Maage ja selle päritolu
Estonian maage and its origin

Summary/Abstract: The Estonian word for bog ore and rusty water in a bog is maage (gen maake), in dialects also maake, maake and maak. The declensional pattern of these forms varies: they can be gradational or non-gradational, with final -e, -i or -a in the vocalic stem. Similar stem variants appear in adjectival derivatives with the suffix -ne. The distribution area of the dialect words in question is limited to the eastern part of the North Estonian dialect area. In closely related languages there are phonetically and semantically similar equivalents only in izhorian and Votic dialects. Often the rich variation of a dialect word is characteristic of loanwords. The distribution area of the nouns with the stem maag- and maak- shows that the donor language for the lexeme may have been Russian or Old Russian. The probable loan source is the Old Russian or Russian dialect word smaga, which originated from a Proto-Slavic verb with the stem *smag-, meaning ‘burn, singe’.

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