ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

ALSĖNAI, ALSĖNIŠKIS, AL(I)ŠAUSKAS AND OTHERS

The settlement name Alšėnai is now universally established. From it we have formed the personal name Alšėniškis. Cf. the famous lineage of the Alšėniškiai, princes of Alšėnai. However, this name is of secondary origin. Lithuanians from around Dieveniškės and Lazūnai, who are closer to the locality in question and have not yet been assimilated, call it and the nearby river—which gave the settlement its name—Galšia. This is the locality’s original, authentic name, recorded in the oldest historical sources, for example, as Galse in the 1385 Wegebericht. The name Alšėnai was derived from the Polish Holszany, itself derived from Belarusian Гальшаны, whose root Гальш- (Halš-) is the Lithuanian Galš- rendered in Belarusian pronunciation, while -аны, Polish -any is a Slavic (?) suffix.

The river Galšia, which gave rise to the settlement’s name, is a right-bank tributary of the Beržūna. The Lithuanian origin of this river name is beyond doubt. As noted, it gave rise not only to the settlement’s name but also to personal names derived from it. We have a considerable number of present-day surnames originating from the Belarusian-pronounced name Galšia, as well as from its Polonized variant, without the consonant h-, foreign to Lithuanians in ancient times, for example, Alš-áuskas, Alš-ėvskis, Alš-ìnskas, Alš-iùkas and Olš-áuskas, Olš-ėvskis.

There was also a component Alš- in dithematic personal names, for example, Alš-van gas, but this is most likely a reshaping of Als^-1; moreover, it may be a Curonianism and has nothing to do with the settlement name under consideration. Perhaps such an Alš- occurs in the village names Alš-ėnai in Kaunas District, Alš-ánka in Vilkaviškis District, and Alš-ininkai in Prienai District. Cf. the village in Biržai Parish mentioned in volume III of Kazimieras Būga’s Rinktinių raštų, pp. 420, 528, Alš-ynė. There are also hydronyms with a root Alš^-2 of unclear origin. But none of this should be confused with the settlement name being analyzed, Alšėnai.

As early as the 1960s, Juozas Balčikonis proposed using the authentic name of the settlement analyzed here, Galšia, instead of the established Alšėnai³.

¹ Zigmas Zinkevičius. Lietuvių asmenvardžiai. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2008, 74.

² Aleksandras Vanagas. Lietuvių hidronimų etimologinis žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1981, 40–41.

³ Zigmas Zinkevičius. History of the Lithuanian Language VI: The Lithuanian Language in Modern Times. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1994, 225.

Pastabos / Notes

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ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

In addition to the surname Alšáuskas, which originated from the root Galš-, we also have the longer variant Ališáuskas, with the vowel i in the root; cf. Alš- and Ališ-. It may have been formed on the model of dithematic personal names such as Al-i-mãnas, Alg-ì-mantas, Alk-i-mìnas, Ar-ì-mantas. In that case, one might also identify the root Al-, extended by the suffix -iš- (cf. Al-išius, Al-išis) + the foreign element -auskas. The root Al- is highly popular in Lithuanian anthroponymy. It occurs not only as a component of dithematic personal names, for example, Aĩ-butas, Aĩ-gedas, Aĩ-girdas, Aĩ-mantas, Aĩ-vydas, but also in the shortened form Alýs of the baptismal names Aleksandras or Aloýzas, and its derivatives Al-áitis, Al-iónis, Al-iùšis, Al-iš-iúnas, Al-iš-(k)-ėvičius, Al-iš-ánka, and others. Thus, in the longer surname variant Ališáuskas, elements of the settlement name Galšią, Lithuanian national names, and Christian names may be intertwined in terms of origin. The Belarusian surname Al-iu-эви, and perhaps also the Polish Al-isz, should be derived in the same way.

It is difficult to say whether the Lithuanian surnames Gal-išis, Gal-iš-áuskas, Gal-iš-ánskis, Gal-iš-ánka have anything to do with these surnames; they contain the root Gal-, of unclear origin, whose emergence may also have been stimulated by the river name Galšià (?).

Attention should be drawn to the attempt by Vytautas Česnaitis, editor of the almanac Eskizai, published in Ukmergė, to call the famous lineage of the (dukes) Alšėniškiai Gal-šiškiai⁴, thereby bringing a historically distorted surname closer to reality (its Lithuanian original) and eliminating the distortion of Lithuanian anthroponymy caused by the region’s Slavicization and Polonization.

Submitted on March 9, 2012.

⁴Eskizai, No. 21, 2011, p. 17.

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Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXVI