Arguments for the Lithuanian miestas ‘town’ Not Being a Slavism

  • Dainius Razauskas
Keywords: Lithuanian miestas ‘town’, Slavisms in Lithuanian, semantic evolution of the meaning ‘town’

Abstract

The article maintains that, contrary to the linguists’ unanimous assumption, the Lithuanian word miestas ‘town’ could not be a Slavism. The article consists of six parts. In the first one, the introduction, the very problem is identified. Part 2 focuses on the analysis of the Proto-Slavic *město ‘place’ > ‘town’, previous attempts at its etymologisation are mentioned, and a connection to Lithuanian mietas ‘pale, stake’ and Latvian miet ‘to pale, to stake up, enclose’, among others, is indicated. Parts 3 and 4 show the characteristic semantic evolution from the meaning ‘enclosure, paled up site’ to the meanings ‘place’ and ‘town’, respectively. Section 5 gives a possible coherent explanation of the word miestas by means of the Lithuanian (Baltic) language without any resort to Slavic whatsoever (contrary to the Proto-Slavic *mesto, which cannot be explained independently). Finally, in part 6 (the conclusion), the single argument primarily proposed by Kazimieras Būga for the miestas to be a borrowing from Slavic is considered and refuted as not sufficient for such an assertion.

Published
2024-05-07
Section
Language