Vltava, Sázava, Mumlava.
Our take
Meet Danny L. Bate, a linguist, broadcaster, writer, and devoted cat fanatic who has been enlightening readers since June 9, 2020. His blog is a treasure trove for anyone curious about language, featuring engaging explorations of linguistic quirks and cultural nuances. Bate’s introductory post gracefully outlines “the standard practice among linguists,” making complex concepts accessible to laypeople.
In the ever-expanding universe of language exploration, stumbling upon a blogging linguist like Danny L. Bate feels akin to discovering a rare shell along a sandy beach, one that holds secrets of the sea within its delicate curves. Bate, who describes himself as a “linguist, broadcaster, writer, cat fanatic,” has been engaging readers since June 9, 2020. His latest post, “Vltava, Sázava, Mumlava: A Mumble of Voices Almost Lost,” is a delightful dive into the etymology of local river names, linking them to the vast ocean of Indo-European linguistics. This intersection of geography and language is not only fascinating but also crucial for understanding the connection between place and identity, a theme that echoes in our exploration of language in Just curious, what tools do you actually use to read/listen to content in your target language before you're fluent?.
Bate’s approach to linguistics is refreshingly accessible, particularly in how he delineates “the standard practice among linguists,” making complex topics digestible for those outside the field. This practice is paramount in a world where the richness of language often feels eclipsed by the immediacy of communication. His use of single quotes for translations and italics for foreign words is a subtle reminder that language is not just a tool for communication but a vessel of culture and history. It resonates with themes explored in other articles, such as Interstitium, Apoplast., where the interplay of terminology and meaning enriches our understanding of scientific concepts.
The rivers themselves—Vltava, Sázava, Mumlava—are more than mere geographical markers; they are living fragments of history, echoing the voices of those who once inhabited their banks. Bate’s exploration prompts us to consider how names carry stories, much like the narratives we encounter in the Bible, discussed in What Happened to Jesus’ Twelve Disciples After the Bible—It Wasn’t Pretty. Through this lens, the etymology of these rivers becomes a dialogue between the past and the present, a reminder that language is fluid, evolving, and deeply intertwined with our sense of place.
What makes Bate’s work significant is its ability to spark curiosity. His playful yet scholarly tone invites readers to engage, to ask questions, and, dare I say, to squint a little closer at the words we often take for granted. This is the essence of linguistics: it’s not just about understanding language on a surface level; it’s about unearthing the narratives hidden beneath. As we navigate through the complexities of language, Bate’s blog serves as a lighthouse, guiding us through the murky waters of linguistic exploration.
Looking ahead, one can’t help but wonder how the ever-shifting landscape of language will continue to shape our identities and connections. As we unearth more about local dialects and regional names, what new narratives will emerge? Will we find ourselves more intertwined with the history of our words, or will we continue to let them slip through our fingers like grains of sand? The journey of discovery is just beginning, and with voices like Danny L. Bate’s illuminating the way, it promises to be both thrilling and enriching.
It’s always nice to discover a blogging linguist I hadn’t known about [actually I had; see below]; Danny L. Bate (“Linguist, broadcaster, writer, cat fanatic”) has been doing it since June 9, 2020 (I like the way his introductory post lays out “the standard practice among linguists,” so that laypeople can follow along: single quotes for translations, italics for words in a given language, etc.), and his latest post, Vltava, Sázava, Mumlava: A Mumble of Voices Almost Lost, does a nice job of linking local river names to the great sea of Indo-European:
The chief of the rivers that flow through Krkonoše is the Elbe; I’ve previously written about that prince of waterways in great detail. My most recent visit instead inspired linguistic reflections about a considerably less famous river: the Mumlava.
Etymologically, it’s the mumbler (in older German: mummeln; in Czech: mumlat). It by no means ranks among the great rivers of Europe; the Mumlava rises just to the south of the source of the Elbe, mumbles its way for twelve kilometres, then spills out into the Jizera. It wouldn’t be known at all beyond the wardens and fans of Krkonoše, were it not for the Mumlava Waterfall, the largest in the country. […] Given the region’s historical inhabitants, it seems to have been on the basis of the German verb mummeln that the Mumlava was first christened the Mummel. Czech speakers then modelled their own name for it on that German original. This they achieved by adding the ending -ava.
This Czechification of the name brought the Mumlava into line and rhyme with other rivers in the country; there’s the Sázava, the Jihlava, the Úhlava, the Otava, the Oskava, the Opava, the Morava and the Vltava. […] Their common -ava ending was bestowed on the Mumlava, a sort of hydronymic suffix to make it sound like a proper Czech river. The thing is, this ending is not part of Czech’s core of Slavic vocabulary – it’s not something the language has inherited from its prehistoric Slavic origins. Instead, naming rivers with -ava is a later practice that the Czechs-to-be extracted from names already in use when they first arrived in Bohemia and Moravia.
He goes on to describe how Germanic *ahwō ‘river’ “is behind the -ava part of the river’s name,” and how that probably derives from a Proto-Indo-European *akʷā. But “the door is also open to an instance of borrowing”:
This alternative explanation would envision a word, in a language local to central and southern Europe, that was adopted into the Indo-European family from outside. Such an external origin was considered by the scholar Robert S. P. Beekes, for one. In Beekes’ view, *akʷā belonged to the prehistoric language behind so many European river names. It acted as a ‘substratum’ that donated words to the ascendant Indo-European languages. Those words in time became all that remained of it.
I think he explains these things very well (while providing some lovely photos); thanks, Scopulus!
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