Medieval Slavic-German Bilingualism in the Light of Austrian Hybrid Proper Names

• Main Author: Georg Holzer
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Izdatelstvo Uralskogo Universiteta 2015-06-01
• Series: Voprosy Onomastiki
• Subjects: Slavic; German; bilingualism; Austria; names; hybrid names; loan translation
• Online Access: http://onomastics.ru/sites/default/files/doi/10.15826/vopr_onom.2015.1.001.pdf

Examining the medieval Slavic-German bilingualism on the territory of present-day Austria, one should differentiate bilingualism of a territory (i. e. coexistence, within an area, of speakers of two different languages, each speaking one language) from individual bilingualism (capacity of an individual to speak two languages). The paper deals with the question whether it is possible to prove the Slavic-German individual bilingualism in the Middle Ages based on the study of hybrid proper names. The author argues that only calques (e. g., Tobropotoch < Slavic *Dobropotokъ corresponding to OHG Guotpach) and mixed name systems (e.g., Ötscher < Slavic *otьčanъ ‘godfather’ ~ Muhmenalpe, or Sierning < Slavic *čьrnik- ~ Weißenbach) represent reliable onomastic evidence of medieval Slavic-German individual bilingualism in the studied area. The same could be true for attributive compounds like Fohnsdorf (‘Ban’s village’; Ban < Slavic *banъ) if there never existed in German an appellative noun *Fohn as a loan from Slavic *banъ, cf. the appellative loan Suppan (< Slavic *županъ) which is a part of the name Suppanshofstatt. Neither “nuncupative” compounds like Retzbach (cf.: amnis qui Retse nuncupatur, 1209; Retse < Slavic *rěcě, L Sg. of *rěka) can be viewed as an evidence of individual bilingualism. The author shows that the same is true for Slavic names with German suffixes like Loising (from germanized *Leubsa < Slavic *Ljubьča, i. e. *vьsь ‘village of *Ljubьcь’), compound names with German first and Slavic second elements like Niederfeister (Feister < Slavic *bystra ‘rapid, transparent’, i. e. *rěka), “ping-pong loans” like Lossnitz (< Slavic *losьnica from Slavic *losъ < OHG/MHG lôz ‘lot’) and secondary hybrids, e. g., Slavic *brězьnikъ ‘Birch-’ > German *Friesnik, modified by folk etymology into a compound name Friesenegg.