HARALD BICH LMEIER

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig

Mainzer Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur

Research fields: Indo-European studies, onomastics (place and water names), Old Iranian studies (syntax).

Rolandas Kregždys

DICTIONARY OF BALTIC MYTHOLOGEMES I: THE TREATY OF CHRISTBURG

Scholarly monograph

Vilnius: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas, 2012, 624 S. ISBN 978-9955-868-50-7

The present monograph (it actually remains unclear whether and why the book is called a dictionary, especially since the subtitle calls it a “scholarly monograph”) offers the reader an impressive compilation of the author’s knowledge of aspects of Baltic mythology. The author’s aim is to elucidate Baltic mythologemes etymologically. By mythologemes, a term that is not yet particularly widespread, Rolandas Kregždys means words that have a sacred connotation. He sees the practical significance of his work in reconstructing Baltic archimythological motifs and concepts (pp. 14, 507). The factual information pertaining to this subject (especially the names in the broader sense), which is provided by the peace treaty of Christburg between the Teutonic Order and Prussian tribes dated 2 February 1249, serves as the basis for the investigations in this first volume—an exhaustive examination of the material is to be ensured, and further volumes, certainly more than one, will have to follow. This primarily onomastic material, as well as the mythological conceptions of the West Baltic tribes reflected in it, is placed in a broader Baltic context, and is also correlated with information found, for example, in Tacitus’ Germania, Orosius’ Historiae adversum paganos, or in later sources such as Peter of Duisburg’s Chronicon terrae Prussiae, or still later works, such as those by Grunau. And these findings are presented extensively and in detail, especially in connection with

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...related phenomena among the Germanic peoples, the Italic peoples and other peoples (especially the Greeks and Indians) are compared. The aim is always also to free the view of the situation among the (West) Balts from the, in the author’s view, still lingering, partly condescending perspective that accompanies consideration of these phenomena. In any case, he succeeds in this. He clearly shows that all the phenomena of mythology are ultimately a matter of Indo-European heritage, which can also be demonstrated among the Germanic peoples, Italic peoples, etc.

Following the Lithuanian (pp. 9f.) and English prefaces (pp. 11f.) and the introduction (pp. 13–49), which addresses the subject of the research, the methods to be applied in investigating it, and the clarification of various terms, the book’s main body is divided into four chapters: Chapter I presents a facsimile of the 1249 Treaty of Christburg, a transcription of the Latin text, and a Lithuanian translation (pp. 50–72). Chapter II is devoted to explaining the theonym Curche (pp. 73–155). Chapter III deals with the hieronyms Tulissones and Ligaschones (pp. 156–229). Chapter IV is devoted to the reflection of sun and moon worship in the folk mythology of the Balts, Slavs, and other Indo-European peoples (pp. 230–500). What all these chapters have in common is that the topic named in the title is really just a springboard for much broader investigations.

The book concludes with a Lithuanian summary (pp. 500–505) and an English summary (pp. 506–526), as well as several lists and indexes (pp. 527–623). The bibliography (pp. 527–579) stands out for its wealth of material and makes clear the extent of the research the author undertook for his book. At the same time, however, the bibliography also makes it clear that the author evidently did not have, or know of, all the necessary literature for every area to the same degree of completeness. Given the breadth of the study, this is hardly surprising, and completeness is probably scarcely attainable: the subject encompasses historical-comparative linguistics of the Baltic, Slavic, and other Indo-European languages, mythology, folklore, history, and more.

The absence of more recent literature is particularly evident, as is a certain unfamiliarity with scholarly conventions in the fields of Indian and Iranian studies: Jan Gonda’s works are entirely absent, while those of Paul Thieme and Michael Witzel have been cited only exceptionally. Thomas Oberlies’ works on Vedic are missing, as are altogether those of Jean Kellens and Éric Pirart on Avestan, while only a single title by Martin L. West is mentioned. The citation of KEWA as “EWA I–III” and of EWA as “EWA I_a–III_a” (p. 529 and passim) is unusual. Overall, much of the more recent German-, English-, and French-language literature in the aforementioned subject area is missing.

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This does not necessarily mean that engaging with these works would have led to different conclusions; nevertheless, given the otherwise very detailed bibliography, which lists more than 1,500 titles, their absence is a shortcoming.

It should also be noted that, in transcribing Old Indic, Kregždys still uses the sign <ç>, which has been out of use for decades, instead of the currently customary <ś>.

The book’s greatest strength undoubtedly lies in its analysis of the mythological connections identified. These are illustrated in numerous fairly compact diagrams, which, however, sometimes demand considerable analytical effort from the reader precisely because of their compactness.

In the various passages devoted to etymology in the narrower sense, particular praise is due to the meticulousness with which Kregždys presents and discusses earlier proposals: his treatment of the history of scholarship in each case is exemplary. The same applies to his use of literature on mythology and folklore (especially Baltic and Slavic).

Somewhat problematic, however, is his approach to the methods of etymology in general. Since the words under investigation belong to the sacred sphere in the broader sense, where taboo-driven distortions of lexical material can often also be observed, Kregždys assumes that, for example, metatheses (of phonemes as well as entire syllables), (irregular) syncope, and similar processes should be included in the analysis from the outset as a matter of principle. Rather, however, such sound changes—which are not covered by the generally accepted assumption in Indo-European linguistics, dating back to the Neogrammarians, of sound laws and their exceptionlessness—should really be employed only as a last resort when establishing etymologies. Otherwise, one returns to the early days of this discipline in the nineteenth century, when (from today’s perspective) almost anything was possible.

Consequently, an etymology that arrives at a meaningful result without such additional assumptions should be preferred. The area of overlap between mythology, folklore, and etymology seems to me, in any case, to be particularly treacherous terrain, where it is easy to fall into circular reasoning: a feature of a custom, for example, may lead to a particular etymology for a related divine name, which is then used to infer that the custom in question derives from that divine name, and so on.

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In the present book, this applies, for example, to the Ligaschones, which is traced back to a Prussian *gali-šōnīs ‘priest of the dead’ (pp. 221f., 503, 523). This is possible, of course, only if one assumes an otherwise unmotivated metathesis of the first element and, at the same time, a semantic shift in that element for which there is no other evidence: Old Prussian acc. gallan, nom. *galis, -as simply means ‘end, edge’ and only secondarily ‘death’, just as Lithuanian gãlas and Latvian gals do, but never ‘dead person’. Here one already encounters certain limits of plausibility. Ultimately, the same applies to Tulissones < *d/tulinōsīs ‘lord of souls’ (pp. 218ff., 503, 523).

Another example is the etymologization of the theonym Curche (see also PKEŽ² 491–493). This is interpreted as /Kurkē/ < Old Prussian *Kurkis/-īs/-as ‘god of cattle’ and traced back to Proto-Baltic(?) *Kur-va-ka- ‘the one to whom the cattle belong’ (pp. 108ff., 502, 522). The stem form *kur-v- is explained as a dialectal form, which may have arisen through a kind of regressive assimilation from the form *kar-v- that would otherwise be expected. The medial *-va- is said to have disappeared. The following should be noted here: Kregždys provides no genuine parallels for the loss of medial *-va-, since all his examples show loss in a phonetic environment different from the one found here. It is not compelling to assume that *kur-v- (Old Prussian curwis ‘ox’; see also PKEŽ² 497–499) is a (secondary) dialectal or expressive form; like Welsh carw ‘deer’, it may be traced back to Proto-Indo-European *k̑r̥h₂-uo- ‘horned, provided with horns’ (Nussbaum 1986, 8). Since the aforementioned syncope of the medial syllable cannot be definitively established, a formation Proto-Indo-European *k̑r̥h₂-ko- > Proto-Baltic *kurka- ‘horned, provided with horns’ could ultimately also be considered the basis of the theonym.

These two examples should suffice. Further observations (especially on individual etymologies) could still be made in a book as comprehensive as the present one, but they would not alter the fundamental assessment: Kregždys has produced a genuinely thorough and foundational overview of the subject. The wealth of data drawn from the most diverse branches of knowledge is impressive, and earlier treatments of the topic have been extensively evaluated. The presentation is clear and well structured. Not every reader (Indo-Europeanist) will necessarily wish to follow Kregždys’s etymological explanations in every respect, which is due to the premise of the exceptionlessness of sound laws having been set aside from the outset to a certain extent. In view of the overall achievement presented, this does not carry much weight, provided that it has not somewhere led to a circular argument in the sense mentioned above. The author is to be wished every success with the further work on this mammoth project, and the reader its speedy completion—and perhaps also a concise treatment of this complex subject, worthy of the term dictionary.

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LITERATURE

EWA – Mayrhofer Manfred. Etymological Dictionary of Old Indo-Aryan. 3 vols. Heidelberg: Winter, 1992–2001.

KEWA – Mayrhofer Manfred. Concise Etymological Dictionary of Old Indian. 3 vols. Heidelberg: Winter, 1956–1976.

Nussbaum Alan Jeffrey 1986: Head and horn in Indo-European. (Untersuchungen zur indogermanischen Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft 2) Berlin – New York: de Gruyter.

PKEŽ² – Mažiulis Vytautas. Etymological Dictionary of the Prussian Language. Second revised and expanded edition. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos centras, 2013.

Received on 5 April 2014.

HARALD BICH LMEIER

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Orientalisches Institut: Seminar für Indogermanistik und Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft

Heinrich-und-Thomas-Mann-Str. 26, 06108 Halle (Saale)

[email protected]

Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig

Arbeitsstelle Jena: Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen

Zwätzengasse 12, 07743 Jena

[email protected]

Mainzer Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur

Digitales Familiennamenbuch Deutschlands

Geschwister-Scholl-Str. 2, 55131 Mainz

[email protected]

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