SIMONAS NOREIKIS

University of Helsinki

ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0003-2895-5880

Research areas: Finno-Ugric historical and comparative linguistics, onomastics.

DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all90-06

LITHUANIAN HYDRONYMS OF ALLEGED FINNO-UGRIC ORIGIN

Lithuanian Hydronyms of Allegedly Finno-Ugric Origin

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study is to verify the Finno-Ugric origin of Lithuanian hydronyms established in research conducted by Aleksandras Vanagas and other linguists by comparing the names of bodies of water with present-day Finno-Ugric appellatives and proper words that sound similar. Such comparison is considered unreliable because it concerns possible language contacts that took place 4,000 years ago, when the Baltic and Finno-Ugric languages had a different phonological structure. For this reason, a historical-phonological reconstruction of the compared forms was carried out, and it was determined whether a Lithuanian form could have developed from the reconstructed Finno-Ugric form. When the answer was negative, the possibility of Finno-Ugric origin was rejected. It was also examined whether the appellative with which a Lithuanian hydronym is compared is used in the formation of Finno-Ugric place names (the semantic criterion). In the event of a negative answer, the possibility of Finno-Ugric origin was likewise rejected. Finally, the origin of the comparative Finno-Ugric appellative was examined, and in some cases it became clear that the common noun in the Finno-Ugric languages was a borrowing from other languages and arose later than the supposed contacts between the Baltic and Finno-Ugric languages in the territory of present-day Lithuania.

After applying the methods listed, examining the hydronyms presented, and re-establishing their etymologies, it became clear that all those proposed to date were unreliable. On the basis of the latest archaeological research, it can be stated that there could be no Finno-Ugric substrate dating from the Stone Age in Lithuania at all.

However, the possibility cannot be ruled out that Lithuania may contain proper words of modern-era Finno-Ugric (Votic (Krevin)) origin, which the author of this article will continue to seek while pursuing doctoral studies.

KEYWORDS: Finno-Ugric peoples, substrate, hydronyms, onomastics, language contacts.

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ANNOTATION

The study aims to verify the Finno-Ugric etymology of 40 Lithuanian hydronyms suggested by Aleksandras Vanagas and other linguists comparing them to Finno-Ugric appellatives and proper names that sound similar. However, such a comparison is not suitable as the supposed contacts took place 4000 yers ago when Baltic and Finno-Ugric languages had different phonological structures.

Therefore, there was made historical-phonological reconstruction of the compared forms and scrutinised if the Lithuanian form could have been developed from the reconstructed Finnou-Ugric form. If the answer was negative, then the Finno-Ugric etymology was rejectable. It was also verified if the Finno-Ugric appellative to which a Lithuanian hydronym was compared was used in Finno-Ugric toponym formation. In case of a negative answer the Finno-Ugric etymology was rejectable. Finally, the etymology of the compared Finno-Ugric appellative was verified and in some cases it appeared that they were loanwords from other languages borrowed later than the supposed contacts between Balts and Finno-Ugrians took place in Lithuania.

After investigating the suggested etymologies it appeared that all of them were wrong. According to recent archaeological data it can be claimed that there cannot be Finno-Ugric substrate in Lithuania from the Stone Age.

Nevertheless, it is not excluded that in Lithuania there could be Finno-Ugric (Votic-Kreevin) proper names, which the author of the article is looking for in his PhD studies.

KEYWORDS: Finno-Ugric, substrate, hydronyms, onomastics, language contacts.

1. INTRODUCTION

The article is devoted to a critical analysis of Lithuanian hydronyms considered Finno-Ugric and is based on a master’s thesis written and defended in Finnish at the University of Helsinki in 2018, with the aim of introducing Lithuanian readers to the results of this work (Noreikis 2018).

There is still a widespread belief in Lithuania that, in 2000 BC, before the Balts came to the territory of present-day Lithuania, it was inhabited by Finno-Ugric peoples—the ancestors of the present-day Finns, Estonians, and other nations—and that hydronyms of Finno-Ugric origin are evidence of this fact. The conception proposed by this theory is considered so indisputable that it is even written about in history textbooks, for example, in the textbook Laikas 7, which gives specific examples of such hydronyms Jarą, Kidę, Tilkę (Laikas 7 2004: 37).

The belief that Finno-Ugric peoples lived in the present-day territory of Lithuania is based on the continuity theory, according to which the people who lived there before the Corded Ware culture—namely, the representatives of the Comb Ware culture who lived there before the Indo-European Balts—

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spoke Finno-Ugric languages. Relying on this theory, Aleksandras Vanagas presented approximately 40 hydronyms for which he proposed a Finno-Ugric origin.

Recently, the continuity theory has begun to lose its relevance; it is no longer believed that Finno-Ugric peoples lived in the present-day territory of Lithuania. According to archaeologist Valter Lang, contacts between the Baltic and Finno-Ugric languages began in the territory of present-day Russia (west of Moscow), and later interaction between the languages took place in present-day Latvia and Estonia (Lang 2016). Therefore, viewed solely through the prism of archaeology, it may be doubted that hydronyms of Finno-Ugric origin could exist in Lithuania.

The aim of this study is to examine the proposed Finno-Ugric etymologies of Lithuanian hydronyms from the perspective of linguistics. The etymologies proposed by Vanagas have shortcomings, since he compared the selected Lithuanian hydronyms with appellatives and proper words of Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, and other Finnic languages. The investigation was insufficient because it concerns possible very ancient language contacts. It is important to know the history of the development of the languages being compared and to reconstruct the forms being compared.

Therefore, the following questions are raised in the present study:

1. Are Vanagas’s comparisons of Lithuanian hydronyms with Finno-Ugric appellatives and proper words precise? 2. Do the hydronyms presented by Vanagas as being of Finno-Ugric origin date from the Stone Age? 3. Could Finno-Ugric place names exist in Lithuania at all?

The sources in which Vanagas presents the possibly Finno-Ugric hydronyms are provided in the article’s section “Analysis.”

Some of the hydronyms considered Finno-Ugric by Vanagas had been briefly discussed by Vytautas Rimša (1995) and Kari Arvas Liukkonen (Liukkonen 2003), who also proposed an explanation of Baltic origin; this was done without more detailed commentary in the abstracts of conference presentations. Therefore, the aim of this work is to investigate thoroughly each case of a Finno-Ugric-origin explanation proposed by Vanagas.

2. METHODS

As was already mentioned in the Introduction, Vanagas proposed explanations of Finno-Ugric origin for Lithuanian hydronyms by comparing them with present-day Finno-Ugric appellatives; however, this is insufficient when possible contacts dating back 4000 years are under discussion, since at that time the phonetic expression of both the Baltic and Finno-Ugric languages was different.

Therefore, the first step that must be taken when analyzing Vanagas’s comparisons is to reconstruct the Proto-Baltic form of the Lithuanian hydronym and

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the form of the Finno-Ugric appellative or proper noun in the Proto-Finno-Ugric language using the method of historical-comparative phonology. The result may be as follows: similarly pronounced word forms in the proto-languages would be very different, and in the case of possible borrowing they would have developed into entirely different forms. This method was encouraged by Antė Aikio’as in research on Finnish Sámi toponyms, when it was popular to assess toponyms of unclear origin as Sámi in origin by comparing them with words in modern Sámi languages or even without providing a comparison (Aikio 2007: 160). He drew attention to the fact that the phonological structure of Proto-Sámi and modern Sámi languages differs significantly; therefore, historical-phonological reconstruction is necessary (ibid.: 164), after which the Sámi etymology could be refuted. By analogy, this method could also be applied to the analysis of Lithuanian hydronyms considered Finno-Ugric.

When assessing the validity of a Finno-Ugric etymology, the semantic aspect must also not be overlooked. If the origin is convincing from a phonological point of view, it will not necessarily be convincing semantically. For example, a toponym is compared with a Finno-Ugric appellative that is not used in Finno-Ugric toponymy in the formation of toponyms.

Finally, the origin and time of emergence of the Finno-Ugric appellative with which the Lithuanian hydronym is compared must be examined. That appellative may turn out to be a loanword in the Finno-Ugric languages themselves, which emerged later than the time when the Finno-Ugric peoples may have lived in the territory of present-day Lithuania. In that case, the Finno-Ugric etymology of the Lithuanian hydronym must be rejected on chronological grounds.

3. ANALYSIS

This section will analyze hydronyms that Vanagas and other scholars present as being of Finno-Ugric origin. Vanagas mentioned them in various works, from which Zigmas Zinkevičius (2005: 29) compiled a list of the most likely hydronyms of Finnic origin, in his view, and stated that the Finnic origin of most of those hydronyms is beyond doubt, but did not substantiate why.

This article will present a list of hydronyms, most of which is based on the aforementioned list by Zinkevičius, but which will also include more hydronyms mentioned in other sources. For example, the river name Tilkà was mentioned in the history textbook Laikas 7 (2004: 37). Zinkevičius’s list will also be supplemented with other hydronyms mentioned by Vanagas (1975: 406–407).

In the article headings, the accented hydronyms are presented as in Vanagas’s (1981) etymological dictionary (if the hydronyms are not accented in this source, they will likewise not be accented in the article).

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FIG. The most likely hydronyms of Finnic origin according to Zinkevičius (2005: 30)

3.1. Ilmėdas (lake)

Vanagas (1970: 106) does not provide an explanation of Finnic origin; he merely compares the hydronym with other Lithuanian names of bodies of water, such as Ilma Didžioji, Elmis and assigns it to a certain type formed with the suffix –ėd–.

However, in his etymological dictionary Vanagas (1981: 129) compares this hydronym with Latvian toponyms Ilmāde, Ilmede (river), Ilmat (village), Ilmātes (meadow), Ilmete (village), which Janis Endzelīnas, in turn, compares with Estonian toponyms Ilmat-salu, Ilm-soo, Ilma-soo (Endzelīns 1956: 359).

From a phonological perspective, comparing Ilmėdo with the Latvian and Estonian toponyms indicated earlier in the article is inappropriate, since the Lithuanian form of the name contains the long vowel ė, which, according to the laws of historical phonology, could not have developed from short e or a and long ā. On the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that the Latvian names of bodies of water may have the same root, but different suffixes. It should also be noted that in Proto-Finnic stress was fixed on the first syllable, whereas in the lake name Ilmėdas the second syllable is stressed.

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In the Finnic language area there are toponyms whose root is Ilma, and their name indicates that the place is the highest in comparison with the surrounding objects (Aikio 2007: 176). Around Ilmėdas there are other lakes as well, but topographically they are at the same level. Therefore, the view that Ilmėdas may belong to this type of Finnic toponyms must be rejected.

From the perspective of phonology and toponymic typology, Ilmėdas is more likely of Baltic origin and is related to the names Ilma Didžioji, Elmis, Elmė and Almė (cf. Lithuanian elmėti / almėti ‘to flow slowly’). It exhibits the ablaut a ~ e alternation inherited from Proto-Indo-European (Rudzīte 1993: 135); a considerable number of Indo-European hydronyms are formed with the roots *el- / *ol-. In addition, the e ~ i alternation is known in Lithuanian (for example, kelti ~ kilti).

3.2. Ýmasta (river)

Vanagas (1981: 129–130): Ýmasta ~ Estonian toponym Imastu vald. The Estonian toponym dictionary (EKNRe s. v.¹ Imastu, Imavere) explains that the toponym may be related to the names *Ima, *Immo(i) and the Finnish personal name Himanen: Himas(t)en.

The comparison with Estonian toponyms is problematic from a phonological perspective, since the Lithuanian river name Ýmasta contains the long vowel y, whereas Estonian Imastu has short i. Ýmasta also cannot be associated with Finnish Himanen, since Finnic *h (often lost in Estonian) derives from Proto-Finnic *š; consequently, the form **Šimair and the Lithuanian name would have been **Šimasta.

3.3. Jarà (river and lake), Jarìlka (river)

Vanagas (1981: 134) identifies the river and lake Jarõs, as well as the river Jarìlkos, as hydronyms of Finnic origin and relates them to Finnish järvi ‘lake’. Vanagas (1971: 149) bases this association on the existence in Latvia of compound toponyms whose second component is –(j)eris, –(j)ēris, derived from Proto-Finnic *järvi. However, this comparison is inappropriate. The Latvian toponyms mentioned are of Livonian origin, and the objects themselves are located in the historical Livonian-inhabited territory along the coast of the Gulf of Riga. The toponyms display a phonological feature of Livonian—the loss of consonant v after consonant r (Proto-Finnic *järvi > *järro > Courland Livonian jōra, Salaca Livonian järу) (Kallio 2016: 46–47). These

¹ Here and throughout the article, s. v. – sub verbum (the headword in a dictionary).

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the changes occurred late, around the 15th century, while before that the use of Livonian differed little from Estonian (ibid.: 60–61). Therefore, the comparison is inappropriate from a chronological perspective, since possible Finnic hydronyms in Lithuania emerged in 2000 BC, whereas the Livonian forms appeared 3500 years later. Moreover, Jarõs River and Lake are far from the Livonians’ area of settlement, and therefore the comparison is inappropriate from the areal-typological perspective of onomastics.

It is worth noting that the origin of Finnic *järvi is not entirely clear. It has even been suggested that this word is of Baltic origin (Nuutinen 1989); it was associated with Baltic *jaurā (Lithuanian jáura), which in Proto-Finnic became *jāwǝ̄ (EVE s. v. järvi), and later, through metathesis, became *järvi. It is difficult to imagine how Jarą could have developed from it in the case of possible back-borrowing. Finally, the hydronym Jarà is stressed on the final syllable, which contradicts the laws of the Finnic languages.

Meanwhile, Jarílka is most likely a hydronym of Slavic origin, associated with the name of the Slavic pagan god Jaril(k)o. A village in Latvia, Jērila, is associated with the name of this god (Būga III 639), making the possibility of a Slavic origin considerably more plausible.

In conclusion, it should be added that Vanagas (1981: 134) draws attention to the Prussian–Yotvingian place names provided by Gustavs Leiding, Jarcke, Jarą, Arke, Jarke Fliess (Leyding 1959: 43), but does not comment in greater detail on their connection with Jarà. Therefore, in further research it would be worthwhile to determine whether Jarà is related to these place names.

3.4. Kėvė (river)

Vanagas (1975: 405): Kėvė ~ Estonian käwe ‘fast, active’ (Wiedemann 1869: 278, 425), since Kazimieras Būga (III 615) associated a series of Latvian place names with this Estonian word. Būga’s Latvian place names will not be examined here, as they are unrelated to the subject of the article. Meanwhile, from the perspective of historical phonology, Kėvė cannot be associated with Estonian käwe. The form käwe provided by Ferdinand J. Wiedemann is a weak-grade form, whereas the form used in contemporary Estonian is käbe (genitive käbeda) (ESE s. v. käbe). The form of this word in Proto-Finnic was *käpedä, from which *Kēwijā could hardly have developed in Proto-Baltic. Vanagas (1981: 154) offered an explanation of Latvian rather than Finnic origin, which appears more plausible.

3.5. Kīdė, Kidėlė (river)

Vanagas (1981: 156): Kīdė ~ latvių apeliatyvai kīdas, kīdes, kīdi < lyvių kid(ūd) ‘žuvų viduriai, žarnos; kas nors mažas, nesvarbus’; ~ estų vietovardis

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Kide-maa (Endzelīns 1961: 378); ~ river name Kidurga ~ Livonian kid(ūd) (Rudzīte 1961: 185).

First, attention should be drawn to the proper names provided by Vanagas. Kidurga has a variant Kidurga with long ī (LGIA VD). The Estonian Place Names Database (KNAB) contains no proper name Kidemaa; it lists only Kiidemaa with long ii. Therefore, it is doubtful whether the river name Kidė is phonologically associated appropriately with the Latvian and Estonian place names indicated earlier in the article.

From the perspective of onomastics, a Finnic origin is also doubtful, since the Finnic name inventory contains no place names whose determinant is Livonian kid(ūd) or its equivalents in other Finnic languages, for example Finnish kita ‘gullet, throat, mouth’, Estonian kida, kidu id. ‘gills’, and Finnish kidukset ‘gills’.

Wolfgang P. Schmid drew attention to the fact that Latvian kidas, kīdes, kīdi is a late borrowing; if it had entered Proto-Baltic, the Latvian equivalent would be *cid-, and he explained why Kidė may be of Lithuanian origin (Schmid 1988: 165–166). Vanagas’s etymological dictionary also gives the names Skidėlė, Skidupys and Skidulys ~ skisti ‘to spread apart; to decay; to become loose, thin, fray; to spread, disseminate’, which has the synonym kisti ‘to begin to become loose, come apart, split, spread’ (LKŽe). Schmid compares these words with another Lithuanian word, (s)kerdžius. Therefore, by analogy, Kidė may be associated with kisti. In addition, Rimša (1995: 97) believes that Kidė may have arisen from the verb kidénti ‘to tease, card’. The question of whether Lithuanian hydronyms could have arisen from the words (s)kisti, kidénti is left open for researchers of Lithuanian onomastics. It can nevertheless be asserted that Kidė is not a hydronym belonging to a Stone Age Finnic substrate.

3.6. Kīrgus, Kīrgas (river)

Vanagas (1981: 157): Kīrgus ~ Kerg-ozero (~ Finnish kärki ‘woodpecker’, Estonian kärk ‘black woodpecker’ (Vasmer 1934: 380)); ~ Kyrgus’ (a river in Arkhangelsk Oblast (Čašev 2010); ~ Estonian kõrge ‘high’ (Šliavas 1996: 50).

The comparison with Finnish kärki may be appropriate, since the appellative has equivalents in other Finno-Ugric languages (SES; UEW); however, in the case of possible borrowing, the Lithuanian equivalent **Ker̃gus is more likely. Šliavas (1996: 50) also indicated a variant of the river name that is most likely a secondary Samogitian form.

The comparison with Kyrgus’ is doubtful, since its Finno-Ugric origin is proposed by comparing this river name with various Finno-Ugric appellatives, without examining the specifics of their formation as place names, their semantics, or historical phonological regularities.

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The comparison with Šliavas might be suitable from a phonological point of view, but it must be rejected on semantic grounds, since the river flows through plains.

Schmid drew attention to the fact that the river name may be related to the ideophone kirgu (‘the sound made by geese’) and the verb formed from it, kirgauti (Schmid 1988: 166). The question of the suitability of this comparison is left open to Lithuanian onomasticians.

3.7. Kivė, in Latvian Kive (river)

The river Kivė flows through the territories of Lithuania and Latvia. Būga (III 229) proposed regarding this river name as being of Finnic origin (cf. Livonian kiv, Finnish kivi ‘stone’).

The Latvian counterpart Kīve indicates the late origin of this name. If the name had entered Proto-Baltic, the Latvian form would have been **Cive.

It is also necessary to note that both in Lithuania and in Latvia this river name has another variant in which the root vowel y / ī is long: Lithuanian Kyvė and Latvian Kīve. The latter form is listed as the primary one in the Latvian Place-Name Database (LGIA VD), the other forms of the river name being Kīves strauts, Kīvīte. The long root vowel prevents this name from being associated with Finnic *kivi, since the root vowel does not lengthen in borrowing. Laimutė Baluodė associates the Latvian form Kīvīte with the appellative kīvīte ‘lapwing’, which is a loanword that entered through Estonian from Low German (kiwit) (Balode 2015: 58). Therefore, it may be an indirect Finnicism, but this is only an assumption.

However, Vanagas (1981: 158) does not rule out a Baltic origin either and associates it with the appellatives kývis, kyvōnas ‘a small worm or some insect’, kyvōnas ‘a small aquatic organism, an infusorian’. If the form of the name with the long vowel is primary, this association may perhaps be appropriate. In any case, it appears more convincing than a Finno-Ugric origin.

3.8. Kōķe (river)

Vanagas (1975: 405) states that the Finno-Ugric origin of this river name is rather doubtful. In his etymological dictionary (Vanagas 1981: 161–162), he compares this hydronym with several Latvian toponyms containing the root Kāk-, some of which Būga (III 623) associated with Finnish kõyķķy ‘bent, hunchbacked’. From the perspective of historical phonology, the comparison with this Finnish appellative is entirely unsuccessful, since its form in Proto-Finnic was *keükkü, from which the form *Kāk- could hardly have developed. Moreover, the long consonant after the long syllable arose later than the Baltic and Finnic

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contacts (Juntila 2019: 35–36). For this reason, a Finno-Ugric origin must be unequivocally rejected.

3.9. Kōrubis, Kōrbis, Kōrbē (river)

Vanagas (1981: 162) considers this river name to be of unclear origin, since it is not clear which form was primary: Kōrubis or Kōrbis / Kōrbē. If Kōrubis is a later form that arose with the anaptyctic u, then the form Korbis / Korbē may be a Finno-Ugricism and may be related to the Volga-basin river name Korba (Serebrennikov 1970: 46), as well as to Karelian toponyms Korba, Korbozero, Korbi-salma and Karelian appellatives kor’b, Finnish korpi, Vepsian kor’b, Estonian kõrɓ ‘wilderness, forest’ (in Proto-Finnic *korpi). The Volga-basin river Korba is associated with these Finnic-language appellatives (Matveev 2001: 112).

At first glance, deriving the name variants Kōrbis / Kōrbē from the Finno-Ugric languages may appear convincing. However, Lithuanian long o derives from long a (cf. Lithuanian brolis ~ brālis), so the reconstructed forms of the river name would be *Kārubijas, *Kārbijas, *Kārbijā, which could hardly have developed from Finnic *korpi.

Moreover, the origin of the word *korpi in the Finnic languages is not entirely clear, since it lacks clear cognates in other branches of the Finno-Ugric family (SES s. v. korpi). Aikio presented arguments for its Finno-Ugric origin from Proto-Finno-Ugric and indicated cognates in other Finno-Ugric languages (Aikio 2014: 9–10), and in 2023, in his studies of etymologies (SIUE), supplemented his arguments and proposed cognates. However, regardless of which layer of the Finno-Ugric languages *korpi belongs to, the Baltic *Kārb- could not have developed from it.

3.10. Kūrā (river)

Vanagas (1981: 173): Kūrā ~ place names Kūra (river), Kūrītis (lake), Kūra-plava (meadow), and Kūr-lejas (meadow) ~ the Finnic-origin Latvian word kūre ‘crucian carp’ (Endzelīns 1961: 189; Rudzīte 1968: 184). Vanagas believes that Kūrā may be of the same origin. He also adds that Georg R. Frēlich relates the East Prussian stream name Kurat(graben) to Estonian kurat ‘the Devil’ and Finnish kurata ‘to soil oneself, to become dirty’, kura ‘mud, dirt, excrement’ (Froelich 1930: 80).

Kūrā cannot be associated with Latvian kūre ‘crucian carp’, since this is a borrowing from South Estonian (kogōr ~ kokr) (Zeps 1962: 128), found in a limited area—eastern Latvia (Laumane 1973: 109–110), where South Estonians lived. Thus, the Latvian word was borrowed not from Proto-Finnic, but from an already formed separate Finnic

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language and is widespread only in those Latvian dialects that border the South Estonian language area. Therefore, Lithuanian Kūra cannot be associated with this loanword.

Kūra also cannot be associated with Estonian kurat and Finnish kurata, kura (for the meanings of these appellatives, see section 3.9), since in the Lithuanian variant of the name the root vowel ū is long, unlike in the Estonian and Finnish words. Therefore, associating the river name Kūrā with the Finno-Ugric languages is not precise.

Rimša (1995: 98) considers the hydronym Kūrā Baltic and associates it with the word kūrti. This explanation of the water name’s origin will not be evaluated in the article, since it does not correspond to the subject of the research conducted.

3.11. Kvištė (river)

Vanagas (1981: 177) considers the river name to be of unclear origin, since the Baltic name inventory contains no other place names with kvist-. далее, relying on Lauri Kettunen’s opinion, he states that “it can only be suspected that Kvištė derives from *Kivištė, cf. Estonian Kivištiku ‘stony place’, Kivištu” (Kettunen 1955: 222). This explanation can also be supplemented with the Finnish name variant Kivištö.

However, in Proto-Finno-Ugric the stress fell on the first syllable; therefore, if the river name had originated from a Finno-Ugric substratum, it would have been stressed *Kivištė and would more likely not have been reduced to Kvištę.

3.12. Lámbis (river)

Vanagas (1981: 179): Lámbis ~ Finnic Lambas-Kurja, Lomb-ozero, Lambas, Finnish lampi ‘pond, lake in the forest’, and states that confirmation of the river name’s connection with Finnish lampi is provided by the forest name Leṁpiai. Vanagas also gives examples of Latvian place names that Endzelīns associates with Estonian Lamba or Lambi (Endzelīns 1961: 254).

However, the primary meaning of Finnish lampi and its equivalents in other Finnic languages is not ‘forest lake’ but simply ‘a small body of water’ (smaller than a lake); therefore, the existence of the forest name Leṁpiai proves nothing.

The origin of the Finnish word lampi is not entirely clear. Aikio (2014a: 86) considers it an inherited word from Proto-Finno-Ugric, whereas Liukonen (Liuk­konen 1999: 78–79) and Lothar Kilian (Kilian 1986: 494) consider it a Baltic loanword (cf. Lithuanian klampá). Petri Kallio (Kallio 2015: 88) agrees with this view; however, when asked personally, he told the author of this article that he also does not rule out the origin proposed by Aikio. Therefore, the river name Lámbis cannot be associated with a word whose

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whose etymology has not been fully clarified and whose possibly Baltic-origin explanation has not been rejected.

3.13. Lángas (lake)

Vanagas (1975: 405): Lángas ~ Karelian Lango, Langozero and Lango-ozero, but later Vanagas (1981: 180) doubts the Finno-Ugric origin of the hydronym and proposes a Lithuanian etymology, relating the lake name to the appellative lángas ‘an eye of a marsh’. The Lithuanian etymology appears much more convincing than the Finno-Ugric one.

3.14. Lõjus (lake)

Vanagas (1975: 404–405): Lõjus ~ Estonian Loju. The Lithuanian lake name Lõjus cannot be related to Estonian Loju, because the Lithuanian name derives from the form *Lãjus, where long ā could not have developed from short o. Vanagas’s (1981: 193) etymological dictionary does not even mention the possible Finno-Ugric origin of the name Lõjus, but it associates it with another hydronym, Lauja (ibid.: 182–183), for which an Indo-European origin is proposed.

3.15. Lõnas (river)

Vanagas (1981: 196): Lõnas ~ the explanation is based on the correspondences indicated by Endzelīns: Latvian Lans (forest) < Latvian lanis, lans ‘a thicket; a wet meadow; a large, impassable forest’ < Estonian dialectal laan (in the standard language laas, cf. Finnish lansi ‘a low, wet place’) (Endzelīns 1961: 286).

From the perspective of historical phonology, the Finnish form is more archaic, whereas the Estonian form is the result of phonological changes (*lansi > *laas / *laane (genitive)). The Estonian dialectal form laan is the result of the nominative and genitive becoming alike, and is therefore recent. Thus Lõnas cannot be a Finno-Ugric hydronym originating in the Stone Age.

Latvian lānis, lāns is widespread along the northern Latvian border with Estonia (Zeps 1962: 144) and quite far from Lithuania. Therefore, from the perspective of the distribution area, a Finno-Ugric origin must also be rejected.

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3.16. Liūdis (lake)

Vanagas (1981: 199): Liūdis Latvian Luod~ ~ luodis ‘northwest wind’ < Livonian luod ‘northwest’ (Endzelīns 1961: 355); ~ luode ‘ball’ < Estonian lood ‘bullet’ < Middle Low German lōt (Rudzīte 1968: 187).

The Latvian dialect words lodis, lods, lode and lodus ‘northwest wind’ and lodāt ‘to blow from the northwest’ are used only in the dialects of the coast of the Gulf of Riga (Zeps 1962: 149). Lake Luodis is near the Latvian border, but on the other side of the border lies the Latgale region, where there are no Finnic-origin loanwords meaning ‘northwest’. Lithuanian has Finnic loanwords that entered through Latvian, but there is no loanword meaning ‘northwest’ in Lithuanian. Therefore, associating the lake name Liūdis with the Latvian dialect words is unsuitable because of the distance from their area of distribution.

Moreover, the origin of the word luode in the Finnic languages is not entirely clear. The word has two meanings: ‘the direction of the world between west and north’ and ‘flood’. According to SES, s. v. luode is explained as follows: the primary meaning may be ‘the direction of sunset’ or a derivative of the verb *luotaa ‘to fall, throw, toss, etc.’. Luode ‘the direction of the world between west and north’ may be related to the word luode ‘flood, inundation’, for which a Germanic etymology (*flōdi-z ‘stream’) has been proposed (SES). The dictionary also assumes that these two words are etymologically related if their original meaning was ‘wind causing the water level to rise’. However, their connection with the verb luoda ‘to scoop’ cannot be ruled out (ibid.).

If Finnish luode is of Germanic origin, the lake name Luodis cannot be related to it. It would have been borrowed from the Finnic languages much later than the period when, according to the hypothesis, Finnic peoples lived in the territory of Lithuania.

If the word is of Finnic origin, its meaning appears recent. EESe (s. v. loe) states: “Southwest or west of the Finnic settlement area, the sea has risen, causing floods, and the meaning denoting a direction of the world is derived from it.” It appears that the meaning ‘the direction of the world between west and north’ is secondary. Assuming that the form of the word luode arose in the Western Uralic language as early as 2000 BCE (when, according to the assumptions, Finnic peoples lived in the territory of Lithuania), it would have developed differently in Lithuanian. At that stage of language development, long vowels did not exist (the stem form would probably have been *loŋ; cf. Lule Sami låkņōt ‘to lift’ (SES s. v. luoda)). Thus, it may be assumed that this is not a hydronym belonging to a Finnic substrate dating from the Stone Age.

Likewise, the lake name Liūdis should not be associated with the Finnish words luoti, Estonian lood, since these derive from Middle Low German (SES s. v. luoti), i.e. belong to the layer of late loanwords; therefore, from a chronological perspective, the comparison indicated is unsuitable.

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3.17. Naidų ežeras

Naidų ežeras was equated with the village name Naidai (Vanagas 1981: 223). In his dictionary, Vanagas (1981) no longer identifies this name with the Estonian name Noida (Vanagas 1975: 404–405). This most likely means that the explanation in terms of Finnic origin was abandoned.

3.18. Negaščius, Nigėštis (lake)

Vanagas (1981: 226) writes that it is unclear which form is newer. In his opinion, the form Nigėštis is older, because the form Nigiest is mentioned in a historical source. Vanagas assumes that the hydronyms are related to the Latvian toponyms Nigaste, Nigastes, Nigasti. These places are near the Estonian border, so their “Estonianness” is not unfounded. The names contain the suffix –ste (*–nen genitive plural), so they are undoubtedly Latvian-Estonian adstratum toponyms. However, the Lithuanian names cannot be identified with the Latvian ones, because Nigėštis is in southern Lithuania. Thus, from an areal-typological perspective, such a comparison is unsuitable. Nigėštis cannot be a derivative with the suffix *–nen. In 2000 BCE, the forms of the other cases of the suffix –nen were not what they are now (for example, Finnish punainen < *punańčen ‘red’ (Lehtinen 2007: 95)). Therefore, from the perspective of historical phonology, the name Nigėštis cannot be associated with Finnic toponyms formed with the suffix –nen ~ –sen.

3.19. Nevėlis (river)

Vanagas (1981: 229): Nevėlis ~ Finnish Neva, Nevajóki, Nevanjoki (> Russian Neva; cf. also Russian Nevo ‘Ladoga’, SES s. v. neva) and the Finnish appellative neva ‘type of bog’ (KS s. v. neva). In the other Finnic languages, the meanings of the equivalents of this appellative are related to bogs or rivers. Saarikivi (2006: 276) considers Finnic *neva and Sami *neve ‘a small, swift stream’ loanwords from an unknown language². On the other hand, according to Vanagas, the Finnic-origin explanation of the river name Nevėlio is contradicted by the river name Nevljica in Slovenia and the toponym Nevel. Meanwhile, the river name Nevelj in the Pripyat basin, according to Būga (III 508, 887), is Finnic-origin

² The author of this article’s master’s thesis supervisor, Santeris Junttila, provided information in personal communication concerning old words in which a following a in the next syllable after the first-syllable e is of Baltic origin. It may then be assumed that in words of earlier origin vowel unity would be observed, and the hypothetical form would be *nevā.

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of origin, is associated with Finnish neva. Since the analysis of this name is unrelated to the topic of the article, Būga’s assumption will not be discussed in greater detail.

Returning to the comparison with the Neva River, attention should be drawn to the fact that the river’s name formed later than 1350 BCE (Saarnisto 2003: 66), that is, much later than the presumed rapprochement and convergence of Finnic and Baltic languages in the territory of present-day Lithuania around 2000 BCE, which makes the comparison unfounded. Moreover, the origin of the appellative *neva itself is not entirely clear in the Finnic languages, which likewise makes the comparison questionable.

The Lithuanian origin appears considerably more convincing. Nevēlis may have been formed with the diminutive suffix –el–, which is a productive formant in Lithuanian personal names. Surnames developed from the appellative naujas, for example, Naujēlis, Naujūlis. It is thought that the surname Navūlis developed from the latter, and perhaps also Nevūlis (Vanagas 1989: 312, 324). Similarly, Naujēlis > Navēlis and Nevēlis may have developed, and the river’s name under discussion may have been formed from this personal name. Therefore, the Finno-Ugric origin should be rejected, and a Lithuanian origin based on a personal name should be proposed.

3.20. Pernaũa (river, meadow), Pérnokė (lake)

Vanagas (1981: 254–255) considers the origins of both names unclear. He attempts to find equivalents of the name Pernaũos in Lithuanian and Belarusian place names. In his opinion, however, a Finno-Ugric origin is more likely. Among the parallels he includes the name of the river Pērnava flowing in Latvia, which Marta Rudzīte considers Finno-Ugric and associates with the Estonian appellative pärn ‘linden’ (Rudzīte 1968: 189). She compares the name Pernaũos with the name Pérnokės.

Vanagas claims that Pérnokė developed from the Finnic name *Pern-joki. In Lithuanian hydronyms, the suffix –okė is productive, but in the case of Pérnokės the meaning of the stem Pern is unclear. In any event, Pérnokė could not have developed from the form *Pärn(V)-joki, because Proto-Finnic o could not have developed into Proto-Baltic ā (in Proto-Baltic, the form would have been *Pärnākē). In the first syllable, Proto-Baltic ā has the equivalents *a or *ō in borrowings in Finnic languages, except for Finnish vōh la ← Baltic *ażlja–, because *ō is impossible before a consonant cluster.

The prefix per– is also productive in Lithuanian hydronyms, but the name Pérnokė cannot be regarded as a derivative formed with it, because a root with nok– (Baltic *nāk– ‘to come’) is not found in Baltic hydronyms (Vanagas 1970: 187). The name Pérnokė differs from other derivatives with the suffix –okė in that the stress falls on the first syllable (in other cases, on the penultimate syllable, for example, Rudokė). In derivatives with the prefix Per–, the stress usually falls on the first syllable, so the stem of the name under discussion may have undergone phonetic change, making its meaning impossible to determine.

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Lithuanian hydronyms of purported Finno-Ugric origin

The name Pernavà has the suffix –ava, which is frequently found in the lexicon of Baltic hydronyms (in Lithuanian it is often replaced by the newer form –uva). Vanagas (1970: 101) writes that the meaning of the stem of many names ending in –ava / –uva is unclear today. Pernavà is one of them.

Paulius Ariste wrote that the Estonian and Finnish place names Pärn and Pern may be substrates from an extinct unknown language (Ariste 1981: 17). The appellative pärnä occurs only in Finnic languages (SES s. v. pärnä), so it may be a substrate word. Thus, it may be assumed that Pernavà and Pērnokė are not of Finno-Ugric origin, but may derive from the substrate of an extinct language.

3.21. Pīladis (river)

In his etymological dictionary, Vanagas (1981: 258) proposes two explanations of Finno-Ugric origin. First, Vanagas follows the proposal of Rudzīte (Rudzīte 1968: 189) and Antons Breidaks (Breidaks 1973: 100), explaining that the Latgalian river Pyldys ups (the Latvian form Pilda) may be related to Estonian põld ‘field’³. Pyldys is presented as the Latgalian singular feminine genitive (see Leikuma 2003: 13). However, Vanagas’s comparison of the name Piladis with Latgalian Pylda is inappropriate, because the latter arose only after Estonians moved to Latgale at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Mela 2001).

Nor would it be correct to equate the name Pīladis with the Estonian form põld. Proto-Finnic had the form *pëlto, and the word itself is a borrowing from Proto-Germanic (< *felba) ‘field, arable land’ (EVE s. v. pelto). It is difficult to find a well-founded explanation of how the form Pīladis could have developed from pelto / põld < *pëlto.

In his etymological dictionary, Vanagas also raised the hypothesis that Pīladis is related to the Latvian place names Pīlags, Pīladzis and the like. They are formed from similar Finnic loanword-appellatives whose original form is Livonian pīlõg ‘rowan’. These loanwords are widely distributed and are found mainly in the dialects of Courland, Semigallia, and Vidzeme (Zeps 1962: 165–166). However, they are not found in Latgalian dialects (except in several varieties along the Vidzeme border). The stream Pīladžio is in the Pašvitinys area, which likewise belongs to the historical territory of Semigallia. Unfortunately, there is no information about hydronyms in the territory of Semigallia formed from the word pīlõg.

^³ Despite strong arguments for a connection between Pīlda and põld, no one had drawn attention to the fact that in South Estonian dialects, instead of the Germanic loanword põld ‘field’, the Finnic inherited word nurm ‘field, meadow’ is used much more frequently, so the connection between the Latgalian proper name and the Estonian appellative may also be rejected. The author of the article addresses this question in further doctoral studies concerning place names of Finnic origin in Latvia.

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From the perspective of phonetic structure, it is difficult to find a connection between the name Pīladis and the variants of the appellative stems pīlūdz-, pīlāg-, pīlag-, pīlāg. The stem vowel ī in the original language (Livonian) and in all Latvian word forms is always long. In Lithuanian, however, this vowel is short. In Livonian, pīlōg i became long as a result of the phonological change *š > *h > Ø (cf. Finnish pihlaja, Estonian pihlakas). In Early Finnic, the root was *pišla-, but there are no traces of š in the Lithuanian form of the name. Therefore, the name Pīladis cannot be associated with any Finnic form.

On the other hand, Pīladis may be an infixal formation, since the infix –ad– is productive in Lithuanian hydronyms. The stem pil may be a derivative of the noun pilis or the verb pilti. Hydronyms can easily be formed from both, for example, Pil–ėlė < from Lithuanian pilis, Pil–ašius < from pilti (Vanagas 1981: 258). In his earlier work, Vanagas (1970: 71) compares the name Pīladis with the latter names. He mentions the possible Finnic origin only in a footnote. Vanagas acknowledges that, phonetically, the Livonian forms and the Latvian forms derived from them can hardly be related to Pīladis. However, he assumes that Pīladis may be related to the Latvian name Piladzis (in his view, a Lithuanianized form of Pīladzis). Unfortunately, he does not explain what kind of place this is, where it is located, or why the sound i became short. Meanwhile, Vanagas (1981: 258) writes only about a possible Finnic origin in the etymological dictionary, while parallels with the names Pilėlė and Pilāšius are not indicated, although they are explained more extensively. Therefore, in this case, preference is given to the Baltic etymology.

3.22. Puožas (lake)

Vanagas (1981: 268): Puožas ~ Latgalos dvaro vardas Puožų–maja. Pasak mokslininko, forma puož– išsirutuliojo iš formų pāž-, pāž-. Savo teiginį jis grindžia tuo, kad latgalių kalboje baltų ā virsta uo. Minėtą ežero vardą jis lygina su kitais latvių vietovardžiais, pavyzdžiui, Pāze (pieva), Pāzis (3 skirtingi objektai) ir Pāžs, Pāžupe (upė), kurie sudaryti iš latvių žodžio pāzis < pāž ‘uola’ (Vanagas žodį pāž pažymėjo kaip suomišką, nors iš tiesų tai yra Vydemano Estų–vokiečių kalbų žodyne užrašyta forma pāž, suomių kalboje taisyklinga forma yra paasi (Wiedemann 1869: 858). Žodžio pāzis paplitimas latvių kalbos tarmėse nėra didelis, jis vartojamas tik Livonijos (Vidžemės) tarmėse (Zeps 1962: 160). Vanago minimos Pāz-, Pāžvietovės yra Kurše (LGIA VD).

Puožas and Puožų–maja are in different historical regions. There are no rocks in the area of Lake Puožas, so associating it with Finnic *paasi is semantically unfounded. Moreover, Finnish paasi and its counterparts in other Finnic languages are considered to be of Germanic origin (< *spāda, EESe s. v. paas). Assuming that the Finnic peoples lived in Lithuania before the Balts arrived, they probably did not have the word *paasi, which

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was borrowed relatively recently and entered the territory of Finland after the Finnic peoples allegedly settled in Lithuania. In Lithuanian, the phonetic development *paasi > *puož– is impossible (especially *s > *ž). Vanagas associated the name Puožas with recent forms of Finnic languages, which are the result of independent phonetic development. Aikio notes that names should be compared not with current forms but with reconstructed ones (Aikio 2007: 164). Comparison of the word paasi with the earlier form *spāda shows that Puožas is unrelated to them. Therefore, it can be concluded that Puožas is not a Finnic-substrate toponym dating from the Stone Age.

3.23. Robatà, Robãtė (river)

Vanagas (1981: 279) claims that this hydronym is probably a Finnicism and compares it with the Latvian hydronym Rabbat–Esser, associated with Livonian and Estonian raba ‘swamp’, Livonian rabat-suo ‘swamp’, and rapa-suo ‘quagmire’.

Estonian raba is a loanword from Old Scandinavian languages (EESe s. v. raba). Loanwords from Scandinavian languages entered the Finnic languages only in the 3rd–8th centuries (Kallio 2015: 26); therefore, chronologically, it is impossible to claim that Robatà is a Finnic hydronym belonging to a Stone Age substrate.

Vanagas mentions that Vladimir N. Toporov proposes a different explanation of its origin, but does not describe it in detail (Toporov 1977: 84). The primary source shows that this scholar proposes an Indo-European origin. Verification of Toporov’s hypothesis is not connected with the topic of this article; therefore, it is suggested that other researchers address it in the future.

3.24. Rujà (river)

Vanagas (1981: 283): Rujà ~ Latvian toponyms Rūja, Rūjupe, Rūjas, which Būga (III 617) regards as Finnicisms. According to Vanagas, the Finnic origin is also confirmed by the Latvian hydronym Ruoja, Prussian Rogys, Royenn, Roigen < *Rōjis (*Rōja-), Latvian rāja ‘rotten, having lost its ore-bearing water’, and Kashubian raja ‘puddle, mud, swamp’. The latter two appellatives were considered to be of Finnic origin; cf. Finnish ruoja ‘quagmire, puddle’, Estonian roe ‘quagmires, boggy places, muddy stream’ (Bednarczuk 1976: 51), but Santeri Juntila rejects this assumption on the basis of the laws of historical phonology (Juntila 2015: 20). Later, Vanagas himself (1981: 283) expressed doubts about the connection between the hydronym Rujà and Latvian toponyms ruj-, since the Lithuanian river-name form has the short root vowel u. If his insight is correct, the Finnic origin of the hydronym Rujà must be rejected.

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The Finnish ruoja form was *rooja in Proto-Finnic, while the long root vowel is a late phenomenon. In Proto-Finno-Ugric, the form of this word may have been *rowaja / *ronaja / *royaja (according to the author’s personal conversation with A. Aikio), so the Latvian, Prussian, and Kashubian appellatives and proper names mentioned earlier are likewise unlikely to be of Finno-Ugric origin.

3.25. Sikià (river)

Vanagas claims that the river name Sikià (Sýkė) is related to the Lithuanian appellatives sýkas, sýkis, which were considered Finnish loans, cf. Finnish siika (Vanagas 1975: 404–405). However, in the Finnic languages themselves, siika is considered a Germanic loan, while the relationship of the Lithuanian appellatives sýkas, sýkis to the Finnic and Germanic words is unclear (LÄGLOS III 231); therefore, Sikià cannot be a hydronym belonging to a Stone Age Finno-Ugric substrate.

3.26. Suosà (river)

Vanagas (1981: 320): Suosà ~ Karelian Suasjärvi. In northern Finland (Enontekiö), there are three lakes named Suasjärvi. Vanagas does not rule out a Baltic etymology either and offers comparisons, for example, with the word saũsas and other Lithuanian appellatives, which seems more convincing. The lakes called Suasjärvi are far from Lithuania, so from an areal-typological perspective they cannot be associated with Suosa. Moreover, Suasjärvi is probably the weak-grade form of *Sukàs- / *Sùtas.

3.27. Šakšỹs (lake), Šakšėlė (river)

Vanagas (1981: 324–325) considers the origin of these hydronyms unclear. He does not mention that the more common form of the name Šakšỹs is Šekšỹs (TLE IV 167). Būga (III 627) assigns this name to the Lithuanian and Latvian group of šakš(t)- / šekš(t)- hydronyms. They are associated with the appellatives Lithuanian šėkštis ‘a wooden fork with bent prongs and a rear end for scooping chaff’ and šiekšta ‘the trunk with a stump of a fallen tree that has lain in the ground for a long time or soaked in water’ (LKŽe). Vanagas also assumes that the lake name Šakšỹs is of Finno-Ugric origin. He compares the hydronym with the water names provided by Evgeny M. Pospelov: Lake Šokšos in the basin of the Mokša River and nine Šokša rivers whose basins extend from Lake Onega to Mezen in Arkhangelsk Oblast (Pospelov 1970:

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99–100). Pospelov also mentions such geographical names of bodies of water as the Mari šokš ‘a branch of a river’ and Mansi šoš ‘a small river, stream’. The article goes on to examine whether the parallels with the prepositional constructions and appellatives presented by Pospelov, as described by Vanagas, are correct.

The Mari šokš derives from the Proto-Uralic *soja stem (UEW s. v. *soja), while -kš is a suffix. In the other Uralic languages, this form resembles the Proto-Uralic form and is used without a suffix. It has no equivalent in Finnish. Mansi šoš is not an equivalent of *soja. The correct equivalent, for example, in Northern Mansi is tajt. The original form of the word šoš is *čoč, since Mansi *š developed from *č (Sammallahti 1988: 511–512). Therefore, for phonetic reasons, the Mansi and Mari appellatives mentioned here cannot be connected with the Proto-Baltic form *šakš- / *šekš-.

From the perspective of historical phonology, the connection Šakšys ~ Šekšys with the aforementioned Finno-Ugric appellatives can be rejected. Finally, it should be added that the a ~ e alternation in Baltic words is a common phenomenon. For these reasons, the name may be considered Baltic.

3.28. Šiladis (river)

Vanagas (1981: 331) relies on Juozas Šliavas’s (1970: 263) hypothesis that *šilad- derives from the form *šild- owing to anaptyxis, which is common in the local dialect, and that its source is the Livonian word silda ‘bridge’. Vanagas also took into account the name of the Šilda River in Karelia (Vasmer 1934: 36). He also drew attention to the fact that Livonian silda is a Baltic word in the Finnic languages: Baltic *tiltas > Finnish silta ‘bridge’ (Thomsen 1890: 98).

Šilda is not a suitable example in this case, because it is a Karelian hydronym formed from the appellative šilda ‘bridge’, in which the s > š alternation characteristic of Karelian occurs, but this does not represent a particularly old phenomenon. Thus, comparison with this form is unsuitable as an example from the chronological perspective of phonological development.

Livonian silda, like the Karelian šilda mentioned above, derives from Finnic *silta and is a Baltic loanword. Even if reverse borrowing had occurred, it is unlikely that an s > š alternation could have taken place. Therefore, comparison with derivatives of Finnic *silta is inappropriate.

The hydronym Piladis sounds very similar to Šiladis and contains the suffix -ad-, which is productive in Lithuanian hydronyms. In Vanagas’s (1970: 72) book devoted to the structures of Lithuanian hydronyms, Šiladis is mentioned as one example of a name formed with this suffix. In his etymological dictionary (1981: 331), Vanagas provides only possible Finno-Ugric equivalents. However, the name may be derived from the word šilas (Rimša 1995: 98). Many other names have been formed from it (for example, the river name Šil-upis, the lake names Šil-ežeris or Šilas); therefore, Šiladis may belong to the same group, and the Baltic etymology sounds more convincing.

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3.29. Šuoja (river), Suoja (river), and Suojÿs (lake)

According to Vanagas (1981: 320, 336), this word may be of Finno-Ugric origin, and its equivalents in present-day Finnic languages could likewise be Šuo, Šuo-jarvi, Šuo-ozero, Šuoju (Vanagas proposes regarding the last as Finnish). The names provided by Vanagas are in fact forms of Karelian words in which Finnic s changed into š.

The names mentioned are related to Karelian šuo or Finnish suo. However, the name Šuoja remains unclear, since it does not sound Finnish. It is presumed to be a form of a Karelian word in which the changes s > š and a > u also occurred. The Finnish form would be *Suoja. During the article’s author’s conversation with the researcher of Finno-Ugric onomastics Pauli Rahkonen, a Sami-origin explanation was proposed for this hydronym. Vanagas’s comparisons are unreliable because š is a secondary sound in the Finnic equivalents he proposes. Thus, from a phonetic-historical perspective, it is impossible that the name Šuoja could be related to Karelian names. The phonetic structure of the word suo also changed: Finnish suo <Late Proto-Finnic *soo <Early Proto-Finnish *soyi / *toyi (Saarikivi 2006: 269–270). It is difficult to imagine how Baltic forms could have developed from the early Finnish forms. On the other hand, Ariste indicates that Finnic *soo may be a word of Paleo-European substratal origin (Ariste 1971: 256). It remains unclear whether the Lithuanian names are related to it.

Vanagas (1981: 320) relates the lake name Suojÿs and the river name Šuoja to Karelian Suo-järvi and Finnish suo ‘marsh’. The etymological analysis of these names can be carried out in the same way as in the case of the name Šuoja mentioned earlier in the article.

Vanagas (1981: 320) relies on Būga (I 523), who explains the etymology of the Latvian name Suoja. Its Lithuanian equivalent would be Šuoja. According to Būga, Latvian Suoja and Lithuanian Šuoja may be related to the Yotvingian word *sōja (meaning not given), from which the Polish lake name Sajno probably developed < from the Slavic *Sajbno < from the Yotvingian *Sōjįnan (*Sōja + -in- + -an).

Vanagas (1988: 47) drew attention to the fact that some hydronyms of northern Lithuania can be explained by names occurring in the West Baltic settlement area (for example, Dabikinė in northern Lithuania is probably related to the Old Prussian word debican ‘large’). For this reason, Būga’s explanation appears convincing.

The Baltic etymological explanation of the name Šuoja appears well founded for the reasons indicated above. Meanwhile, the etymology of the name Suoja remains unclear, but associating the name with Finnic appellatives and proper names appears unsuitable from a phonetic perspective.

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3.30. Tarañdė (river)

Vanagas (1981: 340) compares it with a river in Latvia whose Livonian name is Terand (Rudzīte 1968: 192). Valentin Kiparsky considers this name Finno-Ugric and identifies it with Finnish Tyrväntö, Livonian tõõra ‘tar’ and Estonian Tõr̃vandi küla (Kiparsky 1939: 236). The comparison Lithuanian Tarañdė ~ Livonian Tēr̀and is inappropriate chronologically. If Kiparsky’s comparison is correct, the phonetic form of the Livonian name is certainly quite recent. In Livonian, according to Petri Kallio, v after a consonant began to disappear only at the end of the fifteenth century (Kallio 2016: 46–47, 60–61). Tarañdė is far from the area of contact between the Baltic and Livonian languages; therefore, this river name cannot be regarded as a name from the Finno-Ugric substrate.

Vanagas (1975: 405) also associated the name Tarañdė with the name of a river in northwestern Russia, Taranda. The river’s exact location has not been established (Maradudina 1965: 11). He also relies on the Latvian toponyms cited by Būga (III 621) with the affix –nd– (cf. Finnic *-ntA, *-ntO). Būga presents them as Finnic names.

Vanagas also proposes another possibility. According to him, Tarañdė may be associated with the personal name Taranda, Belarusian Taranda (see the source of personal names used by Vanagas, Biryla 1969: 409). However, he does not mention such appellatives as tarañdžius, tarañdė ‘blabbermouth’, taránda ‘fool’ (LKŽe). Mikalojus V. Biryla also cites the word taranta ‘talkative person’ from the Yaroslavl dialect of Russian (for the latter appellative, see Mel’nicenko 1961). All these words may be onomatopoeic, since Lithuanian has numerous words with the onomatopoeic form tara, denoting, for example, talkativeness, knocking, or staggering (LKŽe). Tarañdė is the name not only of a river but also of the village through which the river flows. It may be that the village was first named by people called Taranda, and only afterward did this word begin to be used as the river’s name. The name Tarañdė is stressed on the second syllable, and this argument speaks against Finno-Ugric origin. The distribution of the suffix –ntA is restricted to the Finnic and Permic languages (Hakulinen 1979: 200), but the suffix –and– is not foreign to the Baltic languages either (Būga III 847). The arguments for the Baltic origin of the name Tarañdė are sufficiently strong. Moreover, the river flows much farther from the known historical area of Finno-Ugric settlement. Thus, Baltic origin is considerably more plausible.

3.31. Tėrvetė, Latvian Tērvete (river)

Tėrvetė (Latvian Tērvete) is in Latvia, but a small section of it flows along the Lithuanian–Latvian border. In his etymological dictionary, Vanagas (1981: 344) compares the river name with the Latvian forest name Tarvastes mežs. According to him, the latter is of Finnic origin and should be compared with the Estonian names Tarwest, Tarvest, Tervest and Tarvastu kihelkond. He assumes that the Karelian names Terva-lambi and Terva-järvi have the same characteristic.

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The latter two names are probably formed from the appellative terva ‘tar’, which in Finnic languages may be a Baltic borrowing (Kalima 1936: 168). Terva may also be of Scandinavian origin, but in any case it is a later borrowing in the Finnic languages (i.e. borrowed later than 2000 BC). Vanagas relies on Lauri Kettunen’s view that terv derives from the word tarvas ‘aurochs’ (Kettunen 1955: 223). Vanagas probably made a mistake in providing this reference, since Kettunen analyzed only names with tarv-

The word tarvas is regarded in the Finnic languages as a Baltic borrowing (< Baltic *tauras (Kalima 1936: 166)), while the form tarvas is the result of metathesis. Tarvas was a productive adjective in place names, at least in Finland (for example, Tarvas-joki, Tarvas-järvi).

Tėrvete was associated with late borrowings in the Finnic languages; therefore, this river name cannot be regarded as a hydronym belonging to a Finnic substrate from the Stone Age.

There is no reason to deny the Baltic origin of the name Tērvete. Būga (III 847) indicates that it may be the suffixed formation Terv-et-ė and compares it with the Latvian place name Tervende, which is of Curonian origin.

3.32. Tilkā (river)

Vanagas (1981: 345): Tilkà ~ latvių kaimų vardai Tilk(u)sāti, Tilkainis, Tilkas < lyvių tilk, suomių tilkka ‘lašas’ (Būga III 618). Vanagas taip pat palyginimui pateikia karelų ežero vardą Tilkus.

Finnic *tilkka is a sound-symbolic word (SES s. v. tilkka), from which verbs have also developed, for example Estonian tilkuda ‘to drip, trickle’. However, *tilkka is a word of later origin, since an early Finnic proto-language could not have a long consonant (in this case kk) after a long syllable (Junttila 2015a: 195). Moreover, the change *ti- > si did not occur in it. Therefore, from the perspective of historical phonetics, this river name cannot be regarded as a Finnic substrate from the Stone Age.

Meanwhile, the Karelian lake name Tilkus is formed not from tilkka ‘drop’, but from tilkku ‘strip of land’ (cf. salmi ‘strait’ > salmes) (the article author’s personal conversation with Denis Kuzmin). For the reasons mentioned earlier in the article, comparison with tilkku is likewise inappropriate.

Vanagas (1981: 345) ultimately argues that “it would probably be most convincing to associate it with Lithuanian tilkti ‘to bridge, become calm’.”

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3.33. Ugra (river)

Ugra begins in Latvia and flows into the Kriauna in Lithuania. The name Ugra is also used in Latvia, but in Lithuania the name Kriaunėnų upelė is more widespread; the name of its tributary is Kriaunėlė. The river names mentioned are derivatives of the name Kriaunà.

According to Vanagas (1981: 352), Ugra may be of Finno-Ugric origin. He compares the river name with the name Ugra of a river in Russia. The location of this river has not been established, but Vanagas mentions it as Finno-Ugric. In one of the sources, the river name Ugra is not mentioned, although other names containing –gr– are mentioned (see Serebrennikov 1970: 58 for more details).

A river called Ugra flows through the Smolensk and Kaluga regions. According to Max Vasmer, Ugra is of Baltic origin (Vasmer 1987: 147). The scholar identifies it with Latvian Uogre and Lithuanian Ungurupe. Vasmer’s comparisons will not be discussed in this article because they are not directly related to the subject of the study. However, attention should be drawn to Vasmer’s observation that Ugra cannot be associated with Ruthenian ugry ‘Hungarians’, since Hungarians never lived in the area where the river in question is located.

It is entirely possible that there is no connection between the names Ugra found in Latvia and Lithuania and the name Ugra of the river flowing in Russia, and that they are homonyms. The origin of our river name remains unclear, so it cannot be claimed to be Finno-Ugric.

3.34. Ūrka, Ūrkis (river)

Vanagas (1975: 405; 1981: 355): Ūrka ~ Estonian urg ‘brook’ > Latvian urga (Zeps 1962: 199), from which Latvian place names were also formed (Balode 2015: 64), but such names are found only in the former Livonian settlement area. Ūrkis is in central Lithuania, i.e. far from the territory mentioned.

3.35. Uvēda (river)

Žodynė Vanagas (1981: 256) teigia, kad Uvēda „greičiausiai sietina su Aujēda upe.“ Jis taip pat lygina upėvardį ir su estų Ueda, Uueda (Vanagas 1975: 405). Tačiau Uueda – fonetiškai redukuota asmenvardžio Uuetoa forma, kuri yra sudurtinis žodis uue ‘naujo’ + toa ‘kambario’. Šį Vanago palyginimą su estišku vietovardžiu komentavo En n’as Ernits’as ir atmetė tokią galimybę, kad lietuvių Uvēda gali turėti ką nors bendra su estų Uueda (Ernits 1979: 132). Atkreiptinas dėmesys į tai, kad antras dėmuo estų vietovardyje / asmenvardyje Uuetoa yra apeliatyvo tuba ‘kambarys’ kilmininko linksnio forma, o pats apeliatyvas yra

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of Germanic origin (SES s. v. tupa), therefore one cannot speak of a Stone Age substrate. A Baltic origin appears more convincing.

3.36. Vygala (river)

Vanagas (1975: 405): Lithuanian Vygala ~ Estonian Vigala. Although these hydronyms sound very similar, they were formed in different ways. Estonian Vigala is formed with the suffix –la, meaning ‘place’. The word vigā ‘a long, damp depression between two hills, an elongated marshy valley’ occurs in Livonian; this word probably also had a counterpart in Estonian (EKNR e s. v. Vigala). Lithuanian Vygala could have been formed with the productive Lithuanian suffix –gala (cf. Ariógala, Baisógala, Gimbógala, etc.). However, the origin of the Vy– element remains unclear. Perhaps it is an ellipsis of Vijogala.

3.37. Virčiuvis, Virčiuivė, Latvian Vircaua (river)

Vanagas (1981: 387) claims that Virčiuvis is a Lithuanianized Latvian or Semigallian form (the suffix –av– in place names often changes to –uv–) (Vanagas 1970: 238; 1981: 387). In his etymological dictionary, Vanagas writes: “in the Latvian form vircau–, c occurs before the back vowel a, so it cannot, let us say, derive from [palatalized] k. Consequently, the root being etymologized should be virc–.” This claim cannot be accepted, since in Latvian c before a back vowel can derive from palatalized k (for example, kiauras ~ caurs).

Vanagas then proposes a Finno-Ugric origin, relying on Šliavas’s 1977 manuscript, unpublished at the time (published after Šliavas’s death in 1996 in his collection of articles (see Šliavas 1996: 50) – author’s note). Vanagas compares the name Virčiuvo with the Estonian place names Virtsa küla, Virts-järv, Virtsu vald, which are associated with the Estonian appellative virts ‘mud, a hollow filled with liquid’ (Kettunen 1955: 238). Latvian likewise has the word virca ‘slurry’, considered a Finnic loanword (Zeps 1962: 206–207). At first glance, the name Virčiuvo may have something to do with the Finnic languages, but this may not be a place name of substrate origin, but rather an indirect Finnicism, i.e. a place name formed from a Finnic loanword (Balode 2015). From a semantic point of view, this hydronym also raises no doubts, since semantically similar hydronyms can be found in both the Baltic and Finnic areas: Myžupis, Šikupis and Finnish Paskajoki (paska ‘shit’, joki ‘river’).

However, one must take into account the fact that Virčiuvis is one of the parallel tributaries of the Lielupė, which have Lithuanian and Latvian names, for example, Lithuanian Švetė ~ Latvian Svēte, Lithuanian Šešėvė ~ Latvian Seseve, Lithuanian Vegerė ~ Latvian

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Vedzere, Lithuanian Ýslikis ~ Latvian Īslīcis. According to Būga (III 581), Lithuanians moved into this region when the phonetics of Semigallian still did not differ from Lithuanian. Had the Lithuanians arrived after the phonological changes in Semigallian, the Lithuanian variants of the names of those rivers would have been **Svetė, **Vedžerė / **Vedzerė, **Yslĭcis / **Yslicis. The phonetic correspondences between the Latvian and Lithuanian variants of the hydronyms compared by Būga are regular, which cannot be said of Virčiuvį ~ Vircava, since the Lithuanian variant of the name should instead have been, for example, **Virkjava. It may be that in Lithuanian the hydronym was borrowed in a Latvian form, cf. the river Čeriaukštė, which in Latvian is Ceraukste, while the reconstructed Baltic form is *Keraukštė / *Keraukste, so in Lithuanian it should be **Keriaukštė, but the Latvian form was borrowed.

Thus, the hydronym may be Baltic, more precisely Semigallian, as is demonstrated by the form of the hydronym Virči-uvė with a typical Semigallian suffix (Būga III 748). Moreover, Šliavas (1970: 271), in an earlier publication, classified Virčiuvį among Semigallian names and provided a Latvian variant of its form, Vircuve. Therefore, it would be appropriate to regard this hydronym as Baltic and elucidate the origin of its root.

3.38. Vokša (river), Vokšelis (lake)

Vokša flows through present-day Belarusian territory near the Lithuanian border, while Vokšelis is in the Vilnius region. According to Vanagas (1981: 391), these names may be of Finno-Ugric origin. Vanagas compares them with lake names: Karelian Vokša, Vokš-ezero, Vokš-ozero and the Finnish appellative vuoksi ‘flood, current, flow’, which is a derivative of the appellative vuo ‘flow, current, stream’.

The Finnish counterpart of the Karelian names is Vuoksjärvi (Kuzmin 2014: 135). Comparison with vuoksi is inappropriate, since it is a derivative of vuo ‘flow, current, stream’. According to EVE (s. v. vuo), in Proto-Finno-Ugric the form of the root of vuo was *uwe. In other modern Finno-Ugric languages, forms of this word include, for example, Swedish Sami uwe, uvwe ‘current, flow’, Khanty ow ‘current’, ow- ‘to flow’, Eastern Mansi oy (SES s. v. vuo).

Comparison with the Karelian names is not meaningful. The Karelian names have a secondary š (< s). It should also be noted that Lithuanian o, which is always long, developed from long a. Although the Karelian and Lithuanian names sound similar, their original forms were completely different, and therefore a Stone Age Finno-Ugric substrate cannot be considered.

Schmid compares the hydronym Vokša with the hydronym Vokė and points out that the former may be a derivative of the latter (Schmid 1988: 173). As an example, he gives Gilis ~ Gilšė. Perhaps the hydronyms Vokša and Vokšelis could have developed in the same way.

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4. REZULTATAI IR IŠVADOS

The objective of investigating the Finno-Ugric etymologies of Lithuanian hydronyms presented by Vanagas has been achieved. It became clear that they can hardly be Finno-Ugric, since the comparisons with Finno-Ugric appellatives and proper names provided by Vanagas and other linguists proved unsuitable.

The main reasons why the hydronyms under examination cannot be Finno-Ugric are as follows:

1) historical-phonological. The present Lithuanian form could not have developed from the reconstructed Finno-Ugric form. This is the most frequent reason why the comparisons are unsuitable;

2) semantic. The hydronym is compared with an appellative that is unsuitable for describing the hydronym, or hydronyms are not formed from such an appellative in Finno-Ugric languages;

3) chronological. The word appeared in the Finno-Ugric languages later than the time when the Finno-Ugric peoples supposedly lived in the present-day territory of Lithuania.

Before one people migrates into a particular territory inhabited by another people, the substrate place names left by the latter are usually similar to one another and can be classified into certain types, for example, according to their formation, semantics, and so on. The names examined in the article are very different and have little connection with one another (except Piladis and Šiladis).

In addition, a Baltic or Slavic origin can be assigned on sound grounds to some of the hydronyms presented by Vanagas.

Therefore, it can be stated that Lithuania has no hydronyms of Finno-Ugric origin dating back to the Stone Age and that the Finno-Ugric peoples probably did not live there before the Balts migrated into these areas.

However, the possibility that Lithuania may contain proper names of Finno-Ugric origin cannot be excluded; their age, however, dates not to ancient times but to the most recent period. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the Wends (Krievinian people) were driven by the Teutonic Knights to the border between Lithuania and Latvia from Ingria (the present-day Leningrad Region, Russia), and they may have influenced the nomenclature of the newly settled area^⁴. Because of the short distance from Bauska to the border with Lithuania and the change in the border, the Krievinian people could indeed have migrated to the Lithuanian side. This is evidenced, for example, by the surname Krievinis in Pasvalys.

^⁴ The article’s author, a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki, is currently conducting research on Krievinian proper names in Latvia and has set himself the goal of searching for them also on the Lithuanian side.

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Lithuanian Hydronyms of Allegedly Finno-Ugric Origin

SUMMARY

This article is based on the author’s Master Thesis written in Finnish and submitted at the University of Helsinki in 2018. The topic is “Lithuanian hydronyms supposed to be Finno-Ugric” and the aim was a critical analysis of such hydronyms, and the result was that in Lithuania there are no Finno-Ugric hydronyms. This topic is important to Lithuanian onomastics. However, in Lithuania, there are not many people with knowledge of Finnish. Thus, this article makes it possible for Lithuanian readers to see the results of the Master Thesis by the author.

In Lithuania, it is still believed that before the arrival of the Balts to the nowadays territory of Lithuania there lived Finno-Ugrians and they must have left their traces in the toponyms. The supposed time of this event is 2000 BC. Thus, Aleksandras Vanagas proposed

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Finno-Ugric etymologies for various Lithuanian hydronyms which in his opinion sound similar to modern Finnic appellatives and proper names. If the investigated hydronyms are a result of 4000 years old language contacts, then the Baltic and Finnic languages of those times sounded different. Thus, the historical-phonological method will be applied in this work as well as semantical and onomastic methods comparing Baltic and Finnic toponyms. Such methods were applied by Aikio in investigating supposed Samic toponyms in Finland where there was a trend to propose Samic etymology for toponyms with unclear etymology sometimes even without comparing them to a Samic appellative or a proper name. He paid attention to the fact that proto-Samic was phonologically different than modern Samic languages and he invited to reconstruct proto-Samic forms first and only then compare them to Finnish toponyms. A reconstructed form may indicate that Samic etymology is wrong. This method is suitable also in the case of supposed Finno-Ugric hydronyms in Lithuania.

In the Master Thesis and this article, there were revised over 40 Lithuanian hydronyms for which Vanagas suggested Finno-Ugric etymologies. All the etymologies by Vanagas were rejected for the following reasons:

Historical-phonological. The reconstructed forms of the compared hydronyms to Finno-Ugric appellatives and proper names are so different that the development from one form to another would be possible.

Semantical. A Lithuanian hydronym is compared to an appellative which is not used in the formation of Finno-Ugric toponyms.

Chronological. A Finno-Ugric appellative, which a Lithuanian hydronym is compared to, is a borrowing from other languages (later than the Stone Age).

In addition, all the hydronyms presented by Vanagas are very different and it is impossible to classify them in any way (by construction, semantics etc.).

In conclusion, in Lithuania, there are no Finno-Ugric hydronyms of the Stone Age.

Nevertheless, the presence of Finnic proper names is possible on the Lithuanian–Latvian borderland, brought by Kreevins (Votic) who lived in Bauska region from the 15^th century. Bauska is situated not far away from the border, which during the centuries was not very precise and there were small changes in it. It means that Kreevin could have transferred their proper names to the territories of present-day Lithuania. Thus, further research should be concentrated on seeking Kreevin names in Northern Lithuania.

Įteikta 2024 m. gegužės 2 d.

SIMONAS NOREIKIS

Helsinkio universiteto

Suomių kalbos, finų-ugrų ir skandinavų kalbų ir literatūrų institutas

PL25 (Unioninkatu 40)

00014 University of Helsinki

[email protected]

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