Miesto vardas „Kretingà“

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXXIV (1994) LIETUVIŲ KALBOS TARMĖS IR JŲ TYRINĖJIMAI Aleksandras VANAGAS NAME OF THE TOWN KRETINGA The name Kretinga was first mentioned in 1253 in a privilege granted by Henry, Bishop of Courland. It is believed that a Lithuanian hill fort already stood here in the 13th century. In 1263, the Teutonic Knights attacked Kretinga with a large force (6: IV 248). This indicates that by the middle of the 13th century Kretinga was already a strategically important Lithuanian (or Curonian) defensive stronghold. Historical documents spell the name in various ways: Cretyn in 1253 (3: I 319), Kretėne, Kretėnen in 1259 (2: I 639), Kertenен in 1262 (2: II 42), Creten in 1285 (3: I 417), Creten in 1291 (4: 28), Sioto Kretynga in 1566 and 1572, Кретынга in 1609, 1756, and 1791 (1). Кретынговская волость in 1584, Кретагская in 1584, Кретингская in 1589 and 1592 (5: 147), from Gorzdy to Kretyngi in 1780, in Kretyndze in the early 19th century (1), Kretinga (7: 41), Kretynga in 1855. The Germans wrote Crottingen in 1722, Crottinge in 1752, Krötïngen in 1816 (1), Crottingen (7: 41). Spellings such as Кретингень also occur, in 1881, 1895, 1915, and other years (1). This Slavic grammatical gender derives from the German Crottingen or similar forms. The old spellings without the consonant g in the suffix greatly complicate the explanation of the name’s origin. True, until relatively recently there had been no serious doubts about the name’s origin and formation: K. Būga and later authors unanimously maintained that Kretinga is a derivative with the suffix -ing- of a word with the root kret-. It was claimed to be a Curonian place name, since the suffix -ing- is particularly characteristic of place names in former Curonian lands: Lithuanian Gandingą (village, Plungė district), Ablingą (village, Klaipėda district), Liólingą (river, Šiluva), Veringą (hill, Vainutas), Būtingę (village, Darbėnai); Latvian Kuldīga—from Kuldinga, recorded as Goldingen in 1245 (8:III 168). Derivatives with the suffix -ang- are also considered Curonian: Lithuanian Alangą (river, Tauragė), Čyžangą (river, Šilalė), Palangą (river, Endriejavas), Palangą (town). It turns out there was another *Palangos in Latvian Courland: German Palangen (8: III 609). The root kret- may be linked with Lithuanian kretėti, “to tremble, shake, quiver, shiver; to walk with difficulty, trembling.” It may have meant a quivering, shaking place, a bog, or something similar. In addition, the root kret- occurs in many other Lithuanian place names: Kretainis (river, Klaipėda), Kretìškis (river, Kupiškis), Kretuonà (river) and Kretuõnis (lake, Švenčionėliai), Kretuõlė (bog, Plateliai), and others. There is solid grounds for considering Krėtingą a Curonian place name, given the suffix -ing- characteristic of the Curonians. A. Salys, on the basis of historical-document spellings without the consonant g (Cretyn, Creten, Kretėne, Kretėnen, Kretine, and so forth), proposed that the earlier form of the name did not have the suffix -ing-. It was 162 * Kretene (* Kretine): the same root kret- and the suffix -ene, characteristic of the Curonians; compare the Curonian place names mentioned in 13th-century sources: Dvibene, Mutene (Mutina), Twertikene (Twartikini), Duwirstene (Dwiristene), Govrene (9: II 164). A. Salys explains his conclusion as follows: “Since the name Palanga is written relatively correctly as Palangen in a document of 1285, it is difficult to suppose that Cretyn, Creten, Kretėne(n) was merely a distorted form. Most likely it should be read as Curonian *Kretene (*Kretine), and this form should be regarded as earlier than the present-day Kretinga” (9: II 164). In the author’s view: “And since, according to the sources, Pilsotas Twertikene cannot be distinguished from the inhabitant’s name Twertikė, it may be surmised that the old name of Kretinga, too, derived from a personal name.” A. Salys compares the root kret- with other place names containing the same root: Krēt̄kampis (estate and village in the Vilkija district), Kretiškė (a meadow at Kretkampis in the 16th century), Kretónis (the current standard form is Kretúonas, with Kretúonis as a variant), and notes that the root kret- in Krēt̄kampio ir Kretiškės derives from the reconstructed personal name *Krētas ar *Kretà (ibid.). An earlier form of the name Kretingōs, *Kretene (*Kretine), would likewise have been formed from one of these personal names. To support his view, A. Salys also offers another argument: “That a suffix alternation could indeed have occurred in the name Kretinga is shown, for example, by Būtingė (village in the Darbėnai district), which is called Būtini ir Būtingi by local Latvians. The impetus for such an alternation may have been the unfamiliarity of the Curonian place-name suffix -ene to the later Samogitian inhabitants of the area” (ibid., 165). As we can see, both views are fairly well supported, but of course only one is correct. It is not easy to say which. The key question is whether the original form of Kretingōs really lacked the consonant g (*Kretene or *Kretine). If the answer is yes, it would be difficult to argue with A. Salys, although doubts would remain. For instance, it would still be unclear why the Samogitians replaced the suffix -ene or -ine (Lithuanian forms would be -enė, -inė) with another suffix, -inga, characteristic of the Curonians but not of the Samogitians. In general, only the Curonians and Yotvingians are familiar with the suffix -ing- (10: 168,410). The argument from Būtingė is not without its flaws either. There is no evidence that its earlier form might have lacked the consonant g. If a change did occur here, it was more likely the opposite of the supposed change from *Kretene to Kretinga. In other words, the original, older form Būtingė may have been changed to Būtini by the incoming Latvians (at least some of whom may have been descendants of the Curonians), under the influence of Latvian settlement names with the suffix -iņi. It should be noted that Latvian oikonyms with the suffix -iņi are especially common, although it must be emphasized that replacing one oikonym suffix with another is a relatively rare phenomenon. On the question of whether the earlier form of Kretingōs really lacked the suffix consonant g, the following can be said: as the old spellings presented above show, forms without g are found only in the chronicles of the Teutonic and Livonian Orders, written in German. From the 16th century onward (that is, from 1566), forms with g clearly predominate in documents written in Polish and East Slavic. In fact, they were apparently the only forms, since an exception such as Кретинская or similar can be regarded as a scribe’s simplification of *Кретингская. The living language knows only Krētingą. The earliest documents containing the name Kretingos were written in German. Most of those that reached the Baltic region were in the Low German dialect. In this dialect, in the 11th–14th centuries, the writing of g and j (sometimes also i) was completely confused, and th 163 — the two sounds had become so similar that for a long time scribes very often wrote g instead of j, and vice versa. However, the appearance of g instead of j was not entirely haphazard—usually g was written instead of j before front vowels, especially after the sonorants l, r. In the German Low German dialect, including its more recent period of development, g at the beginning of a word was pronounced like j; in the middle of a word, between vowels, like g; after back vowels, like γ; and after front vowels and sonorants l, r — like j (11: 569). This feature of German also influenced the spelling of place names in Lithuania and other Baltic lands. Thus, for example, the river names Dānija, Minija, Gilija became Dānge, Minge, Gilge, *Nerija — into Neringa, *Labjavā — into Labguvā, and so on (12: 307—308, 310; 13: 186—188; 14: 317—319). There were also changes of another kind, one might say, in the opposite direction. For instance, even in our own time, local residents sometimes pronounced the place names Pagėgiai, Gėniškė as Pajėgiji, Jėniškė (14: 318). In the Middle Ages, the town name Kretingā may have been pronounced by local Germans as *Kretinja, *Kretinje, *Kretenje (if by the mid-13th century the short vowel i was already pronounced more openly), or something similar, since the consonant g here follows the sonorant n, which follows the front vowel i. It is most likely this pronunciation that is reflected in the Order chronicles’ spelling without the consonant g (Kretēne, Kretēnen, Creten, etc.). Another matter is Palanga. A. Salys correctly noted that documents of the Order consistently write this name with the consonant g: Palange in 1253, Palange in 1372, Palangen in 1425, and so on. The point here is that in the German Low German dialect, in the sound cluster -ang- the consonant g did not turn into j; for example, gegangen was pronounced and written jegangen (14: 319). Therefore, it cannot be concluded from this that the consonant g was entirely absent from the town name Kretingā at that time. It is not entirely clear when forms with -ing- first appear in written sources. But there is no doubt that they were known by, say, the 16th century—compare the 1581 record: “Кротинская или Кротинская королевская волость”. Various spellings occur later: Crotinğe in 1757, Crotingen in 1772, Krötingen in 1816, and so on (1). Thus, the town name Kretingā contains the suffix -ing-, characteristic of the Curonian language. It is formed from the root kret-, found in words that may originally have had a more general meaning such as a bubbling, foaming place, or the like. LITERATŪRA 1. Lietuvių kalbos instituto abėcėlinė istorinių vietovardžių kartoteka. 2. Scriptores Rerum Prussicarum. Leipzig, 1861—1874. T. I—V. 3. Liv-Esth- und Curländisches Urkundenbuch nebst Regesten. Herausgegeben von Dr. Friedrich Georg Bunge. Reval, 1853. Bd 1. 4. Holowinski J. Telšių ir Žemaičių vyskupystės vietovardžių rankraštinis sąrašas, saugomas Lietuvių kalbos institute. 5. Спрогис И. Географический словарь древней Жомойтской земли XVI столетия. Вильна, 1888. 6. Kviklys B. Mūsų Lietuva. T. I—IV. Boston, 1963—1968. 7. Kalwaitis W. Lietuwiszkų Wardų Klėtele su 15000 wardų. Tilžėje, 1910. 8. Būga K. Rinktiniai raštai. T. I—III. V., 1958—1961. 9. Salys A. Raštai. T. II. Roma, 1983. 164 10. Vanagas A. Lietuvos TSR hidronimų daryba. V., 1970. 11. Жирмунский В. Немецкая диалектология. М.-Л., 1956. 12. Mažulis V. Dėl Neringos vardo // Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai. T. III. V., 1960. P. 301—315. 13. Vanagas A. Dėl vietovardžio Labguva darybos ir kilmės // Baltistica, 1966. T. I(2). P. 185—189. 14. Vanagas A. Dėl upės vardo Danė (Danija, Dangė) // Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai. T. III. V., 1960. P. 317—319. DER STADTNAME KRETINGĀ Zusammenfassung Von zwei Hypothesen über die Herkunft und Bildung dieses Ortsnamens wird im Artikel die erste unterstützt: Kretìngā ist Ableitung aus krētḗ ”zittern, heben” mit dem charakteristischen kurischen Suffix -ing. Die Idee von A. Salys, daß die frühere Form ein anderes Suffix hatte, nämlich -ene oder -ine, läßt Zweifel deshalb aufkommen, weil die Form Kretene oder ähnlich in den Chroniken des Kreuzordens nur das Ergebnis der Verwirrung der Orthographie und Aussprache von Konsonanten g und j ist. 165