Pastabos

(p. 46, entirely new in dialectology) = into Tėliūs (3), Skūodą (p. 46) = Skūodą, Dūkšto (p. 59, 291) (sing. gen.) = Dūkšto, Brūnaviškis (p. 102) = Brūnava (1).

And in general, the stress patterns vary considerably, for example: tėvas (2x, p. 35) = tėvas (3), tuoj (p. 41) = tuõj, kyla (p. 50) = kyla, valgįui (p. 54) = valgiui, šėlti (p. 54) = šėlti, plienas (p. 56) = plienas, pūota (p. 56) = pūota, kiemas (p. 56) = kiemas, býra (p. 66) = býra, negiėst (p. 101) = negiėsta, that is, negieda, avėts (p. 101) = avietės (retracted stress), tū-kart (p. 106) = tãkart, salýkla (p. 106) = salýkla, valnīste. = valnīste. (p. 122), bėkt (p. 274) = bėg̃t, bėg’ō – p. 281 (= b’ė˙g’ō), žiemō – p. 281 (= ž’iemō). Of course, we were also taught by Prof. J. Balčikonis that eastern Lithuanians have difficulty distinguishing pitch accents when diphthongs ie, uo and long vowels ė, o, į, ū bear primary stress, so this is not at all surprising; and the scientific editor L. Grumadienė (now Kalėdienė) does not hear this, being entirely without a dialect, even with a hint of jargon. Such is the state of our linguistics today. In the past, in J. Balčikonis’s time, efforts were generally made not to admit people without a dialect to the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language (LKŽ) and the Institute. Perhaps that is also why in K. Vosyly tė’s Kupiškis dialect dictionary only stress placement is marked in this instance (although there are also questionable points).

A novelty in our dialect research is the reported hardening of the ending -siu in the first syllable of the future tense singular: dūsu, nešižanysu – p. 274 (or is this perhaps another working formative, according to Academician Z. Zinkevičius?)—this is even a problem: it is heard in Zt, Brt, Pjv; reported in PrL, Tóvėje, near Labguvós, across large areas of the Samogitian dialect, and so on. The book lacks attentiveness, whatever one may do, although the book is very much needed: outside Lithuania, Lithuanians left on their own, forgotten by Lithuania, are rapidly assimilating into other ethnic groups (it is good that Dr. M. Sivickienė recorded a great deal of vocabulary from Málkava, Litvinkos, and other places). These notes will remain in the history of the language.

Vytautas Antanas Vitkauskas

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

5 P. Vileišio St., LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania

What is this puzzling lake name, Vazbys?

A fairly small lake, covering 5.6 ha and named Vazbys¹, lies in Utena district, 7 km from Utena, on the right side of the road to Kuktiškės, south of the village of Kymėnai and west of Galinava. I told the linguist Aleksandras Vanagas that such a spelling-

¹ Gazetteer of the Rivers and Lakes of the Lithuanian SSR. Vilnius: State Publishing House for Political and Scientific Literature, 1963, 188.

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Pastabos

The form is incorrect, because the nominative in the Utena dialect has a half-long a (va.zbž.s), while most other cases have uo (e.g. Vuožb’ui). He took my information into account only to the extent that, in the Etymological Dictionary of Lithuanian Hydronyms, he included both forms: he tried to link the non-existent Vazbys with the surname Vazbýs, while noting that Vazbỹs may be a dialectal form derived from Uozbýs². Nevertheless, the spelling Vazbys had apparently become deeply ingrained in him, because even in the surname dictionary published later he still uses Vazbiu³.

A. Vanagas told me that the etymology of the name with uo was unclear to him as well. He was right to reject v-, since this prefix is an addition in the Utena dialect and appeared before uo weakened to a half-long a (cf. va.s’ù.kas ‘ash sapling’). A. Vanagas probably failed to understand the origin of the lake’s name because the -z- remained unclear to him. My father, Antanas Žulys, born in 1900 in Kymėnai and living since 1904 in Dirvoniškis, which borders this lake to the south, told me that the lake in question got its name from ash trees that once covered a sizeable hill descending into the lake from the southern side (it belonged to Dirvoniškis, and we, the people of Dirvoniškis, called it Póžerės Hill). I think my father’s explanation is correct; thus the name Vuožbio, transposed into the standard language, is Uosbỹs.

The ending of this name should give one pause, because in these Lithuanian place names the suffix -bys is of relatively recent origin. My father could not say what the lake’s earlier name was, but he told me that Galinava (its official name), at the eastern end of the lake, was most often called Pavuožbis by people, after the lake⁴, but its name had earlier been distorted by the villagers. When they used to go from there to the traditional May festivities in Kymėnai, the people of Kymėnai would tease them like this: và / atá.je. ir vi.r’õ’kai iš pã.va.dege. Offended by the comparison of their village with a backside, they began saying that the village (and the lake) had a different name (with -b-), and this alternative name gradually caught on. The mention of the backside in the taunt might cautiously suggest that the lake’s older name had a suffix formed with the determinative -g-: perhaps it was not even *Uosgys, but *Uosegys.

Vladas Žulys

Tako g. 1–7, LT-53356 Akademija

Kauno r., Lietuva

² A. Vanagas, Lietuvių hidronimų etimologinis žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1981, 368.

³ Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas L–Ž, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1989, 1174.

⁴ The name is known from at least 1897; cf. G. Šnurova, Utenos seniūnija: Bilakiemis. Pakėnai. Vaikutėnai. Utena, 2005, 36. (This book should be used with caution, as it has not been vetted by either linguists or historians.)

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