that the Balts, who once lived far to the southeast of the territory of present-day Lithuania, withdrew northwestward under Slavic pressure and had reached the present-day regions by the 6th–7th centuries AD, while at the same time the Slavs had advanced as far as the lands around Vilnius¹. V. Toporov and O. Trubačiov put forward the quite well-founded idea in their book that there was no mass retreat of the Balts under Slavic pressure; rather, as the Slavs gradually penetrated areas inhabited by Baltic tribes, they assimilated the Balts locally. This is confirmed by certain features of hydronym formation, for example the order in which suffixes occur, and especially by the fact that Baltic names are borne by very small streams and by a considerable number of settlement names, which change relatively quickly. The assimilation of the Balts must have taken place at different times and not everywhere all at once. The authors believe that in some Baltic areas occupied by the Slavs the process of assimilation was long and complex, most likely accompanied by a period of bilingualism. The authors base their hypothesis of a bilingual period above all on the precision of the phonetic-morphological substitution, in Slavic languages, of Baltic place names ending in -as, -us. In our view, the hypothesis of bilingualism would also be supported by semantic parallels among some Upper Dnieper hydronyms, that is, exact semantic calques, for example: Вязовенка (which the authors compare with Lithuanian ąžuolas, Latvian ozols, Prussian ansonis) and Дубовонка, Дубровейка; Лисичка||Ропша (cf. Russian лиса; Ропша — from an Iranian word meaning “fox”) and its tributary Лопанка (cf. Lithuanian lapė). Even when the Slavs had penetrated far to the north, Baltic enclaves remained for a long time in the territories they occupied, gradually disappearing during a period of bilingualism. V. Toporov and O. Trubačiov believe that some of these enclaves survived for quite a long time, even until the beginning of the second millennium AD.

By accepting this theory (and for now we have no grounds to doubt it), we would also finally resolve some other problems relating to the Baltic past. First and foremost, this concerns the question of the emergence of Lithuanian enclaves lying east and south beyond the borders of the territory of present-day Lithuanian SSR.

¹ Apie tai žr. K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, III, Vilnius, 1961, p. 740 ir kitur.

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On the basis of hydronym analysis, the authors reject the idea advanced by some scholars that the Baltic toponymy of the Upper Dnieper basin may have been introduced later by prisoners of war or other colonists. The 700–800 Baltic hydronyms, distributed fairly uniformly throughout the Dnieper region, provide irrefutable confirmation of V. Toporov and O. Trubačiov’s conclusion. Moreover, the distributional sequence of suffixes in Baltic hydronyms also shows that the layer of Baltic toponymic relics in the Upper Dnieper region is older than the Slavic one. In the authors’ view, from the earliest times accessible to linguistic scrutiny, the principal ethnic element of the Upper Dnieper region was the Balts. As a logical conclusion of this claim, the book raises the question of the contribution made by the ancient Balts to the history of the Upper Dnieper region in the broadest sense of the word.

The monograph also addresses the question of which individual Baltic tribal dialects the Baltic hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper region belong to. In the authors’ view, suffixation and lexical elements indicate that the Upper Dnieper region contains hydronyms attributable to the Latvians (suffix -ėja), Lithuanians (suffix -ija, -esa, -asa), Yotvingians (suffix -da), and Prussians (Стаона, Стаоня and others; cf. Prussian stabis ‘stone’; Поня, cf. Prussian pannean ‘swamp’; Гейшинка, cf. Prussian geeyse ‘stork’). In general, however, this problem remains very unclear. The cases just mentioned do not, in essence, tell us anything about a hydronym’s affiliation with any particular Baltic dialect of the period, since, according to the authors, the phonetic, morphological, and lexical features that can be associated with approximately the same territory do not coincide with any currently known Baltic dialect. The authors speculate that there may have been some unknown group of Baltic dialects in the Upper Dnieper region. Admittedly, there is not yet enough data to substantiate this conjecture.

Moreover, in our view, the validity of some of the signs of Baltic dialect differentiation mentioned above may also be open to serious doubt. For example, it is entirely unclear why the authors consider the suffix -ija characteristic only of Lithuanian naming and claim that Latvian does not know this suffix at all (pp. 148, 239). J. Endzelīns, whose study of Latvian hydronym formation² the authors use, had already listed several Latvian hydronyms with the suffix -ija: Cilm-ija, Guob-ija, Lub-ija, Māl-ija, Sar-ija, Sāl-ija, Tēic-ija. Today, the list of such place names can be at least doubled: Ak-men-ija³ for example, Akmin-ija³ meadow, Aps-ija³ stream, Bērz-ija³ stream, Čērp-ija³ stream, Gal-ijas³ stream, Kaln-ijas⁴ village, Kļav-ija⁴ stream, Krūkl-ija⁴ meadow, Lūkst-ija⁴ stream. Thus the suffix -ija tells us nothing definitive about whether a hydronym is Latvian or Lithuanian.

In addition to Baltic-Slavic relations, the book discusses Slavic-Finnic and Baltic-Finnic linguistic relations at considerable length. The problem of Baltic-Finnic linguistic relations

² J. E n d z e l ī n s, The Latvian Hydronyms, “Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie”, XI. Leipzig, 1934, p. 127.

³ J. E n d z e l ī n s, Latvijas PSR vietvārdi, I daļa, 1. sējums, Rīgā, 1956, attiecinkamai p. 15, 17, 40, 106, 164, 294.

⁴ Ten pat, I daļa, 2. sējums, Rīgā, 1961, attinkamai p. 22, 110, 151, 346.

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A considerable number of studies of various kinds have already been commissioned to address this question. However, most of these studies have concerned the contacts between the Baltic and Finnic peoples of the Baltic region, while the problem of linguistic contacts between the Balts and the Volga Finns has been investigated much less. In their book, V. Toporov and O. Trubachev discuss the linguistic relations between the Balts and the Volga Finns in somewhat greater detail. The conclusions of their studies once again confirm the existence of direct contacts between the Baltic and Mordvin languages, already noted by K. Būga⁵; cf. the Mordvin peel, pejel’ “knife,” borrowed from Baltic. Furthermore, V. Toporov and O. Trubachev believe that the Balts had fairly intensive direct contacts not only with the Mordvins but also with the Mari (Cheremis)⁶. One of the main pieces of evidence for this claim is the Lithuanian word lopšys ‘cradle,’ which the authors regard as a borrowing from Mari lepš “cradle; pole from which a cradle is hung”⁷. Because of the consonant š (cf. Mordvin lavš), Lithuanian lopšys cannot be a borrowing from Mordvin.

The authors’ claim that the Lithuanian (like the Russian, cf. udu-ka) imperative formative k arose on the model of the Finnish imperative, whose formative is likewise -ka (-k), also concerns Baltic-Finnic linguistic relations. This is an entirely new and very bold hypothesis. It seems that a separate, more extensive study will be needed to assess it.

Concluding these more general remarks, we wish to emphasize that the place names whose analysis enabled the authors to draw so many new and important conclusions are, generally speaking, quite authentic and accurate. This applies first and foremost to Baltic toponymy. We cannot say anything definite about the authenticity of the Slavic place names, since, naturally, we were unable to verify the hydronyms presented in the monograph in the field, and the sources (printed and manuscript) from which the authors took them are inaccessible to us (with the exception of P. Maštakov’s collection). The authors themselves acknowledge the lack of precise records gathered from local people. However, this major shortcoming is characteristic, generally speaking, of our entire toponomastic scholarship. We merely wish to point out that the monograph makes too little use of lake names, which are indeed absent from P. Maštakov’s collection, but which, in our view, could have been gathered from various other sources.

Examples of inaccuracies in Lithuanian place-name forms include: Darupis River — the form is Duōrupis; Dūma River — the forms are Dāmė and Dūmė; Gleuja River — it should be Gluvija; Kyklė Lake — this name is now unknown. It seems to have entered the linguistic literature through G. Gerulis’s “Die altpreussischen Ortsnamen” (Berlin und Leipzig, 1922), where G. Gerulis relies on K. Būga. In his own

⁵ See K. Būga. Rinktiniai raštai, I, Vilnius, 1958, p. 417.

⁶ That the Balts had direct contacts with the Mari (Cheremis) was already noted by K. Būga (Rinktiniai raštai, III, Vilnius, 1961, p. 590), although he did not consider these relations to have been intensive. Later, K. Būga’s view was confirmed by B. Serebrennikov (Б. А. Серебренников, О некоторых следах исчезнувшего индоевропейского языка в центре европейской части СССР, близкого к балтийским языкам, „Lietuvos TSR Mokslų akademijos Darbai“, serija A, 1, Vilnius, 1957, p. 69—71) and, in a certain sense and very hypothetically, by V. Nikonov (В. А. Никонов, Неизвестные языки Поочья, «Вопросы языкознания», 1960, № 2, p. 89—95).

⁷ See also O. H. Трубачев, Три литовских этимологии: 1. kaktà, 2. šiaudas, 3. lopšys, „Lingua Poznaniensis“, VIII, Poznań, 1960, p. 236—242.

15. Lietuvių kalbos morfologinė sandara ir jos raida

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In turn, K. Būga most likely took this lake name from Vaižgantas’s writings (see Sąrašas geografiskųjų Lietuvos vardų, „Dirva-Žinynas“, 1904, I, No. 10, p. 51). K. Būga himself did not give this lake name in any of his works. Perhaps it is, in some way, a corrupted form of the name of a lake in the vicinity of Užventis, Tykle||Tyk lis, with a village named Tykle nearby; Luba — the forms are Labà and Luobà.

The authors’ caution in assigning a hydronym to a particular language is noteworthy, especially in cases where the hydronym’s lexeme is shared by Baltic and Slavic. In this respect, their interpretation of the river name Березина and of river names with al- (Ольховка, Ольховец, Ольшица, etc.) and kam- (Каменка) should be considered successful. A positive feature of the monograph is the caution shown in the comparisons and interpretations in its etymological dictionary of hydronyms, as well as the authors’ ability, where necessary, to find a solution by offering parallel interpretations. At times, however, in our opinion, there are too many such parallels. For example, for the name Anelka (p. 176), one interpretation would suffice—the second given by the authors: Baltic root ap- (= up-), suffix -el- and -ka. Comparing this hydronym with Latvian apaļš and Lithuanian ap(v)alus seems unnecessary, since such semantics are highly atypical for river names. There seem to be no river names with this root in either Latvian or Lithuanian.

The etymologies given in the dictionary of hydronyms or in the comments are, generally speaking, acceptable. We would like to make a few remarks about only some of them.

Аткыльня, Откыльня (p. 176). One may perhaps accept the segmentation of this hydronym into the prefix at- and the root -kil-, but it is difficult to believe that a word meaning “spring” once existed here.

Варсова, Ворсоха, Ворсиха (p. 178). The authors rightly compare these with Lithuanian vers-, versm- ‘spring,’ but do not connect them with the Lithuanian river name Versakà||Verseka (1. Dieveniškės, Gauja basin; 2. Valkininkai, Merkys basin).

Вересочь (p. 179). The archetype *Versakis given in the etymological dictionary is entirely plausible; however, first and foremost, the hydronym Вересочь should be compared with Lithuanian Verseka||Versakà and with Варсоха in the Dnepro basin.

Воролочи (p. 181). K. Būga (Rinktiniai raštai, III, 880) and V. Toporov and O. Trubachev reconstruct the archetype *Varlakiai, but they do not compare the marsh name Воролочи with Lithuanian Varlakys Lake, Varlakys River, and Varliakys Lake.

Жердь, Жерты, Жерт (p. 188). In the authors’ view, the form Жердь arose from жерг- under the influence of folk etymology; they compare the root žer- with Lithuanian žėrėti on the one hand, and with Prussian Girte and Lithuanian Girta-kalnis (from Spruogis) on the other. Since жерг- may in this case have two different origins, nothing more definite can be said about the first comparison. The second comparison is unlikely to be correct, primarily on semantic grounds. Would it not be more accurate to also link жердь (Жерт), as a parallel, with the Lithuanian rivers Gerd-auję and Gėrd-upis?

Жорна, Карна (p. 115). In the authors’ view, it is difficult to assign these river names to any particular language because their etymology is not entirely clear. The second name, Карна, is indeed included in the etymological dictionary of Baltic hydronyms and, in our view, is quite rightly compared with Lithuanian Karnupė and Prussian Karnithen. Also compare the river names Karnavė, Kaŭnupis, and Karnėlis (?)

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lake. The Kernaujė River, Kernaūė River, Keĕnavas Lake, and Kerňys Lake may perhaps also be assigned to this family. Thus, there seems to be no reason to doubt the Baltic character of the river name Карна.

Because of its obscurity, the river name Жорна was listed by the authors together with Карна, but it was not included in the etymological dictionary of Baltic hydronyms, although it has a good counterpart in the Lithuanian name inventory — the Žarnà River.

In addition, Жарна (p. 109) and Жаренка (p. 57) would also fit here. It is interesting that the Lithuanian town of Zarėnai lies by the Žarnõs River. Cf. also the Žarė River and the village of Zarėnai by this river.

Зембик, Зембинка (p. 188). Although the authors question the authenticity of the forms, it nevertheless seems unnecessary to leave this river name without comment solely on that account. The initial z here may be a Baltic dialectal feature; cf. Lithuanian Zambas River.

Жортаика (p. 188). Kočiubinskis is cited as linking it with žiovojų, -roti (?). First and foremost, this river name should be linked with the Lithuanian Žarčius River.

Лабаповка (p. 192). In the dictionary of Baltic names, this river name is considered to share an origin with the very common root lab- in Baltic toponymy and is compared with labas “good”; another tributary of the same river, Добрая, Добря́нка, is unreservedly regarded as a calque of a Baltic name. This view is understandably too sweeping. First of all, it is too bold to associate all Baltic place names with the root lab- with the appellative labas. Such semantics may be fairly common in microtoponymy and especially in settlement names, but they are less characteristic of hydronyms. In our view, the Lithuanian Labà River, Labauškštas River, Labāžė River, Labāžis Lake, Labė Lake, etc., would more accurately be associated not with labas “good” but with lóbas “hollow, ravine, valley, depression, hollow between hills.” For the semantics, compare the Lobà River and Lobinis Lake. Here lab- corresponds to lob- as s(t)ravėti does to srovė. If the name of the Dnepro basin river Добрая, Добря́нка is indeed a calque of a Baltic name, then folk etymology may also have produced it from lóbas < *lābas, since the two modern words — lābas and lóbas — must have sounded similar at that time.

On the other hand, we should be very cautious about regarding the river name Добрая, Добря́нка as a calque of a Baltic name, especially because of the variant Добря́нка: compare Добрейка, variant Добря́нка, which the authors, in our view, quite plausibly associate with the Lithuanian place-name root dubur- =duburys “hollow, valley.” And lóbas and duburys are words with very similar meanings, almost synonyms. That river names in the same area can have the roots lob- and dubr- is also shown by the river names in the Dnepro basin Лабицъ<? *Lobikis and Добре́чка; Добрин; Добринь. The latter should most likely be derived not from lābas “good,” but from dubur- (duburys).

Лоша (p. 194). Of the nine rivers named Лоша known to him, K. Būga considered only the tributary of the Ašmena to be Baltic; because of their geography, he regarded all the other Losas as Slavic in origin and compared them with Slavic loše “bad, worthless”⁸. In view of the work under review, which considerably expands the boundaries of the distribution of Baltic hydronymy, we can fully agree with the authors that the other

⁸ K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, III. Vilnius, 1961, p. 530.

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The river names Лоша are Baltic. Still, one might question whether K. Būga’s association of the river name Лоша with Lithuanian lašis “salmon” has been accepted uncritically and without good reason. In Lithuanian nomenclature, alongside the rivers Lašašà, Lašišà, Lašišìnė, and Lašišupis, whose connection with the common noun lašìša “salmon” is obvious, there are also the river Lašupis, the river Lašmuõ, Lašupis, the river Lašupėlis, and the river Lašupis. In our view, these latter river names are more accurately associated not with lašìša “salmon” but with lašas; compare lašmuõ “a hole in the ice, an unfrozen place in a lake.” It therefore seems that the river name Лоша would be better compared with Lašmuõ, Lašupis, and others.

Лыза (p. 195). The authors correctly reconstruct *Lūž-(i)a. Also compare Lūžija, a meadow and village in Klaipėda district.

Овчеса (p. 199). According to V. Toporov and O. Trubačiov, this hydronym should be considered Baltic because of its suffix, although its root has been heavily influenced by folk etymology. In our view, the root Овч- can be compared with Lithuanian Aukūpė, a river, and Aükupis, a river.

Осова (p. 200). The authors compare this river name (albeit with a question mark) with the river Освица, the Lithuanian river Ašvà, and ašvà “mare.” It seems to us that in Lithuanian nomenclature the river name Осова corresponds to the lake Āsavas, the river Asavà, and the lake Asavėlis; their root as- is quite common in Lithuanian toponymy: the lake Asys, the river Asinis, and the lake Ašėkas. For as-, compare asys “horsetail.”

Пакуль (p. 200). The comparison with Lithuanian pãkulos is wholly unconvincing on semantic grounds. If there is reason to consider this hydronym Baltic, one should first distinguish in it the prefix pa- and the root kul- or kūl-; compare the Lithuanian river Kulė, lake Kulėinis, lake Kulys, and the rivers Kūlupis and Kūlupis.

The river name Пакуль corresponds to Lithuanian Pakūlė, a meadow (Molėtai, Skrebulių village); Pakulys, a bog and meadow (Panemunis, Papiškių village); and Pakulelė, a marsh (Kapčiamiestis, Valentų village). For kul-, compare kulỹs “corner, edge, piece”: This summer I mowed a good kulys of meadow. Let him graze there on the little kulys; this part has not yet been grazed down so much.

Усперт (p. 211). It is difficult to believe that this river name derives from *Ušpert < *Už-pert- (?). First and foremost, it should be compared with the Lithuanian lake Ūspārtas || Ūpartas || Ūpars-tas. Given the variants Ūpartas and Ūparstas of the lake name Ūspārtas, and the long ū, dividing it into a prefix and a root would be highly questionable.

Чередемо (p. 212). The association with Lithuanian Kirdeikiai is not quite accurate. This river name would be better compared with the Lithuanian river Skerdimas (the initial s in this word may be an added element).

The river names Гать, Смерть and Жердь: warrant separate discussion.

Гать (p. 182). The etymological dictionary of Balticisms appended to the book cites K. Būga’s work “Studies of River Names and the Antiquity of the Aesti and Slavs,” in which Гать is regarded as a river name of non-Baltic origin on geographical grounds. (Today, now that the boundaries of the distribution of Baltic place names have been considerably extended, the geographical position of the river Гать no longer argues against its Baltic character; compare Latvian river Gāte and Lithuanian river Gatė.)

Смерть (p. 208). It is included in the dictionary of Balticisms with reservations. It is compared with Lithuanian Smertupis.

⁹ Lietuvių kalbos žodynas, VI, Vilnius, 1962, p. 836.

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Жердь (p. 188). It is classified as a Balticism, but with a question mark (for discussion, see above).

In the comments on hydronyms ending in — ь (p. 126), the river names Гать, Смерть ir Жердь belong to a group of hydronyms that the authors consider appellatives that have become place names: Жердь, Грязь, Гать, Смерть, Сухарь, Пропасть, Рубеж, Колодезь, Дочь, Сыч, Кокош, etc. It is easy to see that these are Slavic appellatives (жердь ‘pole’, грязь ‘mud’, гать ‘a causeway, pavement in a swamp, corduroy road’, смерть ‘death’, сухарь ‘rusk’, пропасть ‘abyss’, рубеж ‘border, boundary’, колодезь ‘well’, дочь ‘daughter’, сыч ‘little owl’, кокош ‘an old-fashioned Russian woman’s headdress?’). If, in the dictionary of Balticisms, Гать, Смерть ir Жердь are cautiously classified as Baltic, with a question mark, the comments lead the reader to understand without hesitation that these are Slavic place names. So which interpretation should we believe?

As for Смерть, it should also be noted that it was included in the dictionary of Balticisms without justification. Comparison with Lithuanian Smertupis is of no help here, since the root smert- is relatively recent in Lithuanian, especially in the names of several small rivers, having been borrowed from Slavic. If this approach were followed, not only Смерть but also, for example, Рубеж (p. 125) could be considered Baltic; the authors list it among other appellatives that have become hydronyms, together with Смерть (p. 126). For рубеж-, compare Lithuanian Rubėžius River and Rubėžupis River. In our opinion, the hydronym Рубеж is quite rightly not considered Baltic.

The same happened with the name Жадинка, a river in the Seim basin. Discussing the existence of direct Baltic-Iranian contacts (p. 231), the authors included the river name Жадинка in the list of Baltic hydronyms of the Seim basin, but did not include it in the dictionary of Balticisms. Moreover, in some way it ended up in the dictionary of Slavic hydronyms, where it is considered to derive from Slavic *žad-.

The river name Мутежер appears in both the etymological dictionary of Baltic hydronyms and that of Slavic hydronyms, although both entries rely on K. Būga’s view that the name is of Slavic origin: < Slavic *Мути-жир. It seems to us that in this case K. Būga’s view is hardly acceptable without reservation. The comparison of the second component -ежер- with Slavic -жир-, which K. Būga finds only in personal names, raises very serious semantic doubts. Moreover, it is not entirely clear how the Slavic name *Мутужир could have changed into Мутежер in the Slavic languages. If folk etymology is intended, its influence could more likely have worked in the opposite direction. The connection between the second component -ежер and Lithuanian ežeras ‘lake’ is quite apparent. That river names can contain the lexeme ežer- is demonstrated by the following Lithuanian river names: Ežer-ėlė (two rivers), Ežer-ėlis (six rivers), Ežer-yščia, Ežer-otakis, Ežer-uona, Ežer-upis (five rivers), Ežer-upis.

For мут-, compare (?) Maučiūvis River.

There are also some points we might criticize regarding the completeness of the dictionary of Balticisms. It is sometimes not entirely clear what criteria the authors used in deciding whether or not to include a particular hydronym in the dictionary. Of course, we do not mean here those cases that the authors deliberately left aside because of the subject matter’s limitations and the lack of material. (Hydronyms of the Nemunas, Daugava, and partly the Western Bug, Oka, and Upper Volga basins, clear appellatives—

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names, clear appellatives, hydronyms of clear anthroponymic etymology, etc.). However, river names in the Dnieper basin have also been included in the dictionary of Balticisms (and sometimes of Slavisms) rather inconsistently. In our opinion, instead of some unclear cases (e.g., Домашния, Бася, Негра, Дамарка, etc.), some other hydronyms could have been included in the dictionary of Balticisms, for example:

Алшенка (p. 53) River — compare Lithuanian Alšėna River, Alšià River, Alšià||Pieštuvenų ežeras and the authors’ ingenious comments on river names in the Dnieper basin containing Ольш-, Ольх- (p. 160).

Болдинка (p. 59) River, Болданка (p. 64) River — although the dictionary contains Болдыж, compare Lithuanian Baldõnas Lake, Baldõkas Lake, Baldùpė River.

Головля (p. 103) Lake — a complete equivalent could be Lithuanian Galvėlis Lake; compare Galvinis Lake, Gálvė (?) Lake.

Детянка (p. 65) River — although the dictionary contains Деена, Деевка, compare Lithuanian Degùtinė River, Degùtė River, Dėguva River.

Деменка (p. 56, etc.) River, Деминка (pp. 61, 62) River — although the dictionary contains Дамынка, which is derived from Baltic hydronyms with the roots dam-, dem-. For dem-, compare Dėmenas Lake, Dėmenas Lake, Dėmė River, or Deimenà River.

Жиминка||Жимина (p. 62) River — compare Lithuanian Žeimenà River, Žeimenys||Žeimenas||Žeimenes Lake.

Ильговка (p. 51) River — compare Lithuanian Ilgė River, Ilgója River, Ilgis Lake, Ilgotis River, and numerous other hydronyms with this root, whose etymology is clear.

Каратынка (p. 64) River — compare Lithuanian Karatėlė Lake, Kerõtis Lake, Kerotỹs Lake.

Лашунка||Лошуня (p. 68) river, Лошова (p. 147) river, Лошинец (p. 85) river — although the dictionary includes Лоша (see above concerning it). For Лаш-, Лош-, see p. 227.

Лойня (p. 106) river, Лойна (p. 107) river, Лойница (p. 89) river — cf. Lithuanian Lainỹs lake, Lainėlis lake, Leinis stream.

Рамонка (p. 56) river — cf. Lithuanian Ramõnas river, Ramõjus river, Rãmis lake, Ramýtė river.

Роспись (p. 123) — perhaps from *Rasupis¹⁰; cf. Lithuanian Raséika||Raseikà||Rãs upis? river.

Слення (p. 106) river — perhaps of Baltic origin; cf. Slėnė river, slėnis, slėnys.

Сурулль||Суремля (p. 124) river — cf. Lithuanian Sūrupėlis river, Sūrupis river.

Perhaps the etymological dictionary of Slavic hydronyms should not have included river names with the root tal-: Таль, Талица, Талинка, which are derived from a Slavic-language participle with -ль; cf. Russian та́лый: та́ять. The river name Таль has exact equivalents in the Lithuanian name stock; cf. Talė river, Talys lake and, perhaps, Telỹs lake. It seems that Prussian Tolyn lake also has the same root. For now, we have no grounds for considering these latter names Slavic, all the more since they are possible

10 For the syncope of the vowel u in the stem -up-, see A. Vanagas, “Syncope in Lithuanian River Names with -upė, -upis,” *LTSR Mokslų akademijos Darbai*, Series A, 2(15), Vilnius, 1963, pp. 261 ff.

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to etymologize also on the basis of Baltic-language material; cf. Lithuanian talė ‘a small path through an overgrown meadow’. For the semantics, cf. Latvian talvot ‘to turn white, grow pale’, tals: audeklus liek uz tala (pļavas, nuoras) talāt, balināt¹¹.

The inaccuracies or oversights mentioned here are, naturally, minor and do not affect the substance of the work at all.

In conclusion, we would add that the chosen topic (the area investigated is geographical, not ethnolinguistic) entailed a very real danger that the conclusions of the study might remain within the bounds of a regional study. With one or two exceptions, where a definitive resolution of the question was impossible because of the regional scope of the topic (e.g., the eastern boundary of the distribution of Baltic hydronymy, the problem of the origin of the suffixes -анка, -янка, -ейка, -ня, -на, etc.), the authors, broadly speaking, avoided this danger by basing their conclusions on analyses of hydronyms not only from the Dnieper basin but also from neighboring territories, or on the research of other scholars.

The monograph “Linguistic Analysis of the Hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper Region” is indeed of great scientific importance. It is an interesting and significant linguistic work that can serve as an example of how analysis of linguistic facts can yield conclusions important to many other branches of scholarship. It contains much interesting information about the Baltic ancestral homeland, the long period of Baltic-Slavic “symbiosis,” former Baltic neighbors, and so forth—not only for linguists, but also for historians, archaeologists, ethnographers, folklorists, and scholars in other fields. This work will shed considerable light on the problem of Baltic-Slavic linguistic relations.

A. Vanagas

QUESTIONS OF BALTIC AND SLAVIC ACCENTUATION

В. М. Иллич-Свитыч, Именная акцентуация в балтийском и славянском (судьба акцентуационных парадигм), Москва, 1963, 178 р.

The origin of the intonation and accentuation systems of the Baltic and Slavic languages is an important problem in Indo-European studies. The interpretation of the oldest relations among these languages depends in part on its solution. It is therefore understandable that much attention is devoted to the accentuation of these languages in studies of Baltic and Slavic linguistic relations. In recent years, research into the accentuation of the Baltic and Slavic languages has intensified particularly. Several studies and articles¹ have appeared in which considerable space is devoted to Baltic accentuation itself

¹¹ K. Mūlenbacha Latviešu valodas vārdnīca, Rediģējis, papildinājis, nobeidzis J. Endzelīns, IV sējums, Rīgā, 1929—1932, p. 128.

¹ A. Vaillant, Grammaire comparée des langues slaves, I, 1950, Paris; Le problème des intonations balto-slaves, BSL, 37, 1936, p. 114 tt.; J. Kurylowicz, L'accentuation des langues indo-européennes, Wrocław—Kraków, 1952, II leid. 1958; Chr. S. Stang, Slavonic accentuation, Oslo, 1957; L. Sadnik, Slavische Akzentuation. I. Die vorhistorische Zeit, Wiesbaden, 1959; E. Nonnenmacher-Pribić, Die baltoslavischen Akzent und Intonationsverhältnisse und ihr quantitativer Reflex im slovakischen, Wiesbaden, 1961; J. Kazlauskas, Dėl lietuvių kalbos vardadžio kirčiavimo sistemos raidos, „Kalbotyra“, VII, Vilnius, 1963, p. 171—181.

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