Etymology thread

[kamil]

Deresz in Polish is a a coat colour of a horse - with a mix of white and dark hairs. The word is indeed of Hungarian origin, here is more (in Polish) - they say 'deres' means 'with greying hair'.

[peterbud]

The primary meaning of "deres" is "rime-covered", but yes it is used for defining that white-greyish color of horses as well. Strange things you are aware of, kamil

Deresz in Polish is a a coat colour of a horse - with a mix of white and dark hairs. The word is indeed of Hungarian origin, here is more (in Polish) - they say 'deres' means 'with greying hair'.

[kamil]

We are both horse-riding nations, aren't we? And my gf-now-wife used to ride a lot some time ago so I know the horse coats a bit

[yatsek]

The primary meaning of "deres" is "rime-covered"

I see

[kamil]

Peter, don't you think your Oszoly should be a mountain? It's more than an album
Isn't Oszoly of Slavic origin BTW? Sounds kinda like donkeys to me

[peterbud]

Yes I was just talking about that in the rival thread

The name is said to be of Slavic origin (Osolje).

Peter, don't you think your Oszoly should be a mountain? It's more than an album
Isn't Oszoly of Slavic origin BTW? Sounds kinda like donkeys to me

[kamil]

Yeh I saw it only after I wrote here.
So it can be from salt (sol) as well... btw salt is almost the same in all indoeuropean languages, it's one of the oldest words, like sun, water, snow etc

[visentin]

Circo de Còlomers is featured on the main page and reminds me that I was searching in vain for the meaning or origin of this word. Does anyone have any idea ?

[yatsek]

Recently I was lucky to see an Austro-Hungarian map of the Chornohora made in the 2nd half o the 18th century. To my surprise, although it doesn’t give any elevations, most of the summits have their names, which are not very different from the toponyms of today. So I’ve had to modify my view on the origin of the name for the highest summit of the Chornohora. Here is a summary.

[Petro]

About the renovated Sudetes page and Góry Sowie (or Eulengebirge) more specifically - I can't remember where I heard about it but I like the theory that the name of Eulengebirge (Owl Mountains) originally didn't refer to owls but to deers. Slavic name "Jelene Gory" (Deer Mountains) would be phonetically adapted to German as Eulengebirge and then, many centuries later, retranslated to Polish/Czech losing it's original meaning. I can't find any sources for that now.
There could also be another possibility following the same scheme but the original name would be "Jelne (Jedlne) Gory" that is "Fir Mountains" (refering to the genus of trees Abies)

How do you like that?

[Arthur Digbee]

About the renovated Sudetes page and Góry Sowie (or Eulengebirge) more specifically - I can't remember where I heard about it but I like the theory that the name of Eulengebirge (Owl Mountains) originally didn't refer to owls but to deers. Slavic name "Jelene Gory" (Deer Mountains) would be phonetically adapted to German as Eulengebirge and then, many centuries later, retranslated to Polish/Czech losing it's original meaning. I can't find any sources for that now.
There could also be another possibility following the same scheme but the original name would be "Jelne (Jedlne) Gory" that is "Fir Mountains" (refering to the genus of trees Abies)

I have trouble connecting that Slavic jelen/олень root to a Germanic Eulen/OHG.uwila -- at what time would they sound vaguely alike? Eulen only added its -n in the transition from Middle to Modern High German (as an original fem. wk. declension noun).

[yatsek]

How do you like that?

I must say I've been much more involved in the Carpathian games, but what you say here seems highly likely - at least in that such transformations usually occur when new settlers come. (Not long ago I heard someone talk about nearly the same thing with reference to the Bieszczady. The story was about the Polish WIG cartographers of 1920-1939 who – despite speaking a Slavonic language similar to the language the locals spoke – made such errors. Actually, the only example I remember is about them having taken the Rusyn/Ukrainian "yalyna" (jalina), i.e. spruce, for "jelen" (deer in Polish, "olen" in E Slavic).

I have trouble connecting that Slavic jelen/олень root to a Germanic Eulen/OHG.uwila -- at what time would they sound vaguely alike? Eulen only added its -n in the transition from Middle to Modern High German (as an original fem. wk. declension noun).

Well, 3 or 4 letters are the same. Let's compare e.g. the Kaczawa (River) - Polish turned into Katzbach by the German settlers ("kaczka" is Polish for "duck"; "kacza" will be the adjective)

[kamil]

Slavic name "Jelene Gory" (Deer Mountains) would be phonetically adapted to German as Eulengebirge and then, many centuries later, retranslated to Polish/Czech losing it's original meaning. I can't find any sources for that now.

After all there's still the town of Jelenia Gora nearby.

[Petro]

I have trouble connecting that Slavic jelen/олень root to a Germanic Eulen/OHG.uwila -- at what time would they sound vaguely alike? Eulen only added its -n in the transition from Middle to Modern High German (as an original fem. wk. declension noun).

Where's the trouble? Let me transcript that for you: yelen => oylen. There's no need to look back as far as OHG and (h)uwila. Even if it sounded more like uilen/weelen at the time it still sounds alike for me.

Of course in this case it's just a riddle - to state anything beyond doubt we would need to check the sources for the first notification of the name of Eulengebirge.

Yatsek,
the Bieszczady example you're talking about is probably Jeleniowate <= Ялинкувате (Yalynkuvate), right?

BTW it was a marvellous work the Komisja Nazewnicza (Naming Comission) did in the first years after WWII in Sudetes (and not only there)- translating all the German names to Polish, looking for some long forgotten Slavic toponyms in medieval sources, reconstructing the hypothetic Slavic forms - that must have been fascinating. Sure they made countless mistakes (which are fun to find and look for) but considering how fast they were working the results are still impressive.