ARE THE VENETHI OF TACITUS SYNONYMOUS WITH WESTERN BALTS?SummaryVeneti (Lat. Venedi, Venethi; Gr. Ουενέδαι) usually describes a tribe or confederation of tribes which are mentioned by many antique ...and modern historians and geographers. This article addresses those Veneti about whom the historian and political figure of the Roman Empire, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, wrote in his work Germania (‘De origine et situ Germanorum’, 98 AD). The ethnic identity of this tribe has given birth to many hypotheses, one of which associates the Veneti of Tacitus with the Baltic tribes.The first part of the article brings together the most important facts on the distribution of the name Veneti, beginning with the oldest data reaching back before the Christian era and concluding with the latest information from the 20th century.The second part presents onomastic material, which in one form or another reflects the root (stem) ven-/ven-t/ven-et-, and upon which hypotheses on the ethnic affiliation of the Veneti are usually based.The third part analyzes the most frequently discussed hypotheses, with attention paid to the distinction of ethnic-linguistic elements of Baltic ethnic origin from the Slavic ones.Based on the facts presented, two problems are elucidated and discussed.1. The origin of the Veneti tribe itself and its ethnic affiliation: who were Tacitus’ Veneti?2. The etymology of the name Veneti.
POLESIE: “ALONG THE FOREST“, „ALONG THE VALLEY“ OR „LAND OF GREAT SWAMPS“?SummaryPolesie is a territory inhabited by speakers of an Eastern Slavonic dialect called „Poleshuk“, stretching across ...southern Belarus, northern Ukraine, several neighboring western regions of Russia and part of the western headwaters of Poland’s section of the Pripet River.The Polesie region is extremely significant for the history of old contacts between Balts and Slavs, because of its linguistic peculiarities and archaeological monuments, which offer evidence that this could have been the zone where Balts and Slavs first met, the strongest traces of which were impressed in the local place names.The abundance of Baltic traces in the Polesie region calls for greater attention to the origin of the name Polesie itself.This article presents arguments casting doubt on the Slavic origin of the name: supposedly Polesie = Slav. (R.) po- + les- (по- + лес-) „along the forest“, from R. лес „forest“, cf. по-бережье „along the shore“, etc. Even those linguists who tend toward maintaining that the etymology is based on „forest“ try to connect Polesie with Baltic hydronyms such as Pala, Pelesa and others, which etymologically have nothing in common with the meaning „forest.“Based on appellative and onomastic constructions of the Baltic pal-/pel- root and borrowings of these in the Slavic languages, it is suggested that the proper name Polesie needs to be considered as part of the heritage of the Baltic substrate, a word whose „ancestors“ could have been either a hydronym with the affix -es- (e.g., Pelesa), or a geographic term meaning „large swamp“, cf. Lith. palà „marsh or morass, bog, swamp“, palios „large swamp in places where lakes have been overgrown, wasteland“, Latv. palas, paļas „marshy lake shore“ and others. Similar typological/semantic parallels exist in other regions, cf. Pannonia „historical Roman province in the area of the present-day lake Balaton“, whose title *Pannona is sought in the appellative meaning of „swamp, bog“ in the Illyrian language, cf. Baltic (Prussian) pannean „swamp“.A Baltic origin for Polesie is also strengthened by the fact that a large portion of the borrowings from the Baltic substrate in the various Eastern Slavonic languages are comprised of words for wet, low and swampy places, e.g.: alos, алес „swamp, marsh, quagmire“ (Polish, Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian); kudra, кудра „forest in a swamp, small lake“ (Polish, Belarusian, Rus., Ukr.); pelka, пелька „swamp, depression“ (cf. Lith. pelkė „swamp“) (Polish, Belarusian, Rus., Ukr.); rojst(o), ройст(а) „swampy place, bog, fen“ (Polish, Belarusian, Rus.); твань/тваль „swampy place, quagmire“; R. пурвиж „peatbog“, банда „an overgrown lake filled with crucian carp)“, лом(a)/(o) ламы́ „swamp, bog, fen, marshy meadow“, дребь/дреб „fen, swampy place overgrown with forest“ and so on.In light of the semantic/typological, etymological and areal features of the toponym Polesie there is strong basis to the claim that it is of Baltic origin and possibly meant „land of great swamps“, while the semantic connections with „forest“ arose later, following inhabitation of the land by the Eastern Slavic tribes and their adoption of the local Baltic toponyms.
THE BALTIC SUBSTRATUM IN THE LANGUAGES OF THE EASTERN SLAVSSummaryAlthough many archeological and onomastic publications demonstrate the existence of a Baltic substratum over a rather large section ...of the territory of the Eastern and Western Slavs, some Slavic studies scholars still ignore the influence exerted by this substratum in the evolution of the vocabulary, phonetics and other linguistic aspects of Slavic dialects. One group of linguists adheres to the principle that in elucidating the causes of changes taking place in a language, one must give priority to the patterns of internal language development. Others identify the lexical substratum with marginal (borderland) borrowings. But a drawback to the notion of substratum influence is the extremely large number of common features exclusive to the Baits and the Slavs, such that loanwords are ignored, especially the older loanwords of substratum origin. Scholars find somewhat more substratum Balticisms in the Polish and Belarusian dialects (especially in the Polesje region), but in northwest Russia, where there is a great abundance of hydronyms of Baltic origin, conspicuously few appellative Balticisms are reported.This article not only draws attention to this paradox, but also attempts to determine in which layers of the Russian vocabulary certain still unidentified loanwords from the Baltic languages are concealed.On the basis of the „Atlas substratnoy i zaimstvovannoy leksiki russkich govorov Severo-Zapada“ (Saint Petersburg, 2003), compiled by S. A. Myznikov, it is established that a large portion of the substratum Baltic lexical legacy in northwest Russian dialects is to be found among borrowings from the Finnic languages, e.g.: гумежи ‘field’, галага ‘frost’, xaрм(а) ‘frost’, марьюха ‘female capercaillie (European woodland grouse)’ and other words whose Baltic pedigree is established by S. A. Myznikov. In the Atlas certain Balticisms which might have entered the Russian dialects without the mediation of the Finnic languages are noted: кукорки ‘top section of the back, nape of the neck’, кука ‘a wooden mallet used to stun fish under the ice’, нерет/нерота/нарот ‘a net for catching fish’ and others.The atlas also contains other words which S. Myznikov considers borrowings from the Finnic languages, but which are more likely substratum Balticisms, e.g.: палы‘chaff (of grain), flax husks’ (cf. Lith. pelai ‘grain or hay husks, chaff = Latvian, pelus), керда ‘event; time or instance’ (cf. OPr. kērdan acc. sg. ‘once upon a time’ and Lith. kartas) etc.For lexicologists studying the history and origin of Russian vocabulary it suffices to establish the direct source of the borrowing, without delving into the older origin of the loan word. For this reason Russian Slavic studies scholars would consider most of the words mentioned here Finnicisms, and justifiably so. This does not satisfy Baltic studies scholars, however. It is important for investigators of the language which provided the loanwords to establish not only which neighbouring languages directly borrowed such words, but also the further fate of these „nomadic” words. It is data of exactly this kind which can elucidate the earliest history of the Baltic tribes and their languages about which we can find nothing in the annals of written history.
СЛАВЯНСКИЕ ЗАИМСТВОВАНИЯ В ЛИТОВСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕРезюмеВ данной статье исследуются славянские заимствования в литовском языке на фоне. образования и развития литовского литературного языка. Сравнение ранних ...заимствований в старо-литовском языке со славизмами, вошедшими в современный литовский литературный язык, позволяет отметить целый ряд изменений, касающихся фонетического оформления славизмов, их грамматического класса, семантики, а также самого источника заимствования (вместо польского и белорусского языка в настоящее время основным источником заимствования стал русский язык).Кроме того, анализу подвергается сам термин „славянские заимствования“. Выясняется, что под этим термином обычно объединяются слова разного происхождения: исконно-славянские слова и слова, которые в самих славянских языках являются заимствованными из других языков. Поэтому предлагается различать терминологически: славянские заимствования в литовском языке – это слова, заимствованные в литовский язык из славянских языков, независимо от их происхождения в самих славянских языках, и славянские слова в литовском языке – слова славянского (и только славянского) происхождения, заимтвованные в литовский язык.
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