VEEKOGUDE JA TEEKONNAGA SEOTUD KOHANIMESID EESTI LÕUNAPIIRIL
Place names motivated by water and waterways on the southern border of Estonia

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on some etymologies of place names on the southern border of Estonia, which are related to the water bodies and waterways. The majority of the examples are from southern Estonia, but some are also from other areas of Estonia as well as other Finnic-speaking areas. There are some fossilized appellatives in Estonian place names, which can be explained by other Finnic languages. At first glance the names of these places remain etymologically obscure. According to researchers, the etymology of the name of the town Valga originates from the Slavic word volok ’portage’ or ’the place at which two navigable rivers are closest to each other and where ships and freight can be transported on dry land by the shortest route from one river to the other’. The plausibility of the explanation is supported by its location. The other suggested etymologies seem to be implausible because of lack of convincing naming motivation. Furthermore, the etymology of the equivalent appellative valgma ’portage’ is also likely to be volok. There are also some other toponyms named as valgma elsewhere in Estonia. The name of the monastery of Kärkna Falkenau (Ger) is well known. The historical name Walgatabalwe also includes the equivalent element. The name Taheva (village) originates from the appellative taive, which means ’beginning of the journey’ or ’confluence’. Taebla and Taevere belong to the same name cluster, probably with some other place names, for example, the name of Sangaste parish T(h)eal (Ger). The rivers Mustjõgi and Peetri jõgi are tributaries of the river Koiva (Latv Gauja). The name Mustjõgi (must ’black’, jõgi ’river’) is transparent for speakers of contemporary Estonian. The same river has been called with different names in historical sources. The river has also been named in accordance with various riverfront villages, such as Tsooru (Fierenhof), Taheva (Thaywa), and Saru (Scharra). The river name Peetri jõgi, known in Latvian as Melnupe (melns ’black’, upe ’river’), dates back to the 18th century and originates from a personal name. An earlier name of the same river was Ihte jõgi; the etymology of this name is obscure. A look at the geographical location of Saru village suggests that the earlier hypothesis about its origin from the appellative horn is not well substantiated. The name may have been a genuine hydronym (there are a few references from the 1600s), stemming from the appellative sar(a) < *sa(a)ra ’brook; distributary’, which is better known in Eastern Finnic languages. The village name Hargla originates from the hydronym (Hargla brook) as well. It also means a brook or a distributary. In Estonian the la-suffix at the end of hydronyms is rather common, unlike Finnish where the suffix -la denotes settlement names.

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