Hungary Is Now a Landlocked Country

10th International Seminar on the Naming of Seas

On the naming of some seas of Europe based on historical maps available in Hungarian libraries

Béla Pokoly Commission on Geographical Names, Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development (Budapest)

1. The name of the Adriatic Sea

Hungary is now a landlocked country. However, in pre-World War I times, during the existence of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and in medieval times, it used to have a coast on the Adriatic Sea. It is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, and it separates the Apennine Peninsula from the Balkans (Fig. 1. M. Kogutowicz: Europe, Geographical atlas, 1910).

Fig. 1. M. Kogutowicz: Europe, Geographical atlas, 1910

Therefore these two sea names are the first ones mentioned in written Hungarian documents.

Until the mid-18th century the predominant language of documents was Latin. Therefore it is no surprise, that the first detailed Hungarian map, that of Lazarus, secretary of the archbishop of Hungary, whose first edition appeared in 1528, used Latin names for its generic terms (mons, lacus, comitatus etc.). This celebrated masterpiece of Hungarian map history contains some 1700 geographical names. A small portion of the Adriatic Sea appears on the map written Mare Adriaticum. (Fig 2. Lazarus’ Map of Hungary, Rome Edition, 1559)

Fig 2. Lazarus’ Map of Hungary, Rome Edition, 1559

The widespread use of the name, based on Ptolemy’s authoritative maps figures in many of the cartographic works of the age. It comes from the town of Adria, (Hatria, Hadria, Atria) a

2 town in northern Italy. Known today as Mare Adriatico in Italian, Jadransko more in Croatian and Jadransko morje in Slovenian, in late medieval times, parallel with the peak of power of the city state of Venice, it had also often been referred to as Gulf of Venice (Golfo di Venetia, see Fig. 3. Giovanni Camocio’s map of 1568, or [Fig. 4.] that of Pierre Duval from 1670).

Fig 3. Giovanni Camocio’s Europae Brevis,1568

Fig 4. Pierre Duval’s Europe Revue et augmentée,1670

In the Hungarian language „Adriatikom” was first used in 1559 in a world chronicle (Székely Estvan: Chronica ez vilagnac yeles dolgairól. Cracow). Following the decline of Venice, and especially after the Napoleonic wars, the classical name of the Adriatic Sea was rediscovered, and Golf of Venice came to signify consequently only the upper part of the sea between the Po Delta and the Istrian Peninsula.

2. Name variants of European Seas

As a rule we may say that from the late middle age to the beginning of the 20th century sea names often had several variants not only in the various European languages but even in the same language. I would like to continue to illustrate this point with some maps of Europe from the 16th century to the present. Most of them by courtesy of the Hungarian National Széchényi Library, Budapest.

My first example is that of Venice cartographer Giovanni Francesco Camocio’s Europae Brevis from 1568 (Fig. 3.). Not many sea names are given, but we may recognize Mare Germanico (North Sea), Mare Gotico (an infrequent use of „Gothic Sea” for the Baltic Sea), Mare di Genova (now Ligurian Sea, but its northernmost corner is still called Gulf of Genova). The Adriatic Sea is given, as we have seen, as Golfo di Venetia, while for the Black Sea we see the name Mare Maggiore (Mare Maius or Maior).

On Claudio Duchetti’s 1571 map of the rivers of Europe (Fig. 5.) the Rome cartographer uses Latin names instead of Italian ones: Oceanus Germanicus (North Sea), Oceanus Britanicus (English Channel/La Manche), Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea).

Fig 5. Claudio Duchetti’s Map of the Rivers of Europe,1571

He is already employing the practice that we will see later: seas are named after territories, islands or countries with important relevant shorelines, most of which has no name today: Mare Africum, Mare Aegyptiacum, Syriacum Mare, Lybicum Mare, Balearicum Mare, even Carpathiu Mare (at the Isle of Carpathos, Greece). Some of these names are completely different today : Equitanicus Oceanus (now Bay of Biscay/Golfe de Gascogne), Mare Gallicum (now Gulf of Lions/Golfe du Lion) etc.

Sixty years later, in 1631 Amsterdam Cartographer Henricus Hondius (Fig. 6.) named the Baltic Sea as Mare Balticum vulgo de Oost Zee (Baltic Sea or commonly the East Sea).

Fig 6. Henricus Hondius’ Europa Exactissime Descripta, 1631

As we know for Germans, Danes, Norwegians, the Dutch, even for Finns this body of water is called „East Sea” in their languages, although the Estonians, for whom it lies to the west, it is called the West Sea (L’ääne m’eri). For the rest of the world now, and for international shipping (IHO), it is the Baltic Sea (French: Mer Baltique). It should be noted, however, that it used to be named Mare Suebicum or Svevicum , and sometimes Mare Goticum in the Middle Ages, referring to these Germanic people (Suevs, Goths). To increase the variety of names of this sea, we may also add, that on old medieval maps, based on Ptolemy’s work, names of „Mare Sarmaticum” (Sea of the Sarmatians) and „Mare Germanicum” also appear. Interestingly the North Sea is not yet called by this name even by the Dutch Hondius (he has Oceanus Germanicus), although Dutch cartographers already used the name de Noord Zee at least a hundred years before. The sea north of Norway and Russia, known since the mid-19th century as Barents (IHO: Barentsz) Sea, is called Myrmanskoy More – an interesting exception from the Latin sea names. The city of Murmansk was only founded in 1915, but the coast itself, known as Murman Coast (a corruption of ’Normann’), gave the sea its old name. Alternative names include Mer de Moscovie (=Moscow Sea, by Duval 1670, Sanson 1681), and even from earlier times Petzorzke More (Mercator, mid-16th c.) or Petzorke Mare (Hondius, 1595), referring obviously to the River Pechora that empties into it.

My next illustration is a map of Europe by the French royal geographer Pierre Duval from 1670 (Fig. 4.), who expands the practice mentioned about the Italian Duchetti, by borrowing the name of the sea from the land it is adjacent to, e.g. Mer de Portugal, Mer de France, Mer 6 de Danemarq, Mer d’Espagne. His sea names sometimes refer to cities: Mer de Marseille, Mer de Genes (Genova), Mer d’Alger (Algiers). Using (rightly) the name Mer Blanche (White Sea) for the inlet from (present) Barents Sea, he again applies it as an alternative to the old form of the Aegean Sea, Archipelago (Archipel). Some – but not many – names he got right, like Mer Baltique, Mer Ioniene (Ionian Sea), Mer d’Irlande (Irish Sea) or Mer d’Alemagne (the later North Sea).

Of the abundant examples of nautical names with the specific element coming from the name of a country or nation few remain in use today: among them Irish Sea and Gulf of Finland are used universally, while Norwegian Sea, a standard IHO name, usually does not feature on German maps (Europäisches Nordmeer).

3. On the names English Channel and La Manche

On Duval’s map the sea channel between Britain and France has the familiar name variants La Manche ou Mer Britannique (Mare Britannicum or Oceanus Britannicus). The current English name (in general use since the early 18th century) probably derives from the desig- nation “canal” in Dutch sea atlases of the late 16th century. Earlier names had included Oceanus Britannicus and the British Sea, and the French have regularly used La Manche (in reference to the sleevelike coastal outline) since the early 17th century. (www.britannica.com). While for the French name there are some early cartographic uses like Duval’s 1670 map (Fig. 4.), (or Philipp Cluver’s The Kingdom of England from 1629) for the well-known English name „English Channel” I was not able to find an older map use earlier than 1730.

Steps of development of the emergence of the name „English Channel”:

Date Map Name

1511 Ptolemy’s Venice Edition Britannicus Oceanus 1548 George Lily”s Britannia Insula Mare Britannicum 1562 Ptolemy’s Venice Edition (J. Meletius) Mare Anglicum 1610 John Speed’s England The British Sea 1669 A New Mapp of the Kingdom of England and the The British or Narrow Sea Principalitie of Wales by William Berry 1693 Robert Morden in Patrick Gordon's Geography The Channel Anatomiz'd: England and Wales 1700 John Senex A New Map of England The British Channel 1730 Thomas Kitchin England and Wales English Channel

4. The Black Sea and others

Georg Matthäus Seutter of Augsburg, in line with medieval traditions, still uses Latin names in his nice detailed map of Europe (1729) but introduces some local forms, too (Fig. 7.).

Fig 7. Georg Matthäus Seutter’s Map of Europe, 1729

He precisely describes e.g. the Black Sea as Pontus Euxinus hodie (today) Mare Nigrum, but adds that in „Turcis” it is Cara-Denghiz, while in „Rhutenis” (Polish-Ruthenian) it is Czarno Morzo. For the North Sea the familiar alternatives Mare Germanicum vulgo de Noord Zee, for the Baltic the variants Mare Balticum vulgo de Ost Zee also appears. Looking at the Channel reveals yet another German precision, as we can read Oceanus Britannicus Gall. La Manche Belg. Canaal. As for the Barents Sea the form Moscoviticum Mare is preferred here.

Over a hundred years after Pierre Duval, another French Cartographer, Jean Janvier drew a map of Europe in 1780 (Fig. 8.), showing the state boundaries, but contrary to his predecessor, he used very few sea names.

Fig 8. Jean Janvier: l’Europe divisée en ses principeaux États, 1780

It is interesting that both the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean are given the compass point names of Mer de l’Ouest (West Sea) and Mer du Nord (North Sea) respectively. There is justification in the name of North Sea, as is had previously been named mostly Mare/Oceanus Septentrional/e/is, and Mare Germanicum is not yet universally referred to as North Sea. The Atlantic Ocean should definitively not be the West Sea. Otherwise the present name of Arctic Ocean/Océan Arctique (present IHO) is not universally accepted in many other languages (see German Nördliches Eismeer /= Northern Sea of Ice/, respective translations in Russian, Czech, also Jeges-tenger /=Sea of Ice/ in Hungarian etc.).

5. Maps by Hungarian authors

Hungarian cartography started to contribute to the mapping heritage of Europe in the second half of the 18th century. Peter Bod’s map of Europe from 1760 (Fig. 9.), most probably based on a similar work of G.M. Seutter, contains translations of some of the familiar European marine names, but a few other ones, whose original may have seemed too strange to the Hungarian mapmaker.

Fig 9. Peter Bod’s map of Europe, 1760

Thus we have Föld között való Tenger (Sea between the lands, i.e. Mediterranean Sea) and Fekete Tenger (Black Sea). As an example for an arbitrary name there is Nagy Tenger (Great Sea), which should be Atlantic Ocean. The Sea of Azov (an inlet of the Black Sea) still figures by its classical name (Meotis). His maps of the other three continents contain still less names, but it is remarkable that on the map of America, the Atlantic Ocean is the Napkeleti Tenger (Sea of the Rising Sun).

The generic term „tenger” (sea), which as a word is so characteristically different from both the Latin mare and the German see, is considered of Chuvash-Turkic origin. Present orthography of Hungarian sea names dates back about a hundred years (in the case of sea names: the generic element, beginning with a letter in lower case, linked to the specific one with a hyphen, e.g. Fekete-tenger /Black Sea/).

Demeter Görög, together with S. Kerekes published in 1790 in Vienna a fine map of Europe (Fig. 10.), showing such seas as Közép Tenger („Middle Sea”/Mediterranean), Balt Tenger and Nord Tenger.

Fig. 10. Demeter Görög’s map of Europe, 1790

The English Channel is recorded as Britanniai Tsatorna (Channel of Britain), and the Strait of Gibraltar is named Gibraltári Szűk Tenger (Tight Sea of Gibraltar – remember W. Berry’s 1669 map with the name: The British or Narrow Sea for the English Channel).

In 1804 a fine atlas was published by Ézsaiás (Isaiah) Budai in Hungarian for students of secondary schools. Titled Oskolai új Átlás (New School Atlas), it contained 12 finely engraved maps, mostly of European countries, but also of the continents. His world map (Fig. 11.) is afraid to use the word „ocean”: The Pacific is given as Tsendes Tenger, the Indian Ocean is Indiai Tenger.

Fig. 11. Isaiah Budai’s world map from his New School Atlas, 1804 11

Not much more seas are identified (some around Europe, understandably, but also Ochotzki Teng /Sea of Okhotsk/ for one reason or another), even the name of the Atlantic Ocean is missing. On the sheet of Europe (Fig. 12.) I have noted two interesting names: Gibraltári Szor(os) Tenger [Narrow Sea of Gibraltar] and Kalétumi Sz(oros) Tenger [Narrow Sea of Calais] (English Channel).

Fig. 12. Isaiah Budai’s map of Europe from his New School Atlas, 1804

The latter feature reads differently on the map of France (Fig. 13.): Kanális vagy Britanniai Szoros tenger (Channel or Narrow Sea of Britain), while the Strait of Dover is Kalétum szorossa.

Fig. 13. Isaiah Budai’s sheet of France (New School Atlas), 1804

On the map of Great Britain (Fig. 14.) the strait has another variant name: Dúver (Douvre) és Kalétum Szorossa (Strait of Dover and Calais).

Fig. 14. I. Budai: Great Britain (New School Atlas), 1804

The North Sea is identified as Északi vagy Német Tenger (North or German Sea), but here, along Britain’s coast, the name Britanniai Tenger (Sea of Britain) is also displayed. On the map of Italy (Fig. 15.) we see the name Adriai Tenger for the Adriatic Sea, although it was named Velentzei Öböl (Gulf of Venice) on the sheet of Europe.

Fig. 15. I. Budai’s map of Italy from his New School Atlas, 1804

On another Hungarian map of Europe, (E. Greipel, 1817; Fig. 16.) Atlantic Ocean figures as Atlantikumi vagy Napnyugoti Tenger (napnyugoti meaning ’of the sunset’ or western), and we have an early example of displaying the name Norvégiai Tenger (IHO: Norwegian Sea/Mer de Norvège).

Fig. 16. E. Greipel’s map of Europe, 1817

The latter is carefully attached closely to Norway’s coasts, while the present sea extends to Iceland. Out of an obvious mistake he put Biskajai Tenger (Bay of Biscay) along the coast of Portugal. The name comes from the Spanish province of Vizcaya, and in classical times it had been referred to as Sinus Aquitanicus or Sinus Cantabricus, while in French it is known as the Golfe de Gascogne (one of France’s southern regions). The North Sea has three names: Északi Tenger (the Hungarian equivalent), Britanniai Tenger and Német Tenger (Sea of Britain and German Sea respectively). The specific element of the Baltic Sea comes from translating the German Ostsee: Napkeleti (where the sun rises, or east).

A nicely engraved 1838 map by F. Karacs (Fig. 17.) also reflects the German name as regards the Baltic: Keleti Tenger (East Sea). Looking at the English Channel two Hungarian name variants can be seen: A Tsatorna vagy Ág (The Channel or Branch).

Fig. 17. F. Karacs’s sheet of Europe from his Hungarian Atlas, 1804

L. Bucsánszky’s 1845 map of Europe gives an early example of the name Földközi Tenger „sea between the lands”) for the Mediterranean Sea.

Fig. 18. L. Bucsánszky’s sheet of Europe from his Hungarian Atlas, 1845

As many of the names are translations from German, the Hungarian version of Eismeer as Jeges Tenger placed on Barents Sea is thus explained. The Baltic Sea is translated however (Balti Tenger), and not as East Sea. The Arctic Ocean figures as Éjszaki Földsarki Tenger (Sea of the north pole), while the Bay of Biscay is simplified to Biscai Öböl.

K. Brózik’s map of Europe from the Nagy Magyar Atlasz (Great Hungarian Atlas) from 1906 (Fig. 19) already shows present orthography in the form of hyphen-linked generic elements (Északi-tenger/North Sea).

Fig. 19. K. Brózik’s Europe from his Great Hungarian Atlas, 1906

Names in general reflect a strong German influence in the names Keleti-tenger (Ostsee/Baltic Sea), Európai-Északi-teng(er) (Europäisches Nordmeer/Norwegian Sea). Similar names appear on Manuel Kogutowicz’s Europe from his atlas published in 1910 (Fig. 1.).

To approach the present: a map of Europe by the Honvéd Térképészeti Intézet (Hungarian Defence Mapping Institute) from 1948 (Fig. 20.) features most of the sea names used at present, but the Baltic Sea is shown as Keleti (Balti) tenger (present Hungarian standard: Balti-tenger), the Arctic Ocean is Északi Jeges tenger (now: Jeges-tenger), in la Manche the article begins with lower case in line with French orthography, and sea names are written without the hyphen.

Fig. 20. Europe (Hungarian Defence Mapping Institute), 1948

The next map, published by the same institute in 2001 (Fig. 21.), corrected all the mistakes mentioned above.

Fig. 21. Relief map of Europe (Hungarian Ministry of Defence Mapping Company), 2001

Another publication from Cartographia/Budapest: The World - Political map, 1998, 6th edition (Fig. 22., 23.), makes an attempt to use endonymic forms for the countries, cities and other larger features of the World.

Fig. 22. The World - Political map – part I. (Cartographia/Budapest), 1998

Fig. 23. The World - Political map – part II. (Cartographia/Budapest), 1998

As we have seen, the set of names for marine surface features (seas, oceans, straits, gulfs etc.) has achieved its present form with a high degree of agreement within cartographers and specialists. Changes may always happen, however, as e.g. with the case of the Arctic Ocean (preferred Hungarian: Jeges-tenger [German: Eismeer]), but forms that correspond to IHO’s forms Arctic Ocean/Océan Arctique are continuously sought.

Bibliography

Dutkó András (1996) A Világóceán földrajzinév-tára és elektronikus atlasza (Gazetteer and Electronic Atlas of the World Ocean) http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/digkonyv/dutko/dutko.htm

Földrajzi Világatlasz 1985 (Geographical Atlas of the World), Cartographia, Budapest

Limits of Oceans and Seas (1953), IHO Special Publication No. 23, 3rd edition, Monte Carlo

Kiss, L. (1978) Földrajzi nevek etimológiai szótára (Etymology Dictionary of Geographical names), Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

Márton, Mátyás (2004) A világtenger felosztása, tengeradatok (Division of the Seas of the World, Marine Data) in: Nagy Világatlasz (Great World Atlas), pp.452-456

Plihál, K., Hapák, J. (2003) Európa térképei (Maps of Europe) 1520-2001, National Széchényi Library, Budapest.

Pokoly, B (1998) On the History of Naming the North Sea, International Seminar on the Naming of Seas, 27-28 October 1998, Seoul.