Abstract
The article deals with a Baltic etymology of the river name and place name Wegra, earlier Wągra (Northern Mazovia). It is suggested that the hydronym in question derives from Yatvingian *Wungrā and Baltic *Wingrā f. ‛winding, tortuous, crooked [river]’. Yatvingian is the only Baltic language showing the depalatalization of palatalized syllabic resonants at an early period. Three examples of such an exclusive phonological process are carefully reviewed. Two glosses exemplifying the sound change are found in the so-called Polish-Yatvingian dictionary (PYD ), also known as Zinov’s dictionary: Yatv. wulkʃ ‛wolf’ (PYD 25) < Balt. *wilkas, cf. Lithuanian vilkas, Latvian vilks, OPrus. wilkis ‛id.’; Yatv. wuld ‛to want’ (PYD 3) < Balt. *wiltēi, cf. Lith. viltis ‛to hope’, Latv. vilt ‛to cheat, swindle, delude’. The third instance, Yatv. wurszajtis ‛an aged priest offering a goat’ (cf. Lith. virsaitis ‛village-mayor, village-chief, elder in a village’, Latv. virsaitis ‛village-mayor’), is mentioned in the 16th century AD in Jan and Hieronim Malecki’s testimony on the Sudovians (i.e. Y atvingians) inhabiting the Sambia Peninsula.271-
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