LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXXII (1993)
BALTŲ ONOMASTIKOS TYRINĖJIMAI
VYTAUTAS VITKAUSKAS
ABOUT A SAMOGITIAN OIKONYM
In the Veiviržėnai district of Klaipėda District, there is officially a village called Liepačiai (see Lietuvos TSR administracinio—teritorinio suskirstymo žinynas, II d., p. 160). This form is universally used in written texts and scholarly research. For example, in V. Toporov’s work ”Прусский Язык” Словарь, L.” M., 1990, p. 199, the place-name Liepačiai, the only one in Lithuania, appears in the extensive entry examining the Proto-Prussian root leip-.
In the local northern Samogitian speech of Veiviržėnai and Judrėnai, the name of this village is pronounced ’ė·pa·t’ė (this is what even the Švėkšna dūnininkai—southern Samogitians—say). The long e· cannot have developed from ie, only from ei (here ai and ei are perhaps most often monophthongized), since only from the diphthong ei does this speech have the long vowel e before long syllables (in this speech, before long syllables, a can be stressed with the old inherited accent only when short: mã·mã, rã·tã, kã·t’ėnõ· ~ kãtinou, s’kėpatã· ~ skėpatai, d’j’ėbõ·n’įs ~ drėbantys, etc.). Thus the form is Leipačiai, whereas Liepačiai arose only because the complex phonetics of the Samogitian place-name was not correctly transposed into standard Lithuanian.
Liepačiai may be:
1) A substrate from Curonian (cf. Vvr, Jdr: gr’ė·p’t’ė ~ greibti “to seize”, p’l’ė·k’t’ėis ~ pleikties “to draw near, to engage”, ė·ž’t’ė ~ ežti “to scratch, to scrape”, p’r’ė·kã·ls ~ preikalas “anvil”, p’r’ė·m’in’ie ~ preimenė; cf. neighboring Priekulė speech p’ė·t’v’is ~ peitys “south wind”, etc. (cf. Z. Zinkevičius. ”Lietuvių kalbos istorija” II t., p. 21). There was also an inverse phenomenon there (Vvr, Jdr, Grg, etc.): s’v’ėis’t’ė ~ šviesti “to polish”: s’v’ėitas batūs~švietas batus, pas’ėk’ėit’es ~ pasikėitės “having changed”, ž’ėips ~ žiebas “lightning”, cf. žė·ips (Užv, Krš). Is this a case of assimilating dialects, or of mixing up the rules of languages? Vaižgantas was the first to speak of Lėpačius, even writing Lėpačio kalnas. Prof. Girdenis has spoken about this.
2) It may be connected with the surname Leipus (?), see (“Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas”, L—Ž, p. 47), although no such surname exists today in the area of the northern and southern Samogitian dialects (and none had been recorded there earlier).
Thus, faulty transposition brings science only additional difficulties and uncertainty. When publishing research or dictionaries, in doubtful cases the authentic pronunciation of a dialect word should also be given; only then could the history of a place-name become clear, since a form heard inaccurately or a non-scientific transposition can lead even prominent scholars astray. Authentic dialect forms would be especially suitable for the comprehensive place-name dictionary planned by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. And Liepačiai could be a direct Cur-
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