ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA

LI (2004), 113–114

N O T E S

Remarks

M I S C E L L A N Y 4

The form kylė, supposedly overheard by F. Kuršaitis in Katyčiai, had more or less fallen into disuse as a comparison with cylo ‘kielė’ in Prussian-language manuscripts.

Throughout the Klaipėda region, the irregular shift ie, uo > i·, u· has been known since Walter Fenzlau’s time (see W. Fenzlau, Die deutschen Formen der litauischen Orts- und Personennamen des Memelgebiets, Halle, 1936, 45). New facts from the same area, published by Vladas Grinaveckis (Žemaičių tarmių istorija, Vilnius, 1973, 195), were repeated in the reissue of Jānis Endzelīns’s writings¹ and in Vytautas Mažiulis’s Prūsų kalbos etimologiniame žodyne (vol. 2, Vilnius, 1993, 184). Now the recently published, highly important monograph by Aloyzas Vidugiris, Zietelos lietuvių šnekta, once again reports the same information—the evidence of Zietela and the legacy of the Prussian language (p. 342).

Unfortunately, the shift of ie, uo to the vowels i·, u· is a recent development in those dialects, and forms often vary: the same person may say dú·k | də·k, l'i·p | lē·p, vi·nc | vė·nc and ki·le | kė·le (from Šilutė to Dovilai and Dreverna), whereas the Katyčiai dialect (with pri·šinks ‘opposite’, kari·mini ‘army’, and m'i·ls ‘dear’, which I heard in 1964) shows more connections with Samogitian dialects. According to speakers of the old dialect, the Katyčiai dialect, where F. Kuršaitis heard kylę, had been thoroughly permeated by the speech of Samogitian dunininkai hired laborers. In any case, all the local people were bilingual—they spoke German and Lithuanian, especially when interacting with the Catholic people they had hired. (More detail on this has already been given earlier; see V. Vitkauskas, “Lithuanian kylė—a recent innovation,” Kalbotyra 44 (1), 1995, 93–94; the form tikta was considered unnoticed). Antanas Juška’s form is simply evidence of so-called dunininkavimas (LKŽ_v 776).

M I S C E L L A N Y 5

Between Kuršėnai and Raudėnai there was once a vast bog, Gelžė (g'el'ž'i Krš | g'el'ž'e Rdn, Trš, Pp). People would gather sacks of cranberries and bog bilberries, put up hay, and over the summers pasture more than one cow or other animal there.

During the Soviet years, as nature was being reshaped, the bog was drained and its water completely pumped out; there were no more cranberries, bog bilberries, hay, or pastures. They planned to dig peat, and the authorities even had several three-storey houses built for the peat workers. Geologists predicted large deposits and vast quantities of peat, but after they had dug some, production stopped a few months later; for a while, they continued hauling away a little of the peat in crumbs.

¹ Endzelīns, J., Darbu izlase 4a, Rīgā: Zinātne, 1982, 238 (given generally as a variant of kielės, kylė).

114

PASTABOS

The local people, of course, regretted losing such a source and said metaphorically that Gelžės was no more—only g'elž'ė.l'e | g'elž'ė.l'i, g'elž'ė.k'e | g'elž'ėž'k'i. The young collectors of place names took these to be variants of the toponym Gelžės and submitted them to the Place Names Card Index as new forms, Gelžėlė, Gelžikė, from the village of Švendriai in the Raudėnai area², which were examined in a special dissertation and article (Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 41, 63, 78).

TRIVIA 6

Samogitians (and Vilnius-region Aukštaitians) do not have the diminutive suffix -ėlis. Northern Samogitian has duob'ėl'ėlis | duob'ėl'ėlis ~ dobilėlis, -ėlio, m'erguž'ėl'ė ~ mergužėlė, balon'dėl'ė ~ balandėliai,, Southern Samogitian duob'ėl'ėlis, merguž'ėl'i, balun'dėlė,, Western Samogitian duob'ėl'ėlis, merguž'ėlė, ba-la.n'dėl'ė, and so on.

I think this happened because of regressive vowel assimilation, whereby earlier e was confused with the tense i, u, ie in the paradigm, as pronunciation began to shift toward ei, e; consequently, the form -elis, -elė was generalized. This did not happen under the influence of Latvian, which lacks this suffix altogether (except in borrowings from Lithuanian); and, in general, it is doubtful whether other languages played any role in this case.

Vilnius-region dialects also have the forms b'ernužė.l'i.s, m'erguž'ėl'ė, karv'ėl'ėi, among others. Nor is the presence of the suffix -elis in both disyllabic and polysyllabic nouns due to the influence of Slavic languages. Since many Vilnius-region dialects do not have, and probably never had, the vowel e:, but only the long open vowel e: (alongside lengthened e.): vaik'ė.l'i.s and b'ernužė.l'i.s, m'erg'ė.l'e. and m'erguž'ė.l'ė. Apparently, the vowel e became levelled throughout the paradigm. Therefore, one cannot claim that this may come from Slavic—as Latvian influence has been conjectured for the Samogitian forms (Laimis Bilkis, Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 41, 70)—since those languages do not have the suffix -elis (-elis) to express diminutiveness. It seems that specialists in toponymy are unfamiliar with the geographical distribution of the diminutive suffixes -elis, -elis, since there is a Šežiuakėlė (ALL 41, 70) in Ceikiniai, a Kuziškėlė (ALL 41, 72) in Tirkšliai, a Polymėlis (ALL 41, 72) in Linkmenys, a Teletnykėlis (ALL 41, 76) in Ignalina, and so on.

Vytautas Vitkauskas

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

5 P. Vileišio St., 10308 Vilnius, Lithuania

Received 2004 11 08

² Newer residents now live there, because the former residents were burned alive in 1945 during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.