Eesti nukunimetused
Estonian names for ’doll’

Summary/Abstract: The most frequent and often the only term for ’doll’ in Pärnumaa, South-Estonian dialects, and a few nearby locations north of this area is pupe (Võru pupp). Titt is used in the northern and eastern parts of the North-Estonian dialect area and in the coastal dialect. Nukk (or nuku) is the prevalent name in eastern Saaremaa and the northern area of the Tartu dialect. Outside the core areas pupe and nukk (nuku) may occur in parallel with some other term. In the Hargla and Leivu subdialects the word is lell. In Estonian the loanwords pupe (German) and lell (Latvian) denote ’doll’ only (or mostly). Both words, in a similar sense, are also well known in Indo-European languages. In many European languages the words for ’doll’ or their ancestors (e.g. Latin *pūpa, *puppa) partially refer to similar semantic groups: ’nipple, teat, woman’s breast’, ’bulge, knoll, etc.’ and ’bundle, wisp (of straw, hair, flax, cloth, etc.)’. The Estonian nouns titt and nukk stand for several different concepts. Both words have phonetic counterparts in Germanic languages. The Estonian titt need not have been borrowed from the Russian word for ’child’ – instead its ancestor could well have be the Low German titte meaning ’teat, nipple’. As nukk means ’doll’ only in Estonian, Finnish, and a few Ingrian, Karelian, and Sami dialects the meaning may have originated in the Finnic area. Supposing the word is a phonetic loan it could be associated with the Low German nok(ke) ’bulge, knoll, etc.’, the German diminutive of which refers to ’nipple’. However, nukk could also be a Swedish loanword.

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