Baltic Languages Research Articles

Home and Spread of Indo-European Tribes in the Light of Name Research

Today, large parts of Europe are populated by speakers of Indo-European languages. People have long wondered where they came from, where their original home was. Archeology has long been trusted to provide a solution to the problem. This has now been abandoned. Today there is a great deal of trust in the results of genetic research, which can certainly contribute to important findings. However, one should not forget an important aspect: when one looks for the speakers of Indo-European languages, one is not looking for specific material finds (devices, weapons, etc.) or for the carriers of certain genetic peculiarities, but for the speakers of languages. Their homeland and distribution can only be determined using linguistic methods. The languages alone are crucial. And at this point a scientific discipline that is based on languages comes into view: it is place name research. Place and river names are firmly anchored in the original region. They often pass on their names to changing populations and are therefore undoubtedly the most important witnesses to the history of peoples and languages. And another scientific discipline must be included: agricultural science, because early settlements were based on good and productive soils that enabled continuous settlement. With the help of geographical names and the distribution of Europe's good soils, the study determines the original settlements of the Slavs on the northern slope of the Carpathians, the Germanic tribes north of the Harz and those of the Celts on the western edge of the Carpathians. River names that can be assigned to Old European, i.e. Indo-European, hydronymy also show that old ones come from almost all settlement areas. There is evidence of connections to the Baltics and the Baltic languages. The Baltics are therefore the center of Indo-European names and there is no reason not to consider them as the starting area and home of Indo-European expansions. A homeland outside of Old European hydronymy, be it in southern Russia or in Asia Minor or in the Caucasus, as is often assumed today, especially on the basis of genetic studies, is excluded.

FRAGMENTS OF SLAVONIC-IRANIAN MYTHOPOETIC TEXT: SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTIONS WITH *svęt- : *śṷanta-

The paper aims to reconstruct the common elements of the Slavonic and Iranian mythopoetic text, referring to the idea of the sanctity and sacred. The need to reconstruct the elements of this phenomenon of the communicative culture history makes out topicality of the proposed study. The objects of the investigation are: 1) set phrases, which in Iranian and Slavonic consist of the genetically identical lexemes; 2) Slavonic and Iranian set phrases, in which the only term is genetically common for both languages (*svętъ : *śṷanta-), while the second part here is represented by the synonyms with the different etymons; 3) two-termed (dithematic, bibasic) compound words with *svęt- : *śṷanta-, which are often the result of contraction of primary set phrases. Etymological, morphological and lexical-semantic features of analyzed units as well as reconstructed prototypes constitute the subject of the study. As the result of the proposed research, a set of ancient common to Iranians and Slavs formulaic expressions (and anthroponyms derived from them) are revealed; it is determined, that all the analyzed syntactic constructions were formed in the process of cultural contacts between speakers of both languages; their formal and semantic reconstruction is justified. Conclusions. Comparative-historical analysis of the ancient Slavonic and Iranian cliched phrases with the core component *svętъ : *śṷanta- and related to them dithematic personal names reveals the traces of the common Slavonic-Iranian text, formed within the poetic speech. Etymological composition of such «mycrotexts» along side with reflected therein complex of religious and ethic ideas, which is common to both cultural-linguistic traditions, leaves no doubt that we deal with the heritage of Slavonc-Iranian contacts. Especially indicative are the examples of full genetical identity in composition of formulaic constructions among the Slavs and Iranians. The semantic basis of formulaic expressions, common to both languages, is formed with the complex of discrete meanings, referring to the notions of abundance, life force and its increase. The material demonstrates the significant specific weight of Proto-Slavonic units with the exponent *svęt- alongside with the rudimentary and clearly areally and also chronologically limited data of Iranian languages. Permanent renewability of the tradition to use the syntactic cliches with *svęt- was facilitated by their involvement into the field of the derivation of Slavonic anthroponymic composites and later their demand in the texts of Christian religious topic. The perspectives for further work in the outlined vector are seen in comparison of the collected material with data of Baltic languages.

Finnic comparative constructions in an areal context

This paper discusses comparative constructions in the Finnic languages. The main focus is on the southern Finnic languages with separate attention paid to dialect variation. By including a maximally complete micro­areal dataset, the article reviews already identified patterns and their spread, while also introducing some (later) developments that have received less attention or gone unnoticed. The results are viewed in the context of neighbouring non­cognate contact languages (Latvian, Latgalian, and Russian); some parallels are also drawn with Lithuanian. As appears, due to being at the crossroads of Finnic and Baltic, it is in the southernmost Finnic languages where the genuine separative comparative construction meets various other patterns, including those borrowed from the Baltic languages. In general, the results enable us to shed more light on the outcomes of more ancient as well as more recent contact situations. The linguistic data originate from text collections, language corpora, example sentences in dictionaries and grammar books, and our own field work data.

Pre-Reformation and Reformation Influences on the Development of European Literary Languages

The pre-Reformation and Reformation social and religious movements contributed to the development of biblical and religious as well as journalistic and polemical writings, which had a significantly positive impact on the increase in functional efficiency and standardisation of European languages. Translations of The Bible played a special role in the development of European languages as texts with the highest linguistic prestige. Not only did Luther’s Bible (1522–1534) contribute to the unification of German literary language, but its 16th-century translations had an outstanding influence on the development of Dutch and the Scandinavian languages, i.e. Danish, Swedish and Icelandic. The language of Protestant translations of The Bible was regarded in the 16th–17th centuries in France and England as a model of stylistic excellence. Prior to the 16th century, there were fairly rich Celtic writings (Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Cornish), but they were undoubtedly greatly enriched between the second half of the 16th century and the first quarter of the 19th century by Protestant translations of The Bible and other religious texts. The translation work by the Czech brothers (ideological supporters of the Reformation) – Blahoslav’s New Testament (1564) and the Kralice Bible (1579–1593) – is a symbol of the linguistic prowess of the 16th-century Czech language as well as the basis for its rebirth in the 19th century. The linguistic consciousness of the Slovaks was long influenced by the Kralice Bible. Hungarian and Polish Reformation translations of The Bible enriched the history of these languages considerably. A number of European languages owe their actual literary beginnings to the Reformation: Finnish and Estonian (Finnish languages), Latvian and Lithuanian (Baltic languages), Upper Lusatian, Lower Lusatian and Slovene (Slavonic languages). In Croatia, prints financed by Reformation supporters appeared in the 16th century. The Serbian Orthodox New Testament (1847) by Karadžić and The Old Testament (1868) by Daničić were published by the Protestant publishing house of the British Bible Society in London, which also published a translation of the Bulgarian Catholic Slaveykov Bible (1871).

Baltų kalbotyra Lietuvoje per šimtmetį

The article reviews the research of Baltic linguistics, including ancient writing, in Lithuania from the 1920s to the early 21st century. The aim was to discuss the development of some of the more important areas, directions and methods of Baltic linguistics, linking it with changes in public life and conjuncture, as well as national culture, and highlighting significant works. It begins with relatively modest but ambitious pre-war research conducted by traditional philological and comparative historical methods. It goes on to look at the oppressive time of the post-war ideological dictatorship, when, in principle, only activities of a practical nature were possible. The period of the so-called Thaw (ca. 1954–1965) allowed for some fresh air and maturing of the elite of Baltic language researchers, which in the years of stagnation (ca. 1965–1985) mastered the methods of internal reconstruction and structural linguistics, published significant works on the history of language, etymology, onomastics and synchronical linguistics, including theoretical ones, laid the foundations of schools of phonology and word formation. The review concludes with an epoch of Soviet transformation and restored independence (ca. 1985 to the present), which liberated researchers and gradually led to international horizons. Research in applied linguistics, terminology, stylistics, rhetoric and some other directions was discussed by collegues.

Less-known pages of the history of Georgian-Baltic scientific relations: George Akhvlediani and Jānis Endzelīns

Professor George Akhvlediani (1887-1973) was the great Georgian scholar with multiple interests. He worked in several areas of linguistic inquiry. He wrote major works on general linguistics, general and experimental phonetics, speech therapy, Indo-Europeanand Kartvelian languages, some of them being seminal. After having received higher education at Kharkiv and Petrograd universities, Akhvlediani returned to his homeland and became one of the founders of Tbilisi University (26/1/1918). He pioneered in such disciplines as general linguistics and general phonetics. He was in charge of the Department of General Linguistics which played a historical role in the emergence and development of the linguistics thought in Georgia. It should be noted that Jānis Endzelīns (1873-1961), the great Latvian philologist and linguist, immensely contributed to Akhvlediani’s training as a scholar. He has been aknowledged as a major expert of the Baltic languages and an ornament in the field of comparative-historical linguistics. George Akhvlediani was awarded a gold medal for his oeuvre “An essay of the history of liquid and nasal consonants in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Slavic languages”. Professor Endzelīns wrote a comprehensive review on the work and highly appreciated it. George Akhvlediani always recalled the consideration and care shown by Jānis Endzelīns with great gratitude, evidenced by their correspondence. Five letters, sent by Endzelīns to Tbilisi, addressed to Akhvlediani, are kept in the Museum of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.

Standard Lithuanian

The Lithuanian language, together with Latvian, belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family and to the group of Eastern Baltic languages. The two surviving Baltic languages have many common features of phonemic inventories: opposition of long and short vowels, an abundance of diphthongs, a system of pitch accent. They have also developed substantial differences, e.g. Latvian has fixed stress and a set of palatal consonants, while Lithuanian has free (distinctive) stress and a phonological opposition between palatalized and non-palatalized consonants (Poliakovas 2008: 9, 42; Dini 2019: 577; Jaroslavienė et al. 2019: 263; Gelumbeckaitė & Pakerys 2020). In contrast to other Indo-European languages, the Baltic languages have lost j between a consonant and a front vowel, and have preserved m, rather than assimilated it, before the dental consonants d, t, which has not become n1 (Endzelynas 1957: 8). Lithuanian has preserved the manner of articulation of Indo-European plosive consonants (Bonfante 2008: 40). As a result of the continuous and long-lasting contact of Baltic with Slavic languages, these language groups also share common linguistic features (discussed later).

Дуудах тийн ялгалын асуудалд олон хэлний хэвшинж судлалын үүднээс хандах нь

This article considers morphological forms of addressing and calling as vocative cases. The research is focused on previous cross-linguistic studies on the vocative case, theoretical backround of the vocative case, marking of the vocative case in languages, vocative syntax of languages and some issues of vocative syntax of Modern Mongolian. Theoretical part includes evolution of case systems, marking of cases in languages, morphological and prosodic forms of vocative cases. Although some Indo-European languages lost their vocative case forms, Baltic languages, Slavonic languages, Indo-Iranian languages of Indo- European family and Georgian language of Iberian-Caucasian family have vocative cases. At the end of the article addressing and calling forms in modern Mongolian are considered in the framework of vocative syntax. We agree that vocative cases in languages exist between system and performance.

OLD ENGLISH COMPOSITA WITH leōd, liud IN STRUCTURAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TERMS (AGAINST GERMANIC BACKGROUND)

Summary. The paper focuses on the study of historical-linguistic research of OE anthroponyms-composites with Anglo-Saxon leōd, liud. The topicality of this paper is determined by a lack of attention to research in field of Old English historical anthroponymy. The purpose of study is the description of structural types of anthroponymic composites with component leōd, liud. The object of the research is Nomina Personalia nouns, taken from Anglo-Saxon monuments of V–X cent. AD, which are formed by the way of compounding. Morphological and lexical-semantic peculiarities of OE proper nouns, and their common nouns counterparts, as well as reconstructed Proto-Germanic prototypes constitute the subject of the investigation. As a result of our research, structural types of Anlo-Saxon anthroponyms with liud / leōd are described; Relative Chronology of analysed compound proper names is defined, which determined reconstruction of Proto-Germanic prototypes for oldest anthroponymic compounds; morphological and semantical peculiarities of Anglo-Saxon dithematic anthroponyms are highlighted. Conclusions. Old English reflexes of Proto-Germanic *leuði- in anthroponymic composites are attested only as prepositive determinatives with a postpositive defined word. *Leuði- belongs to the nuclear components in the Proto-Germanic system of creating dithematic names. Old English testifies to the loss of reflexes *leuði- the ability to be a definable member in innovative anthroponymic composites and, possibly, the loss of the Proto-Germanic anthroponymic heritage with traces of their post-positive usage. The ratio in the pair «Old English innovation VS Proto-Germanic archaism» for names with liud/leōd is 4 : 28 units. According to the morphological classification of Old English and Old Sahson composites, their oldest layer shows the determinative and possessive specificity of the combination of parts with a small number of cases of coordination of exponents. Perspectives for further research is to uncover the system of structurally and etymologically identical dithematical anthroponyms in onomastic vocabulary of Slavic and Baltic languages and comparative analyses of their cultural semantics.

Looking for the Articloid: Ille and ipse in the Itinerarium Egeriae

This paper examines the status of the Latin demonstrative ille and the intensifier ipse, which are the sources of definite articles in modern Romance languages. My analysis is based on the text of the Itinerarium Egeriae from the end of the fourth century AD. Using the approach of cognitive linguistics, I suggest how the articloid could be defined and how it could be distinguished semantically from its source element. I argue that both ille and ipse are used as articloids in the text. However, the original demonstrative meaning of ille and the original intensifying meaning of ipse are also attested, and in certain cases; though redundant, their use can be caused by the specific stylistics of the text. Furthermore, ipse has developed an additional meaning that establishes identity through similarity, and which might have led the path to its further grammaticalization. Therefore, both ille and ipse have a spectrum of interrelated meanings that range from those attested in Classical Latin to grammatical usage as articloids. However, as definiteness markers, their usage is not extended into contexts reserved for definite articles in languages with fully grammaticalized definiteness markers and hence its use as an articloid in the Latin of the fourth century AD could have been typologically equivalent to that of the articloid in the Baltic languages.

Dar kartą apie dabartinių baltų kalbų nosinių sonantų akustinius požymius: naujausi lyginamieji tyrimai

Continuing the acoustic investigation of nasals in the contemporary Baltic languages: a comparative study In the paper, the nasals of the contemporary Baltic languages have been analyzed: labial (Lith. /m/, /mj/ and Lat. /m/), dental (Lith. /n/, /nj/ and Lat. /n/), palatal (Lat. /ɲ/), as well as [ŋ], the velar allophone of /n/ which occurs before [–k/–g] in both languages. Four acoustic properties of Lithuanian and Latvian nasals have been investigated: 1) the first nasal formant (N1); 2) the bandwidth of the first nasal formant (B1); 3) the frequency range of the antiformant (Z1); 4) F2 loci. The study material included three Lithuanian and three Latvian native speakers (men aged 20–40). Lithuanian and Latvian sonorants were analyzed in a prevocalic position in CVC sequences taking into account two criteria: 1) the place of articulation; 2) palatalization (non-palatalized vs. palatalized vs. palatal nasal). According to the results, the investigated acoustic properties of nasals in Baltic have different relevance in distinguishing between different places of articulation: 1) N1 is relevant when distinguishing between the velar allophones [ŋ, ŋʲ] and the rest of the nasals in both languages; 2) there is a statistically significant difference in B1 values of Lithuanian dental/palatalized and non-palatalized labial/velar nasals, as well as Latvian labial/dental and palatal/velar nasals; 3) in terms of Z1 frequencies, it is possible to differentiate Lithuanian [m, mʲ, n, nʲ] from [ŋ, ŋʲ]; in Latvian, it is possible to distinguish between all places of articulation by Z1 values: [m] < [n] < [ɲ] < [ŋ]; 4) F2 loci can be considered as one of the most important cues for differentiating places of articulation of Lithuanian and Latvian nasals, although they do not distinguish between all the nasal places of articulation classes in Baltic. The study has shown that there is no single distinctive acoustic feature that would distinguish between all the nasals, therefore nasal sonorants must be investigated comprehensively. Perceptual experiments would also help to assess the differential significance of acoustic properties.

Projekcja znaczeń w wielojęzycznych korpusach wraz z przykładami jej zastosowania w badaniach korpusowych nad językiem polskim

The Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, as part of the CLARIN-PL consortium, is engaged in the creation of multilingual corpora of Slavic and Baltic languages. Some of the planned corpora have already been made available in the dSpace CLARIN-PL repository and in the KonText online browser. One of these corpora is the Polish–Lithuanian corpus, which in this article serves to illustrate the possibilities of applying CLARIN-PL corpora in research into the Polish language. The Lithuanian language has an archaic structure in comparison with Polish. Lexemes are characterised by a clearer structure. There are regular connections between grammatical form and meaning, with a small number of exceptions. These features of Lithuanian ensure that the projection of strongly formalised meanings onto Polish-language resources is a straightforward operation, leading to a significant narrowing of Polish-language resources, which can be analysed in the context of unequivocal interpretations based on Lithuanian meanings.

НЕЙТРАЛИЗАЦИЯ СЕМАНТИКИ ОПРЕДЕЛЕННОСТИ И ЕЕ СВЯЗЬ С ИСТОРИЕЙ ФОРМ ПРИЛАГАТЕЛЬНОГО В РУССКОМ И ЛИТОВСКОМ ЯЗЫКАХ

В статье речь идет о связи исторического развития прилагательного в русском и литовском языках с нейтрализацией семантики определенности/неопределенности. Исследование категории определен ности/неопределенности проводится с точки зрения функциональной грамматики и теории референции (детерминации). Материалом исследования явились прилагательные, собранные из текстов Успенского сборника XII–XIII вв. Сопоставление с литовским языком позволяет сделать некоторые уточнения, касающиеся развития членных форм прилагательных в славянских и балтийских языках. The relationship the interplay between the historical development of the adjective in the Russian and Lithuanian languages and the neutralization of the semantics of a definiteness is examined in the article. The paper describes the peculiarities of the use of simple and pronominal forms of adjectives from the functional grammar and the theory of reference (determination) point of view (I.I. Revzin, N.D. Arutunova, A.D. Shmelev, S.A. Krylov, T.M. Nikolaeva). We takes into account the opinion of the linguists V.V. Kolesov, A.M. Kuznetsov, N.S. Trubetskoy. The conclusions of the research are based on the analysis of all contexts with simple and pronominal forms of adjectives contained in word-index to the Uspensky codex of 12th–13th centuries. We are dealing with 1235 adjectives which are used almost 9 thousand times: there are about 4 thousand samples of usage of simple forms and about 5 thousand of pronominal forms. We suppose more than 1500 cases of simple forms of adjectives in the Uspensky codex illustrate their usage for expressing the definiteness in case if it has already been expressed by lexical means (neutralization). Lithuanian material is analyzed according to the grammars of the Lithuanian language and articles on the adjective and the problem of the definiteness/indefiniteness category in the scientific literature in the Lithuanian language (authors Ambrazas V., Valeckienė A., Spraunienė B., Paulauskienė A., Mikulskas R., Holvoet A., Tamulionienė A.). Comparison of Modern Lithuanian and Old Literary Russian language texts allows to make some clarifications regarding the development of member forms of adjectives in the Slavic and Baltic languages. Due to inseparable pronoun-adjective joining, close and complex relations have developed between the meaning of definiteness and the semantics of different groups of adjectives. This is explained by the fact that the lexical meaning of a relative adjective itself, its word-building possibilities single out, identify the object and can present it as well-known. Distinctive semantics of adjectives would often determine sole usage of pronominal or simple forms. 164 Сравнительное языкознание In modern Lithuanian, an interrelation is also noticed between the possibility of making pronominal forms and classes of adjectives. It should be noted that this relationship is opposite in Old Russian and Modern Lithuanian. In the Uspensky codex of the 12–13th centuries, the category of definiteness is constantly expressed using pronominal forms in the cases where it has already been previously expressed by other means, i.e. demonstrative pronouns, proper names or lexical word meanings. It is vice versa in Lithuanian: when definiteness is expresses using lexical devices (e.g. relative and compound adjectives), such forms are not used or used inconsistently (with proper names, demonstrative pronouns and appeals). Comparison with the Lithuanian language suggests that in the Old Russian language such a situation was quite possible in the beginning.

Irrealis in Baltic and Baltic Fennic

This article is a study in the use of irrealis in complementation in the two Baltic languages, Lithuanian and Latvian, and in two Fennic languages, Estonian and Finnish. Four domains of complementation are singled out: propositional, desiderative, apprehensional and evaluative. All investigated languages show limited use of irrealis in the propositional domain (in identical conditions, viz. under main clause negation), as well as in the apprehensional and evaluative domains. The most important differences are observed in the state-of-affairs domain, in particular with desiderative predicates, where Lithuanian shows consistent irrealis marking whereas Finnish has mostly realis. Estonian and Latvian are intermediate. Estonian has a rather strong predominance of irrealis, but it might be recent; in Latvian realis and irrealis are about equally distributed, but this situation seems to differ from that in Old Latvian. In these two languages changes seem therefore to have been going on, and areal convergence might to some extent have been involved in this.

The Perfective present in Lithuanian

This article offers a picture of the Lithuanian perfective present, with particular emphasis on the treatment of habituality and genericity, the use of aspect forms in narrative text types, and peripheral constructionalised and often pragmatically specialised uses of perfective presents partly harking back to the actional differences underlying the aspect opposition in Baltic as well as in Slavonic. The introductory part of the article offers a general outline of the Lithuanian aspect system and briefly discusses the vexed question of the existence or non-existence of a grammatical category of aspect in Lithuanian. It is argued that, contrary to a widely held view, the Baltic languages have a grammatical category of aspect, though weakly grammaticalised.

The perfects in Latvian and Lithuanian: A comparative study based on questionnaire and corpus data

This paper presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of the functions of the present, past and future perfect forms in standard Latvian and Lithuanian based on two complementary types of data: the typological questionnaire devised for the study of the perfect for the EUROTYP project and the Lithuanian-Latvian parallel corpus. We analyse the data qualitatively as well as quantitatively and demonstrate that the two Baltic languages show both similarities and important differences in their perfect grams. While the Present Perfect in Latvian clearly shows a higher degree of grammaticalisation than in Lithuanian, manifested in the frequency of use, obligatoriness and functional extent, the differences betweenthe two languages in the uses of the other tenses of the perfect are more intricate and largely pertain to the expression of modal and discourse-oriented functions.

W sprawie pruskich nazw na Mazowszu (na marginesie artykułu Leszka Bednarczuka)

This contribution discusses Mazovian water and place names which are considered by some toponomasticians to be of Prussian origin. Using several examples, it is shown that this conclusion was drawn on the basis of outdated literature on the subject and disregarding more recent publications, with the oldest attestations of names (Narew, Wkra, Puszów Las and Puzów Stok) were not included in the considerations, nor were attestations referring to other topographical objects (Miedzna) assigned to them. Other names with an evidently Baltic basis were omitted (e.g. the first element in the name Kiejstutów Bród). Some of the discussed names in terms of their structure are Polish names with Polish appellatives as their basis (Rapaty, Kolno), the bases of others are names included in the oldest European naming layer, which may have functioned in both Slavic and Baltic languages.

Similarity of Sentence Representations in Multilingual LMs: Resolving Conflicting Literature and a Case Study of Baltic Languages

Similarity of Sentence Representations in Multilingual LMs: Resolving Conflicting Literature and a Case Study of Baltic Languages

Rozważania nad genezą dwóch rosyjskich ornitonimów (ros. кукша oraz ронжа ‘sójka syberyjska’)

The article discusses two Russian terms for ‘Siberian jay’, кукша and ронжа, which seem to be foreign borrowings. The Siberian jay (Perisoreus infaustus L.) is a small bird belonging to the family Corvidae with a widespread distribution in the coniferous forests of Northern Eurasia. It can be suggested that the Russians borrowed both ornithonyms from Finno-Ugric tribes, who much earlier settled in Eastern Europe. The Russian noun кукша could be borrowed not only from the Permian language (cf. Zyrian kukša ‘Siberian jay’), but also from a Balto-Finnic language (e.g. Karelian kuukšo ‘id.’). There is no doubt that these Finno-Ugric nouns go back to Uralic *kokśi ‘Siberian jay (or spotted nutcracker)’, with close cognates in the Samoyed languages (cf. ProtoSamoyed *käsə̑rä ‘spotted nutcracker, Nucifraga caryocatactes L.’). The origin of Russ. ронжа. dial. роньжа f. ‘Siberian jay’ is less transparent. Most researchers assume a borrowing from a Baltic source. Ornithonyms recorded in the East Baltic languages (e.g. Lithuanian rą́šis, Latvian ruozis ‘spotted nutcracker, Nucifraga caryocatactes L.’ < *ranšis / *ranžis) display a different meaning, as well as an unusual variation of stops (voiceless consonant vs. voiced consonant), which could have developed under the influence of Finno-Ugric languages. Indeed, a close equivalent can be found in the Mari language (e.g. West Mari ronγə̑ž ‘spotted nutcracker’). The Balto-Finnic languages display a different variant *närši (metathesized to or from *ränši) in the sense of ‘jay’ as well as a noun *räšni denoting ‘woodpecker’. Presumably Russ. ронжа. dial. роньжа ‘Siberian jay’ represents a loanword borrowed from an extinct Finno-Ugric language, e.g. Meryanic, Muromian or Meshcherian.

Latvian Laumas: Reflections on the Witchisation of Tradition

In Baltic languages, the word laume/lauma initially referred to a certain supernatural being (Lithuanian laumė, Latvian lauma/laume, Prussian *laume). The analysis of written sources and folklore related to this supernatural being allows for the conclusion that Lithuania is both the core and the relic area of the laumė tradition, where the original beliefs have been retained; while Latvia, located at the periphery of the tradition territory, is the innovation area, where the perception of this supernatural being was substantially transformed. It was humanised and incorporated in the witchcraft belief system prior to or during the period of witch persecution (the 16th to 18th centuries). The article attempts to analyse the corpus of lauma tradition in order to clarify its position in the historical typology of Latvian witchcraft beliefs. The first chapter briefly describes three chronological stages of the development of Latvian witchcraft beliefs (night, dairy, and diabolic witches), characterises the lauma folklore sources and previous research. The second chapter analyses the lauma text corpus and attempts to find out which stages of the historical typology of witchcraft beliefs are reflected in the lauma folklore of the 19th–20th centuries. In the third chapter the hypothesis about the transformation of laumas from supernatural beings to dairy witches is argued.