ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Éva Kovács
University of Debrecen
Debrecen, Hungary

Toponymic Findings in Latin-language Medieval Hungarian Charters: Classification, Structural and Motivational Features

Voprosy onomastiki, 2019, Volume 16, Issue 4, pp. 123–133 (in English)
DOI: 10.15826/vopr_onom.2019.16.4.048

Received 8 April 2019

Abstract: Apart from the relevance they have for language history and onomastic research, toponyms occurring in historical texts may also be a valuable source for other disciplines such as historiography, historical geography, ethnography, etc. This paper focuses on the toponymicon of the four early charters: 1) the Founding Charter of the Abbey of Tihany, dated 1055; 2) the Founding Charter of the Abbey of Százd written in 1067 and amended in the 13th century; 3) the Founding Charter of the Abbey of Garamszentbenedek written in 1075 and amended in the 13th century; 4) the Land Survey of the Abbey of Tihany of 1211. The onomastic data retrieved from these sources is perfectly suitable for providing a general overview of Old Hungarian place name-giving patterns. The whole corpus of place names is considered in structural, semantic, and motivational aspects. The author distinguishes between two essential types of early Old Hungarian toponyms: one-part names (mostly settlement names) derived from anthroponyms and two-part microtoponyms (mostly naming objects of nature) containing a geographical term, although the prevalence and frequency of these two categories of names changed to some extent during the early Old Hungarian era. The motivational analysis shows that the toponymic material used for reconstructing the ethnic composition of Medieval Hungary should be interpreted with extreme precaution. The appellative loanwords as part of these toponyms were supposedly adopted into Hungarian at an earlier stage while the toponyms derived from borrowed personal names seem to mark certain anthroponymic trends during the respective period rather than immediately indicate to the ethnic affiliation of the owner of the named area.

Keywords: Old Hungarian, historical toponomastics, medieval charters, toponymic corpora, name-giving patterns, ethnic contacts, etymology.

Acknowledgements
This study was carried out as part of the work of the Research Group on Hungarian Language History and Toponomastics (University of Debrecen — Hungarian Academy of Science).

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