Forest Names of Proper Name Origin: West Aukštaitian Region

Abstract

The article deals with forest names of proper name origin in one Lithuanian dialect, namely, South-western Aukštaitians (Užnemunė Dzūkian) (South-west Highlanders, Dzūkian of the Trans-Nemunas region) integrated into the Geoinformational Database of Lithuanian Toponyms during the project of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language (Lith. Lietuvių kalbos institutas) under the title “Integration of the PlaceNames of the West Highlanders Region into the Geoinformational Database of Lithuanian Toponyms and Research on their Origin and Motivation”. The research conducted in this article is a continuation of research into regional Lithuanian toponymy which discusses only one class of toponyms, particularly, forest names. In the course of the project by the Lithuanian Language Institute “Integration of the Place-Names of the West Highlanders Region into the Geoinformational Database of Lithuanian Toponyms and Research on their Origin and Motivation”, a territory was selected where the toponyms had not been studied by any linguistic aspect. During the project, the toponyms of West Highlanders (Užnemunė Dzūkian) were added to the Geoinformational Database of Lithuanian Toponyms, their linguistic features were described, and the geographical features of the objects named by toponyms were specified. Structurally, a distinction is made between primary and secondary forest names of personal name origin. The secondary forest names are subdivided into those containing a suffix, an inflection, and those that are of mixed structure, compound or complex. It has been found that in the West Aukštaitian region, the names of forests of proper name origin are secondary, consisting of suffixes, inflections, are compounds or complex names. The majority of secondary forest names of proper name origin are made with suffixes, i.e. about 47.4% cent and about 44% cent are made by using complex names. It has been noticed that of all the forest names recorded in the West Aukštaitian area, the onyms of proper name origin constitute only 11.3 per cent.