Prodá Chudobu a koupí si Nouzín - lidová etymologie, lidová paměť a Český koutek v Kladsku

• Authors: Martina Ptáčníková

Title variants

EN

Selling Poverty to buy Need - Folk etymology, folk memory and the Czech Corner in Kłodzko Land

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Folk etymology refers to the process of making connections between etymologically opaque words and words that despite having similar forms or meanings are etymologically different. It is a manifestation of people’s natural need to attain a clear understanding of the things that surround them, identify relationships between them, and give them an order. The first part of the study addresses folk etymology vis-à-vis folk memory. The second part focuses on folk interpretations of toponyms that were used by the inhabitants of the Czech Corner, a territory located in Kłodzko Land in what is now Poland. Arguably, the most remarkable example of these is the traditional folk interpretation of “selling Poverty to buy Need”, meaning that the financial situation of the local people was never very good. The phraseme, which contains the names of two villages on the Czech border ‒ Chudoba (EN: poverty) and Nouzín (EN: place where people are in need), is believed to be based on the common assumption that the two place names remind us of the poverty that the region faced. The reality is however that etymologically Nouzín has nothing to do with „need“. Additionally, the study deals with folk interpretations of the toponyms Pálenina, Kodrcov, Plhánek, Zámecká hora and Pec.

Keywords

CS

toponymie; lidová etymologie; kolektivní paměť; Český koutek; Polsko; Německo

EN

toponymy; folk etymology; collective memory; Czech Corner; Poland; Germany

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Czech Ethnological Society
• Journal: Národopisný věstník
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 63
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 444-455
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Martina Ptáčníková

• Acta onomastica, redakce, Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v.v.i., Letenská 4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic