Ruczaj i *ręczaj w słownictwie i nazewnictwie polskim. Próba nowego spojrzenia z perspektywy słowiańskiej

Abstract

Onomastic data entitle to believe that Old Polish inherited from Common Slavic two variants of a term for ‘(small) stream’, namely, *ręczaj < *rǫčajь and *ruczaj < *ručajь. Both seem attested only by proper names (15th–20th centuries), the former primarily by four toponyms in southern Mazovia (Ręczaje 3x and Zręczaje), while the latter left traces in the toponymy of Central Poland and of the southern part of Greater Poland. None of them has been confirmed lexically in the „native” Polish dialects of the 20th century. Starting from the 17th century, texts of some authors rooted in the North‑Eastern periphery of Middle Polish (Lithuania, Byelorussia) attest a term ruczåj -aju ‘stream’, which is to be regarded as a loan from Old Byelorussian. One is inclined to connect its subsequent penetration, as a poetical word, into the literary Polish (the late 19th century) with its multiple occurrences in key instances of poetry by Adam Mickiewicz, the most outstanding writer of the Polish Romanticism, whose roots lay precisely in the Byelorussian ethnic territory. In the historical Slavic languages we find reflexes of the related variants *rǫčajь, *ručajь, *ručьjь (and *rǫčьjь?) and probably *(ne)rǫčь (~ *(ne)ručь?), the latter presumably constituting a starting point for the former four. A reliable reconstruction of the primary form together with its true etymological cognates seems, however, very difficult, if not impossible at all.