On German and Latvian Names of Manor Estates in Latvia. Aspects of Translation

Abstract

The article is dedicated to Latvian placenames in German and Latvian, and their reciprocal correspondences, with a special focus on the aspect of translation inspired by Jānis Endzelīns’s article “On German Names of Manor Estates in Latvia” (Endzelīns 1928). The study on names of ancient manor estates has also been topical from a contemporary perspective because they underlie the names of Latvian villages (often parish centres), and also some towns, to a large extent.

Earlier systematic and broader compilations of placenames in Latvian were included in four dictionaries from the 17^th and 18^th centuries (Mancelius 1638; Langius 1685; Lange 1773; Lange 1777; Stender 1789). The article analyses placenames of Kurzeme and Zemgale – altogether 155 pairs of placenames; however, all the mentioned dictionaries include only 15 of them: Aizpute, Auce, Dobele, Durbe, Emburga, Embūte, Jelgava, Kalna muiža (nowadays Tērvete), Kuldīga, Liepāja, Rundāle, Saldus, Sēlpils, Sesava and Valtaiķi. The number of placenames in the dictionaries varies considerably: Mancelius included 41 names, Langius – 21, Lange – 67, but Stender had included 140 placenames (see Table 1). Although it can be admitted that all subsequent authors had access to Mancelius’s dictionary, such placenames as Gramzda, Kalēti and Sece were included only in that dictionary. Placenames in Langius’s dictionary were taken from Mancelius’s dictionary. Only Grobiņa was added to them.

There are several models of placename derivation in Latvian and German. One model includes translating, and it accounts for 10-13% of all the placenames in the analysed sources (see Table 2). Altogether, 19 translations of placenames have been established (see Table 3). Translations comprise common words from both languages, and also a dialectal lexis represented in a smaller number and connected with the subdialect of a location; however, Middle Low German and Baltic German influenced German placenames and thus sometimes makes it impossible to separate them.

Four pairs of placenames did not fit into the overall analysis. Although they had features of translation, they did not comply with the category. The evaluation of the derivation of these placenames and reciprocal borrowing should be included in prospective research by identifying and analysing other relational models of Latvian and German placenames.