Toponymic unity of the Carpathian region

1 Introduction

The objective of this paper is to present toponyms that are characteristic and commonly met nowadays in the entire Carpathian region. The toponyms have been selected based on their toponymic classification (mostly oronyms, hydronyms and oikonyms), as well as in etymological origins. The selection of the analyzed toponyms is based on a common appellative of Romanian or Slavic origins. The local landforms, historical and political context, human migrations, and shepherd transhumance narrowed the research area to the territory of Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Among the illustrative toponyms presented in this paper, there are examples of macrotoponyms and microtoponyms as well.

In fact, many academic studies have been dedicated to the Carpathian toponymy, both from a linguistic and geographical point of view. However, these studies are rarely presented in the trans-Carpathian and cross-border context. One of the exceptions to this trend is the “Carpathian Dialectological Atlas” (Obŝekarpatskij dialektologičeskij atlas), although it must be noted that toponymy is not its principal topic of research. The intention of this study is to become a contribution to the research on this subject and to expand the inventory of nouns found throughout the Carpathian region (Siatkowski 2016, 148f.), however, sixteen of the toponyms and appellatives discussed in this paper were marked in the atlas, mainly in its seventh volume.^[1]

In both linguistic and geographical studies and monographs devoted to the Carpathian nomenclature, attention was paid to the characteristic vocabulary circulating throughout this area, mainly Romanian appellatives, e.g., măgură, râpă, chiceră. These appellatives were already documented in the first toponomastic and dialectological works devoted to these areas written down by academics of various nationalities, including (only to mention the earliest ones): Wędkiewicz (1915), Drăganu (1933), Janów (1938), Rudnicki (1939), Łukasik (1938), Crânjală (1938), Hrabec (1950), and along with the others. As already mentioned, toponymic papers mainly concern research on toponymy of individual regions. However, it happens that examples from other dialects and languages are possibly cited, usually on the margins of etymological analyses.

2 Dialectal diversities in the Carpathian region

The diversity of Carpathians manifests itself not only in the landscape and nature but also in terms of varied ethnic, cultural, and linguistic identities. A comparative study of the Carpathian toponymy allows the identification of a much larger number of nomina propria that are not only the result of pastoral activity, but also a joint participation in historical, political, or economic events reflected in the nomination system established in this area. It is not without significance that the northern Carpathian areas remained under the Hungarian and Austro-Hungarian jurisdiction for a long time. In the latter half of the 19th century, military maps of the empire were created with instructions for topographers and cartographers to prioritise a name’s communicative value. Toponyms were recorded on maps to reflect the names used by local populations and consider surrounding linguistic relations, particularly in areas inhabited by diverse ethnicities and languages (Włoskowicz 2015: 146–147). Another factor that undoubtedly influenced the unified nomenclature of these areas may be the broadly understood linguistic community of the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Carpathian Ruthenia. Today, it is a cross-border region divided between Romania (Maramureș), Slovakia, Hungary, and Ukraine (Magocsi 2009).

Furthermore, mountain areas, due to their isolation, are characterized by a very large diversity of local dialects. Only in the Polish part of the Carpathians several mountain dialects may be distinguished, including subdialects as: Podhalański, Orava, Spiš (the last two also spoken in Slovakia), Żywiec, Sądecki, Lemko and Boyko dialects, while in Ukraine there is the Hutsul dialect, and in Romania the Maramureș or Bucovina dialects, etc. On the other hand, all these languages have been neighboring each other for more than a thousand years, which has led them to develop some shared features, mainly lexical in this region. However, the purpose of this paper is not to analyze linguistic or ethnic differences, but to attempt to examine and collect elements, specifically toponyms, occurring along the entire Carpathian range, regardless of the locally used language and ethnic-cultural affiliation.

3 Trans-Carpathian toponymies

Referring to the words of the Romanian linguist, Frățilă (1987: 97–98), research has established that toponyms, mainly hydronyms, oronyms, and oikonyms, are often kept with great tenacity, even when the population changes. The new population usually takes over local names by acquiring the old toponyms, often without understanding their original significance. The Old Polish names were preserved in some settlement names after their Vlach colonization that occurred in the period between the 16th and 17th centuries on the legal grounds of ius Valachicum, e.g., Ochotnica in the Gorce region of Poland. Another example is the Lemko villages of Szlachtowa (Lemko Шляхтова) or Jaworki (Lemko Явіркы) in the Lemko region, where the old names are still in use despite forced resettlements of Lemko and Ukrainian residents as the result of the Operation Vistula in 1947.

The toponymic corpus presented in this paper is excerpted from five linguistic areas: Czech, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, and Romanian. The researched area comprises a major part of the Carpathian massif, and due to the region’s geological characteristics, the eastern Carpathians are quite homogeneous. The average altitude of individual mountain ranges reaches approximately 1,000–1,500 m, and the terrain creates suitable conditions for sheep grazing. For centuries (the first significant changes to the pastoral economy occurred only in the 20th century), the Carpathians were an area of transhumance – seasonal sheep grazing on mountain pastures, thanks to which the diversity of local ethnolects developed a specific pastoral linguistic code facilitating communication between shepherds from different linguistic areas. Thanks to shepherds, the vocabulary circulated throughout the region, and individual terms are still alive in local dialects, for example, Polish baca – Romanian baciu – Slovak bača ‘chief shepherd, sheep owner’, Romanian brânză – Polish, Slovak bryndza ‘cheese’, Polish strąga – Romanian, Slovak strunga – ‘sheep pen’ (Oczko 2018: 48–49) and toponymy – which is the main objective of this paper.

The first thing that should be observed is the origin of the toponyms. These are common nouns (or adjectives) that have become proper names. Over time, their original meaning was faded away and was forgotten, while phonetic transformations were in line with the specification of local dialects. It happened especially often when the etymon had foreign origins – like in the case of borrowings from Slavic to Romanian, e.g., prislop in Slavic means ‘mountain pass’, but today we can observe in the Romanian language some tautological forms such as “Pasul Prislop”. Analogically, the same phenomenon took place in Polish, see: “Przełęcz Przysłop”. It shows how ancient appellatives, describing landforms typical of a given area, often lose their basic meaning and become replaced by modern vocabulary forms. Polish przełęcz has a broader meaning than przysłop. The first designation is used to describe any mountain pass, even in high mountains such as the Alpes or Himalayas, while the latter term is used exclusively when describing the Carpathian landscape. In addition, most Polish mountain dwellers, even those of old-origins, have already forgotten the original meanings hidden behind toponyms such as Kiczera, Groń or Grapa, even if the original significance is still preserved in dialectological dictionaries. It should not be considered very surprising, since nowadays, dialect levelling is a common phenomenon (Karaś 2010). On the other hand, one should realize that some of the meanings could differ in various dialects. Grapa or Gropa in Slavic languages, borrowed from the Romanian groapă ‘pit, grave’, has a different meaning for Hutsuls from (modern) Ukraine, where gropa means ‘valley, basin’ (Hrabec 1950: 37), preserved as the oikonym Gropa. Then, Polish mountain dwellers understand it as a scarp or steep slope, preserved only in oronyms, cf. Grapa, Drapa. For Romanians, groapă is an appellative usually used in compound toponyms like Groapa Mare, Pe Groapă, sporadically in the plural form – Gropi – without any determinant.

Common toponyms have two main sources: Slavic and Romanian. As examples of Slavic toponyms may serve Polish Bystrzyca and Romanian Bistrița, both of which comprise the Slavic adjective *bystrъ ‘fast’. Interestingly, the name of the Bistrița River from Maramures County, in its upper stretch, still bears a pure Romanian name: Repedea < Romanian adjective repede < Latin rapidus. This symbolic change of name was already noticed in the 17th century by the Moldavian chronicler, Miron Costin (Tudose 2012: 55). The other examples are as follows: Polish Dział ‘a hill dividing two areas’ (Łukasik 1938: 214), Romanian deal ‘a hill’ < Slavic *dělъ ‘division’. The narrowed character of the Polish meaning suggests that this word is a typical Vlach Carpathian form with semantic origins in the Romanian language. Another Carpathian toponym is based on Polish wierch, Romanian vârf ‘summit’ < Slavic *vŕ̥chъ (cf. Boryś 2005: 695).

Toponyms of Romanian origin appear with similar frequency, e.g., Polish Kiczera < Romanian chicera ‘summit, high isolated hill’, Polish Mańczył < Romanian muncel ‘hill, knoll’, Polish Paryja < Romanian pârâu ‘small river’; Polish Repowa < Romanian râpă ‘steep hill, bluff’; Polish Bradowiec, Romanian Bradu Mare < Romanian brad ‘fir tree’.^[2]

An isolated example is Polish (oronym) Bania and Romanian (oikonym) Baia Mare. Formally, those terms are a continuation of the Latin *bannea ‘bath’ or Slavic *banja ‘steam bath’, but the meaning ‘mine’, which appears in a geological context, is borrowed from Hungarian bánya ‘mine’ (DELR 2012: 208). In the Beskid Mountains, there are many peaks named Bania. However, at present, the original meaning of that regional word is usually confused with the Russian sauna bania. I interviewed some local inhabitants of the village of Pcim (Beskid Wyspowy, Poland), who lived on a hill called Bania, and asked them if they knew why the mountain was named this way. After being asked if they remembered any mine on the hill, they confirmed that there had been a goldmine, but the name was no longer associated with its original meaning. On the other hand, the Romanian term baia is much closer associated with its Hungarian origin. Not only is the prevalence of Hungarian in the area of Baia Mare evident, but also there is a vast mine in the vicinity of the city which gave the city its name and which is still actively exploited.

Another interesting observation about common Carpathian toponyms is the fact that none of them are of German origin, although there are a lot of Germanisms in the Polish and Slovakian mountains, especially the oikonyms, e.g., Falsztyn, Dursztyn, and some oronyms, e.g., Giewont. According to Wanda Herniczek-Morozowa’s studies on pastoral terminology, the most numerous borrowings in the Lesser Poland dialects are of German origin (1975: 181).

Carpathian names of places are characterized by a large variety, which is the result of heterogeneity of the described objects (e.g., mountains, rivers, settlements) as well as the information contained in their lexical meaning (names with topographic or cultural content, etc.). For the purposes of the linguistic (toponomastic) systematics, we propose applying the structural-grammatical classification in accordance with the system introduced by Rospond (1957), here applied in its simplified version. However, Rospond proposed the semantic classification only for primal names (according to the terminology used by the author), while we decided to apply it also to other categories: derivatives and composita.

As far as their meaning is concerned, Carpathian toponyms can be divided into four basic semantic groups, which are appellatives originating from:

1. landform designates, for example, Prislop ‘mountain pass’; Płaj, Plaiu ‘vast, flat terrain usually used as grazing land’; Murzasichle, Sihla, Syhła 1. ‘waterlogged forest’ (for Polish forms), 2. ‘dense forest with young trees’ (for Romanian forms),

2. plant names, e.g., Bukovina, Bucovina, Bukowiec, cf. Slavic buk ‘beech tree’, Rakytnik, Rachitele, cf. Romanian răchită ‘Salix’, South Slavic rakita ‘id.’,

3. physical properties (which I include in Rospond’s metonymic and metaphoric category): Polish Babia Góra, Slovak Babia Hora, Romanian Baba Mare, cf. Slavic, Romanian baba ‘old woman’, a frequent term for ‘mounded hills’, other hypotheses lead to a mythic person in Slavic and Romanian mythology where baba is related to demonic or magic nature,

4. economic activities in mountain or cultural toponyms, primarily relating to pastoral activity, e.g., Kosarzyska, Koszaryszcze < Romanian coșar ‘mountain farmstead, sheepfold’.

Moreover, the presented toponyms also show a rich phonetic variety of names even in the same ethnolect area, especially observed in vowels and not so often in consonants: Polish Gr o ń – Gr u ń, G rapa – D rapa, Slovak Gr a py (plural form) – Gr o pa (singular form). At the same time, they represent different grammatical and structural realizations.

1. names without formants, e.g., Pol. Groń, Gruń, Magura, Dział, Rom. Gruiu – those are usually based on appellatives related to landform designates. It can be observed that the more commonly the meaning of a toponym is lost, the more often it appears as a primal name. Etymologically Romanian appellatives become a single name without any additional determinant in Polish, Slovakian, or Ukrainian dialects, for example, oronyms Dział – Diel – Dił.

2. names derived from other names formed with affixes: diminutive suffixes are especially productive in this case, e.g., Rom. Grui-eț, Grui-șor, Pol. Grun-ik, Munczol-ik, Magór-ka, Huts. Munczeł-yk (Hrabec 1950: 132), Slov. Kýčer-ka.

3. complex names (composita):

   1. appellative + determinant, the most frequent forms, where the determinants are adjectives: Rom. Dealu Mare, Slov. Poludňový Grúň, Huts. Parszywa Baba (Hrabec 1950: 132), Ukr. Чорна Ріпа, or genitival forms: Rom. Râpa Stâncilor, Pol. Kasprowy Wierch.

   2. prepositional phrases – Rom. Între Dealuri, Pe su Dealuri, Slov. Na Bradove, those structures are evident and productive in the field names (Rospond 1957: 48).

Among the toponyms of the Carpathian area, the most numerous groups are oronyms and anoikonyms (in micro and macroscale), then oikonyms, and hydronyms are the rarest, but one topographic name can be used at the same time in all those cases – transonomization is a common occurrence. The most obvious examples are toponyms formed on the Slavic theme *bystrъ:

1. oronyms: Slovak Bystrý Vrh, Polish Bystrzyk, Romanian Bistra, Bistricioru,

2. oikonyms: Slovak Banská Bystrica, Polish Bystrzyca, Romanian Bistrița,

3. hydronyms: Slovak Bystrica, Polish Bystra, Bystrzyca, Romanian Bistra, Bistrița, Ukrainian Бистрець.

The toponymic excerption has been based, first on GeoNames database, then on a comparative analysis of various sources and maps. Of course, academic literature devoted to toponymic studies also could not be ignored. For the purposes of this paper, dictionaries, like Dicționarul toponimic al României or Tezaurul toponimic al României, have been used, but also many other monographs and articles have been consulted. The key to the selection of the following toponyms was their modern form confirmed on current maps of the Carpathian region. Since the Carpathian massif mostly covers two genetically different linguistic areas – Romance (in Romania) and Slavic (in Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, and Czech territories), the criterion consisted in the selection of:

1. toponyms in the Romanian Carpathians based on appellatives with native etymology (Latin or pre-Latin), which occur in Slavic language areas, e.g., Romanian Muncel – Polish Mańczył,

2. toponyms based on appellatives with Slavic etymology that occur in Romance (Romanian) linguistic areas, e.g., Polish Bukowina – Romanian Bucovina. However, it should be noted that some Romanian toponyms mentioned below are formend with Romanian appellatives such as prislop, vârf, stog, tarniță, laz, etc. of Slavic origin (cf. Petrovici: 1970).

As a result of the comparison of Carpathian toponyms from the Romance and Slavic-speaking areas, 26 bases of the name were selected.

4 Carpathian names based on appellatives

5 Toponyms attested exclusively in the Carpathians

Some toponyms, in particular those of Romanian origin, can be regarded as characteristic of Carpathian toponymy. They are not documented elsewhere in the Slavic linguistic territory and undoubtedly contribute to their “toponymic unity” in terms of difference from other geographical regions. These are toponyms based on the following Romanian appellatives: baie (24), brad (19), chiceră (1), coșar (23), deal (2), groapă (3), grui (4), măgură (5), muncel (6), pârtie (11), pârâu (17), râpă (7), plai (14), sihlă (8), tarniță (13).

This classification does not exclude the presence of some of these toponyms in areas outside the investigated region. On the Dalmatian coast, there are toponyms similar in form to those found in the Carpathians: Munćel (Muncijel) and Plai, although their presence is independent, because of origins in the Dalmatian language from Latin monticellus (Skok 1972: 482) and form Greek πλάγιος (Skok 1972: 673).

6 Toponyms which are “common” in the Carpathians

Toponyms based on Romanian appellatives of Slavic origin appear quite often in the nomenclature of the Romanian Carpathians; however, they occur throughout the whole Slavic-speaking area, in the north-east and in the south, in the Balkans. Some of them, in particular those based on plant names, are very common, both in the Balkans, e.g., Dubovac, Duboštica, Dubrovnik, and in Russia or Belarus, e.g., Dubrovka. The most common are toponyms based on appellatives such as *baba (25), *bukъ (20), *bystrъ (26), *dǫbъ (21), *orkyta (22), *vŕ̥chъ (10), while the others are sporadically attested, e.g., *preslopъ (9) – two villages named Prijeslop in Herzegovina (Skok 1973: 279), or *izvorъ (18) – mainly oikonyms and spring names Извор in Serbia and Bulgaria (cf. Skok 1973: 623).^[7]

7 Conclusions

The Romanian and Slavic appellatives in composed toponyms have retained their more universal semantic and functional character. The determining element gives them their characteristics referring to: 1) morphological features, e.g., Izwór Wielki, 2) another local name nearby, e.g., Баба Людова, Plaiul Arșiței, 3) personal ownership, e.g., Kasprowy Wierch, 4) prepositional phrases, e.g., Na Bradove, Su Dealu.

Names based on phytonyms – in which case Romanian etymons are outnumbered by Slavic ones – are characterized by quite rich derivation and variability of forms, e.g., Bukowiec, Bukovina, Bucov, Bukove, Bukovec, etc. The derivation of names is mainly achieved by means of functional suffixes that form toponyms common to all Slavic languages, e.g. -owa, -owe, -owiec, -ina. Romanian nouns including these suffixes were probably adopted from Slavic languages already in a derivative form, e.g., bucovină, dumbravă because these derivative suffixes for toponyms do not occur in the Romanian language. In Romanian, the nominative forms are observed in their basic, non-derivative structures, which results from the Romance character of the language. However, diminutive forms, such as Lăzuț, Tărnicioara, are not uncommon.

Particularly rich variability of names is observed in Polish nomenclature; on the one hand, proper names are often fixed in a misspelled form, e.g., syhła – *sychła, magura – *magóra; on the other hand, we can see a wealth of derived forms and phonetic adaptations of Romanian borrowings, e.g., Parija (singular form), Paryje (plural form), Paryjka (diminutive form). The above example also illustrates possible changes within the genus: Romanian neutrum – Polish feminin. Changes in grammatical gender may, however, result from the fact that the Romanian form of the neutrum in the plural takes the article and is identical to the feminine gender: pârâu-l (singular) – pâraie-le (plural).

Widespread and frequent occurrence of these names also contribute to transonomization. This phenomenon is less common in the case of field names typical for oronyms, e.g., Magura, Muncel, but toponyms based on appellatives generally related to human economic activities in mountain areas become the basis for mountain, field, local or water names, e.g., Bania as oronym and hydronym, and Баня-Березів as oikonym in Ukrainian territory. Also, names that refer to a characteristic feature may be considered a similar case of transonomization, e.g., Slavic *bystrъ ‘fast’, or names of plant origin, e.g., Slavic *bukъ.

The geographical range of some of the analyzed toponyms goes beyond the Carpathian area. Toponyms, such as Rokytnik or Bukovina, are found in the western part of the Czech Republic, in the Giant Mountains. Toponyms in the Balkans and South Slavs have the same basis for the name, e.g., Bukovec, Bucovica in Slovenia, Bukovac in Serbia, or Bukovec in Croatia.

The paper lists 26 toponyms that are commonly observed throughout the Carpathian Mountains – mainly in Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Migrations of peoples of Slavic and Romanian (Wallachian) origin significantly influenced the dissemination of these toponyms, mainly because of pastoral transhumance and the so-called Vlach colonization. Moreover, one should not ignore the fact that over the centuries this area was under administration and jurisdiction of at times various and at times uniform state organizations, which has also contributed to the consolidation of the nomenclature of this area.

This paper does not list all the names that could be identified, since the complete compilation could only be obtained as a result of detailed studies conducted on a larger scale by an international and interdisciplinary (in collaboration with, for example, geographers) research team.