5/11/2017 Vedic Cafe : SCANDINAVIAN RIVER & LAKE NAMES - THE SANSKRIT DECODE

Saturday, 8 April 2017

SCANDINAVIAN RIVER & LAKE NAMES - THE SANSKRIT DECODE

Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in northwestern Russia just

outside the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake in
Europe and is fed by a river named Ladoga (also known as
Volkhov) from which the lake gets its name. The only river that
flows out of the lake is the Neva, and despite its modest length
(74 km) it is the fourth largest river in Europe in terms of average
discharge after the Volga, the Danube and the Rhine.

The Neva River gets its name from Indo-European

or Sanskritic 'nava' () or new.

In one of his papers published posthumously in Studia

Etymologica Cracoviensia, author Eugene Helimski deals with
the etymologies of the names Ladoga and Neva. He states that
the river Neva, which was formed about 3000 years ago got its
name from an Indo-European-speaking population who observed
the birth of the Newriver. (Quoted from Juha Janhunen's Some
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5/11/2017 Vedic Cafe : SCANDINAVIAN RIVER & LAKE NAMES - THE SANSKRIT DECODE

Additional Notes on the Macrohydronyms of the Ladoga Region).

Neva is the same as the Sanskritic 'nava' (), with the same
meaning.

A Swedish fortress called Nyenskan stood at the mouth of the

Neva river in Swedish Ingria, on the site of present St.
Petersburg, Russia. Cities that stand on fort-sites in Europe often
have names that end with the suffix -burg, said to be a variation
of the Sanskrit 'durg' (
) or fort.

In the same research paper Juha Janhunen, Professor of East

Asian Studies at University of Helsinki states, "The etymology of
Neva is potentially important in that it shows that the historical
presence of the Finnic branch of Uralic on both sides of the Gulf
of Finland is secondary to an earlier Indo-European expansion to
the region....This conclusion is confirmed by the well-known fact
that the entire marine terminology of the Finnic languages is of
an Indo-European origin. In some cases, as in that of the very
word for sea, Finnic *meri : *mere- : *mer-, the exact
identification of the Indo-European source language is
controversial." 'Meri' is the same as the Sanskrit 'mir' ()
meaning 'sea'.

Juha Janhunen further states that Helimskis proposal of a

Scandinavian etymology for Ladoga is problematic. Although it is
clear that its modern name Laatokka is based on Russian, it is far
less obvious whether the Russian name can really be derived
from Scandinavian *Ald-aug-ja Old Eye(d) - which would have
been the name of Ladoga had it been derived from Scandanivian
languages. Besides 'Old-Eyes' is not a convincing name for a
lake or a river.

It might be added here that of all the Indo- European languages,

Sanskrit is the oldest and best decodes the names of ancient
sites and rivers and mountains of Europe. Here is a look at some
of the names mentioned above through the Sanskrit lens. First

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5/11/2017 Vedic Cafe : SCANDINAVIAN RIVER & LAKE NAMES - THE SANSKRIT DECODE

an observation:

Many river names in Russia end with the suffix -ga, much like the
Ganga of India. River names in Russia include Volga, Pinega and
Onega. The ancient names of Volga include Jilga and Julga.

Roman Jakobson, Russian linguist and literary theorist, quoted

Nikolai Trubetzkoy's research thus, "In primitive eastern Slavic,
un-rounded front vowels changed into rounded back vowels
before a tauto-syllabic 'l', so that 'jilga' must have changed tojulga;
the initial j was lost before rounded vowels in eastern Slavic, and
the initial u acquired an obligatory prothetic 'v'. Thus the form
'vulga' arose, and short 'u' changed in the 12th-13th centuries
into 'o'. So through a long series of changes Jilga became
Volga". Nikolai Trubetzkoy was a Russian linguist and historian
whose teachings formed a nucleus of the Prague School of
structural linguistics.

Here is the actual quote from Ramon Jakabson's 'The Balts-

Ancient Peoples & Places':
' 205 Notes CHAPTER I 1 Tacitus (90), XLV. 2 Orosius (87). 3 Adam of Bremen (82), 199. 4 G.
Gerullis, Die altpreussischen Ortsnamen, Berlin-Leipzig, 1922; A Salys, Prsai, Lietuvi
Enciklopedija, XXIV (Boston), pp. 146-57. 5 L. Kilian, Baltische Ortsnamen westlich der
Weichsel, Altpreussen, IV, 3 (1939), pp. 67-68; H. Krahe, Baltische Ortsnamen westlich der
Weichsel?, Altpreussen, 1943: I, pp. 11-12. 6 V. N. Toporov, Dve zametki iz oblasti baltijskoj
tomonimii, Rakstu krjums veltjums audd. J Endzelnam, Riga, 1959, pp. 251-66. 7 A.
Kamiski, Jawie, Terytorium, ludnos, stosunki gospodarcze i spoleczne (Jatvingia. Territory,
population, economy and social structure), d, Societas Scientiarum Lodziensis, sectio II, No.
14, 1953. 8 Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisej, I, 1, Petersburg, 1908. 9 Bga (1). 10 Vasmer
(6). 11 Theetymology of Volgaas proposed by the linguist Trubetzkoy in his lectures at the
University of Vienna was as follows: in primitive eastern Slavic, unrounded front vowels
changed into rounded back vowels before a tauto-syllabic l, so thatjilga must have changed to
julga; the initial j was lost before rounded vowels in eastern Slavic, and the initial u acquired an
obligatory prothetic v. Thus the form vulga arose, and short u changed in the 12th-13th
centuries into o. So through a long series of changes Jilga became Volga. (Oral information by
Roman Jakobson.) 12 Thomsen (4) 13 B. A. Serebrennikov, O nekotorykh sledakh
izcheznuvshego indoevropejskogo jazyka v centre Evropejskoj chasti SSSR, blizkogo k baltijskim
jazykam (Traces of an extinct Indo- European language related to the Baltic in the centre of the
European part of the USSR), Lietuvi Moksl Akademijos Darbai (Trudy AN Litovskoj SSR),
serija A, vyp. 1 (2), Vilnius, 1957. 14 M. Vasmer, Die alten Bevlkerungsverhltnisse Russlands
im Lichte der Sprachforschung, Vortrge and Schriften der Preussischen Akademie, No. 5,
1941. ' IN

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5/11/2017 Vedic Cafe : SCANDINAVIAN RIVER & LAKE NAMES - THE SANSKRIT DECODE

It is more likely that the original name of Volga was 'Julga' rather
than 'jilga' if one were to look at the name through the Sanskrit
lens. 'Jala' () is 'water', both in Sanskrit and in Hindi. The suffix
'ga' () means 'going' or 'moving'. Hence 'Julga' means 'moving
water'.

Once the -ga suffix is explained one may look at the prefix Lado.
La () has the meaning of 'begin' or 'undertake'. 'Uda' (), Udra
( ) and 'daka' () all mean 'water'.

The older Finnish name of Ladoga was Nevajarvi, jarvi is lake

in Finnish, while 'jhari' ( ) is Sanskrit for 'river'. The Finnish
'joki' or river may be a variation of 'jhari' where the 'r' changes to
'k'.

Juha Janhunen observes that several macrohydronyms in

different parts of Scandinavia cannot be explained from any
known language. In the Ladoga region an example of such a
hydronym is the name of Lake Saimaa (Finnish Saimaa, Swedish
Saima or Saimen), the largest lake of todays Finland. But
Sanskrit does. Saimma or Sahima ( ) means 'with snow' or
'with ice'.

The river draining Saimaa into Ladoga has the name Vuoksi or
Swedish Vuoksen which is the same as Sanskrit 'vakshan' ( )
meaning 'river'.

The etymology of Volkov, another name of Ladoga, is unknown,

but since 'v' and b' are often used interchangeably in Sanskrit
derived languages, Vokhov changes to Balkhov. Bolkhov and
Baltic may have the same root and maybe a variation of the
Sanskrit 'balaksh' ( ) meaning 'white' which is one of the
interpretations of the name 'Baltic' as made by western linguists.

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5/11/2017 Vedic Cafe : SCANDINAVIAN RIVER & LAKE NAMES - THE SANSKRIT DECODE

Suggested Link:
1. Some Additional Notes on the Hydronyms of the Ladoga Region by Juha Janhunen

Posted byNeeta Rainaat04:18

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