ULLA-MAIJA KULONEN - PIRJO NUMMENAHO

KAI DONNER'S THREE URALIC ETYMOLOGIES

Karl (Kai) Reinhold Donner (1888-1935) was the son of a famous professor and senator Otto Donner (the founder of the Finno- Ugrian Society). was educated in but he studied also at the universities of Budapest 1908 and Cambridge 1911. In 1921 he published his doctoral thesis on the phonetics of Samoyed and other . He became docent of Uralic linguistics in 1924. In addition to his linguistic interests he devoted himself actively also to patriotic movements and social organizations. Kai Donner was a great scholar and his research field was very vast. Besides the Samoyed he dealt with many other languages and peoples such as the Turks and the Tungus. He was also interested in Samoyed folklore. He was sent on research journeys in the years 1911-1913 and 1914 among the Samoyed peoples by the Finno-Ugrian Society. His last journey was interrupted by the outbreak of the 1st World War in 1914, thus he could not carry through all his plans. During his stay with the Samoyeds he collected extremely valuable materials regarding mainly the Southern Samoyed languages: Sel'kup and Kamas. His Kamas material is of great importance for science, because it was collected among the last speakers of Kamassian. Together with Castrén he was the only researcher who became familiar with all living Samoyed languages. He published an interesting book of his journeys in Siberia: Siperian kansojen keskuudessa,1915, 1923. Anyhow, he was able to publish only a small part of all the materials he had collected during his research journeys among the Samoyeds, because of 28 Ulla-Maija Kulonen - Pirjo Nummenaho his premature death and numerous social and patriotic activities. Kai Donner's Kamas and Ket material has been edited and published by Aulis }. Joki.1 The following three etymologies written by Kai Donner: Finn. hakata ' to hew, cut, chop', huosia 'to scratch, rub, chafe' and tiiti 'sparrow' were meant to be published in 'Virittäjä', one of the major Fennie reviews, on E. N. Setälä's 50th birthday, but for some reason this number was never issued. We have translated this short manuscript of K. Donner's reporting here the three abovementioned etymologies. A reproduction of the original manuscript is shown in figure 1. The phonetic transcription has been slightly simplified. In the whole manuscript Donner uses the diacritics ts and dz to point the cacuminality of the nonpalatalized affricate. To help reading, this secondary feature has been left unmarked.

THREE URALIC ETYMOLOGIES

Prof. Wichmann has shown in his work : "Zur Geschichte der finnisch-ugrischen anlautenden affrikaten" ( F.U.F. XI: 173-290) that the nonpalatalized ts and dz in the initial position of the word in Proto Finno-Ugric correspond to c, t and c in Ostyak Samoyed. He mentions seven Samoyed words in his writing, which he compares with Finno-Ugric words. Personally I do not consider them all correct, but I think that even they reveal already that in Ostyak- Samoyed to the nonpalatalized affricate in the initial position of the word correspond c, t and c, of which the first one must be considered original, because it is found in nearly all the dialects.Denoted with a more exact transcription it stands for ts which stands for t in some dialects by the river Tas and sometimes ts {-c ) in southern dialects. Anyhow, I myself have never heard the latter one, but Castren denotes it that way. It is not found by the river Ket, at least not now and I am inclined to believe that

1 See Aulis J. Joki , Kamassisches Wörterbuch nebst Sprachproben und Hauptzügen der Grammatik ( LSFU 8), 1944, and Ketica.Materialen aus dem Ketischen oder Jenissei- ostjaken. Aufgezeichnet von Kai Donner. Bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Aulis J. Joki. - MSFOu 108. 135 pp. Kai Donner's three Uralic etymologies 29

Castrén, who did not personally visit those areas, made a mistake in this respect. I want to support Prof. Wichmann's thought and illustrate it by a couple of new comparisons. On page 238 Wichmann mentions the Finnish word hakata, hakkaan, Vi tundo, caedo,violenter verbero', to which he connects according to Setälä the Lappish N (lpN) coakket, coakam and coakket, coakam Teviter crepitare, palpitare (de horologio)' and as a new comparison of his own the Erzya Mordvin tsukams, 'anklopfen, anstossen (tr.), stampfen', skams, 'stampfen', Moksha Mordvin Y cakams id. The Ostyak-Samoyed word, found in the Tsaia-dialect tsalärj, tsak'k'3iiriari 'clear one's throat, get out of breath' may fit here phonetically.

To the same group belongs also the Ostyak-Samoyed word tsüttsä (Ket) 'scratch, a bit of birch bark to clean dishes, basins', tsüdzdldzaB (Tym) 'scratch ( one's ears etc.)', which I would like to connect with the Finnish word huosia 'schaben, kratzen, scheuern',

Cheremis KB tsü(tsem 'meisseln, abtragen,abnutzen (ein Kleid)', Votyak JS tsuzini, M. tsuzni etc, 'fegen, kehren, abfegen, abkehren' (cf. Wichmann I.e. p. 243). To the original dz series belong Fi. tiiti, tiitinen 'Sperling, Meise', lp N cicce, cice 'passer, avicula', S cice, cicok, eieoka, cöc 'parus circtus' etc, Ziryene UD. P dz[dz 'Vögelchen,Vöglein' etc., Ostyak (Patk) I cis-vöje 'kleiner Vogel, Spatz', etc. This Finno-Ugric word corresponds exactly to the Ostyak-Samoyed (Tym) tsidzi 'a small bird, song-bird'; this reveals that the Finno- Ugric dz phoneme in initial position stands for the same ts in Ostyak-Samoyed, which still appears as an equivalent of this group. On the basis of the examples given by Wichmann and myself it is impossible to say whether this state goes back to Proto- Samoyed. However, the original Ostyak-Samoyed equivalent seems to be ts, in spite of the fact that in certain rare dialects appear t and probably ts. I have not treated here the question more extensively from the Samoyed point of view, because it does not really belong to Virittäjä's 30 Ulla-Maija Kulonen - Pirjo Nummenaho

programme. With this little contribution I have simply wanted to join those who express their thanks and gratitude to Professor Setälä today on his 50th birthday. Kai Donner

Kai Donner mentions the publication "Virittäjä" at the end of his article. However, there was never any special number on the occasion of Setälä's birthday. The formulation "today" in the original Finnish manuscript ("tänä päivänä") may be due to a possible oral presentation of the paper in question. The names of the languages that Donner uses correspond to the following modern names: Lapp = Saami, Cheremis = Mari, Votyak = Udmurt, Ziryene = Komi, Ostyak Samoyed = Selqup. The paper is written in the context of Setälä's theory on historical phonology, called the gradation theory. The theory includes different series of consonants ( strong and weak representation ). The theory was rejected in the first half of the 20th century but it did not affect all of the lexical comparisons made by Setälä and others, because they had other motivations as well.

The verb hakata "to hew' is considered as a possible Finno- Permic word and the comparison with the Mordvin verbs is still relevant. This comparison was not, anyhow, first made by Wichmann, but by Setälä in his "Yhteissuomalainen äännehistoria" ( A sound history of Finnic ) in 1890, and Setälä had found more equivalents in the Permic languages, still considered as possible in SSA where also another possibility is given concerning the etymology of this Finnish verb: a possible loan from Germanic. Donner never published his idea of this Selqup equivalent.

The Finnish word huosia 'cleaning swift' in its turn is nowadays considered as the same word as hosia 'horsetail (Equisetum)' which has been the most common material to this tool. Whether the verb huosia 'schaben, kratzen, scheuern' ever existed in Finnish, is not clear. Probably it has appeared only in Lönnrot's dictionary (1880). Donner's comparison of the Votyak (Udmurt) and Selqup words is still considered as relevant and possible. The Selqup Kai Donner's three Uralic etymologies 31 word appears in the Finnish etymology for the first time in SKES and it is possible that the information comes from this manuscript.

The word tiiti is considered as a late, onomatopoeic word in Finnish, because it has no equivalents in other Baltic Finnic languages. The question need not, anyway, be simple as that. The phonetic conventions in a language can be very old and it is quite possible that similar onomatopoeic words in related languages can be of common origin. This is probably hard to show with the etymological methods we have available.The situation is complicated because there are similar words also in many non- related (Indo-European) languages. 32 Ulla-Maija Kulonen - Pirjo Nummenaho Figure 1 Kai Doiiner's three Uralic etymologies 33 34 Ulla-Maija Kulonen - Pirjo Nummenaho

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donner, Kai 1915. Siperian samojedien keskuudessa vuosina 1911- 1913 ja 1914. Helsinki. Donner, Kai 1979. Siperian samojedien keskuudessa. A new edition, ed. by Jörn Donner. Helsinki. Joki, Aulis J. 1988. Kaukomailta ja työkammioista. Helsinki. Korhonen, Mikko 1986. Finno-Ugrian Language Studies in 1828-1918. - The History of Learning and Science in Finland 1828- 1918. Helsinki. Korhonen, Mikko - Suhonen, Seppo - Virtaranta, Pertti 1983. Sata vuotta suomen sukua tutkimassa. 100-vuotias Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura. Espoo. Ketica. Materialen aus dem Ketischen oder Jenissei-ostjaken. Aufgezeichnet von Kai Donner. Bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Aulis J. Joki. - MSFOu 108. 135 pp. Ketica II. Supplement. Aufgezeichnet von Kai Donner. Bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Aulis J. Joki. - MSFOu 108, 2. 35 pp. Lönnrot, Elias 1874-80. Suomalais-ruotsalainen sanakirja. Finskt-sveiiskt Lexikon. 1-2. Helsingfors. Matka-arkku - Suomalaisia tutkimusmatkailijoita. Ed. by Löytönen, Markku. SKS. Helsinki 1989. Setälä, E.N. 1890-91. Yhteissuomalainen äännehistoria. Helsinki. SKES = Suomen kielen etymologinen sanakirja 1. Y.H. Toivonen 1955, 2. Y.H. Toivonen & Erkki Itkonen & Aulis J. Joki 1958, 3. Erkki Itkonen & Aulis J. Joki 1962, 4. Erkki Itkonen & Aulis J. Joki 1969, 5. Erkki Itkonen & Aulis J. Joki & Reino Peltola 1975, 6. Erkki Itkonen & Aulis J. Joki & Reino Peltola 1978, 7. Sanahakemisto 1981. L 12. SSA = Suomen sanojen alkuperä. Etymologinen sanakirja. 1: A-K (päätoimittaja Erkki Itkonen & Ulla-Maija Kulonen) 1992, 2: L-P (päätoimittaja Ulla-Maija Kulonen) 1995, 3: R-Ö (päätoimittaja Ulla-Maija Kulonen) 2000. Helsinki: SKS. Wichmann, Yrjö 1911. Zur Gescichte der finnisch-ugrischen anlautenden Affrikaten. - FUF XI, pp. 173-289. Kai Donner's three Uralic etymologies 35

ABBREVIATIONS

FUF = Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen. LSFU = Lexica Societatis Fenno-Ugricae. MSFOu = Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne. SKES = Suomen kielen etymologinen sanakirja. SSA = Suomen sanojen alkuperä.