Russian Naval Terms from Middle Low German

Russian Naval Terms from Middle Low GermanAuthor(s): George ThomasSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 49, No. 115 (Apr., 1971), pp. 173-188Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4206364 .

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THE SLAVONIC

AND EAST EUROPEAN

REVIEW

Volume XLIX, Number 115?April 1971

Russian Naval Terms from

Middle Low German

GEORGE THOMAS

The Russian language seems to have inherited only very few naval

terms from Common Slavonic (veslo, korabl', lod'ja). The main influx

of lexical items in this sphere of vocabulary has come into Russian

from Dutch since the end of the 17th century. However Clara

Thornqvist has pointed out many of the words of Scandinavian origin which result from contact with Viking adventurers.1 In this article

an attempt is made to analyse those words which have been taken

from the naval vocabulary of Middle Low German (MLG).2 From the second half of the 12th century until the 16th century

the North West Russian towns had close trading links with the

merchants of the Hanseatic League.3 In the early stages all the trade

was carried on in the Russian cities of Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk

and Polotsk. Only in the 16th century did the centre of trade move

towards the Livonian cities of Reval and Riga. It appears that the

Russians ventured little overseas themselves, not having a knowledge of the Baltic or of sailing on open waters.4 When it was necessary for

them to travel abroad, as for instance to the Council of Florence in

George Thomas is a lecturer in the Department of Russian at McMaster University. 1 C. Thornqvist, Studien tiber die nordischen Lehnworter im Russischen (Etudes de philologie slave publiees par l'institut russe de l'Universite de Stockholm, Uppsala and Stockholm, 1948). 2 The research for this article formed part of that undertaken for a thesis on MLG loanwords in Russian submitted to the University of London for the Ph.D. degree. 3 P. Johansen, 'Novgorod und die Hanse' (Stddtewesen und Biirgertum als geschichtliche Krdfte, Geddchtnisschrift fur Fritz Rbrig, Lubeck, 1953, pp. 121-49); L. K. Goetz, Deutsch- russische Handelsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Hansische Geschichtsquellen, V, Lubeck, 1922); A. L. Khoroshkevich, Torgovlya velikogo Novgoroda s Pribaltikoy i zapadnoy Tevropoy v xiv-xv vekakh, Moscow, 1963. 4 Goetz, op. cit., p. 221.

I?S,E.E.K.



174 GEORGE THOMAS

1438, they preferred to travel on Hanseatic ships.5 It would seem

likely, therefore, that the Russians of this NW area were in a position to be well acquainted with some naval terms of Middle Low German, the language spoken by the inhabitants of the Livonian cities and by the Hanseatic merchants as a whole.

I

The Names of types of Hanseatic Vessels barka

This word is first attested in a 16th-century copy of a description of Venice written in 1439:

'Skazaniye neizvestnogo suzdal'tsa o florentiyskom sobore' in V. N.

Malinin, Starets Teleazarova monastyrya Filofey i yego poslaniya, Kiev,

1901, no. 15: sredi jego [Venice] prochodjatii korabli i katargi i po vsemu ulicamu vody ezdjat' v. barkach (Council of Florence, 1439).

Pamyatniki diplomaticheskikh snosheniy drevney Rossii s derzhavami

inostrannymi, vol. io, p. 30: iz ranzborka vojevody korolevskije

otpustili [istomu] . . . s skiperom s janom olenskoi zemli na bojarke morem (1581). This transmuted form is also found in ARA, no. 77 from

1566, (see below under skiper).

Akty, sobrannyye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Rossiyskoy Imperii arkheo-

grqficheskoy ekspeditsiey Imp. Akad. nauk. St Petersburg, 1836, vol. 1:

332: v lod'jach i v poromech i v ucanech i v barkach . . . i vo vsjakich sudach s bol'sich ljudej i s boPsich barok (1586).

The last three examples are taken from Novgorod. Dr Gardiner says that the word is originally from lt. barca, MLatin

barca < a Coptic word bari, Gr. fiapLs.* In the Mediterranean barca is a

small boat, lighter, but it is borrowed in Dutch (Du.), LG and

English, where it has the meaning of a three-masted ship.7 This word

is reborrowed in these languages later as a rowing boat, lighter, or

ship's boat. This latter word is the source of the Russian word barka.

As both barke and bark are known in LG, Gardiner thinks it possible that the Russian words bark and barka are due to contact with

Livonia. A. Croiset van der Kop ascribes the distinction in Baltic

German between bark and barke to Russian influence. For the origin of the Russian word she discusses the possibility that the word known

in Serbia as a boat for catching fish in the Danube could have come to

Novgorod through Lombard merchants in the 14th century.8 5 H. Ludat, 'Lubeck in einem russischen Reisebericht des Spatmittelalters' (J^eitschrift

des Vereins fur Liibeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, XXXV, Lubeck, 1955), P* 71, 6 S. C. Gardiner, German Loanwords in Russian 1550-1690 (Publications of the Philological Society, XXI, Oxford, 1965), pp. 57-9. 7 P. Heinsius, Das Schiff der hansischenFruhzeit, Weimar, 1956 (Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte, Neue Folge, XII), p. 208.

8 A. Kruaze van der Kop, *K voprosu o gollandskikh terminakh po morskomu delu v russkom yazyke' (Izvestiya otdeleniya russkogo yazyka i slovesnosti, XV, 1910), p. 24.



RUSSIAN NAVAL TERMS FROM GERMAN 175

In modern Russian the two words bark and barka are quite distinct: bark is a sea-going sailing boat with three masts, whereas barka is a

deckless, flat-bottomed, unpowered river boat or lighter.9 R. bark is

not attested before Peter the Great and could have been taken from

English, Dutch or Low German. The first example of the word barka in Russian is in Venice, describing boats on the canals, but whether this is due to direct Italian influence must go unanswered. It should be noted, however, that this text was written after the journey to the Council of Florence and that this journey took Isidore's party

through the Livonian ports to Lubeck, where the party stayed a

while before proceeding to Italy.10 MLG has bark, barke and berke with the confusion with bardze,

barse, bardese, (the last three forms appear to be an attempt to repre? sent the sound of English barge).11 The word bark, barke normally signifies a sea-going vessel with three masts.12 It is quite possible, however, that the same word could be used for a river barge. Whilst the possibility of a direct loan from Italian cannot be entirely ruled

out, the form barka appears to be a northern word, probably bor? rowed from MLG barke. Words for boats and ships are notoriously difficult to place in a semantic category,13 and there is no reason why barka should not have developed an entirely different meaning from

that current in the lending language.

bot

This word is first attested as follows:

'Stateynyy spisok rossiyskikh poslov knyazya Antona Romodanov-

skogo, Ivana Viskovatogo i Petra Sovina s tovarishchi, bytnosti ikh v Danii v 7072 g.' (Mayak, 1841): i kapnagovskoj namestniku Francu

brokonguzu prislal k narnu pjatnadcat' botovu ctobii my echali v

gorodu ... a francu brokonguzu prislalu k narnu teze baty ctoby my echali vu gorodu (1564). There are no further examples of this word before 1600, although Gardiner14 gives the form botnik from 1585, and the form 'patec?bodt' is found in Fenne.15

In modern Russian bot is normally a one-masted, flat-bottomed boat for coastal or river work.16 It can be propelled by sail, oars or an

9 V. G. Fadeyev, Morskoy Slovar', Moscow, 1959,1, p. 59; M. I. Chernov, Slovar' morskikh i rechnykh terminov, 1955, see s.v.

10 Ludat, op. cit., p. 71. 11 W. Vogel, Geschichte der deutschen Seeschiffahrt, I. Berlin, 1915, p. 498. 12 A. Lasch and G. A. J. C. Borchling, Mittelniederdeutsches Handworterbuch, Neumiinster, 1956 (hereafter cited as Lasch-Borchling), I, p. 148. 13 B. Hagedorn, Die Entwicklungen der wichtigsten Schiffstypen bis ins ig. Jahrhundert (Veroffentlichungen des Vereins fiir Hamburgische Geschichte, I, Berlin, 1914), pp. 7-10. 14 Gardiner, op. cit., pp. 65-6. 15 Tonnies Fenne's Low German Manual of Spoken Russian, Pskov, 160J, Ed. by L. L. Hammerich and others, Copenhagen, 1961, p. 107. 16 V. Dal', Tolkovyy slovar' zhivogo velikorusskogo yazyka, St Petersburg-Moscow, 1912 (hereafter cited as Dal'), I, p. 295.



176 GEORGE THOMAS

engine.17 Vasmer notes that the word is only common from the time

of Peter and discusses the possibility of a loan from LG boot, bearing in mind the fact that Timmerman, who was responsible for giving Peter his early naval training, was a native of Hamburg.18 Gardiner favours Du. boot as the source since the Orel was built by Dutchmen.19

The existence of this word from 1564 casts fresh light on its

etymology. A Livonian German was hired by the Russians (as an

interpreter) on the mission described in the example above. It seems

justifiable therefore on this evidence to derive R. bot from MLG bot.20

It appears likely that this word was in continuous use among the

Russians of Novgorod and the coastal area until the time of Peter the

Great, when it became more widely known and used.

busa

This word is extant from 1482, appearing mostly in Russo- Hanseatic trade documents:

Sbornik Mukhanova, Moscow, 1836, no. 27, p. 39: a torgujetu novgorodecu sii nemcinomu na rugodeve a budetu tovarii u nemcina

v buse i novgorodcu toj tovaru u nemcina dobrovol'no vzjati s busy cerezu kraj v lod'ju . . . (Livonia/Novgorod, 1482). Sbornik russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, vol. 35, no. 33: jest' li pri stanisce ku zomotskoj zemle su morja pristavajutu li korabli li busy li. . . (from Ivan, 1485). A. Barsukov, Russkiye akty revel'skogo gorodskogo arkhiva, 1894 (Russkaya

istoricheskaya biblioteka, XV: hereafter cited as ARA), no. 11: eto

posla is kolyvani busa jako va munkova s nekotorymu s kupetuckymu v noravu reku . . . i velikovo gosudarja nasevo ljudi budto tu busu

pograbili i ljudej pobili (Ivangorod/Reval, 1517). There are further examples from ARA nos. 28, 9, 71, and busnik is

attested in ARA, no. 35. In addition, Novgorod I21 under the year

6927 and Pskov I22 under the year 6956 have examples of this word. Fenne (p. 106) gives busa?schute, and R.James has:

bussa?quod navigant persae non magnis navigiis quae illi bussa

appellant.23 The examples show that the busa was a coastal craft, used for

bringing goods from Reval and Narva to Ivangorod. The boats were

used by the Russians and the Germans, though the term busnik

17 Slovar' sovremennogo russkogo literaturnogo yazyka, Moscow-Leningrad, 1950-65 (here? after cited as Akad.), I, p.591. 18 M. Vasmer, Russisches etymologisches Worterbuch, Heidelberg, 1950-8 (hereafter cited as Vasmer), I, p. 112.

19 Gardiner, op. cit., pp. 65-6. 20 Lasch-Borchling I, p. 332. 21 Novgorodskaya pervaya Letopis' starshego i mladshego izvodov, Moscow-Leningrad, 1950. 22 A. N. Nasonov, Pskovskiye Letopisi, Vypusk I, Moscow, 1941. 23 B. A. Larin, Russko-angliyskiy Slovar'-Dnevnik Richarda Dzhemsa (1618-19 gg.), Leningrad, 1959 (hereafter cited as R.James), p. 108 (p. 27a, 2)




invariably applies to a German sailor. The examples from the

chronicles show busa to be a warship, and Thornqvist draws our

attention to the fact that in Novgorod I busa appears beside meka (a Swedish warship).24 This proves nothing, however, since the latter

word is attested in Russian from 1142, and so may have a quite different history.

For the Hanseatics there was no essential difference between war?

ships and trading ships. Vogel25 says that the busse was originally a

Scandinavian vessel (ON bitza)26 and was certainly a warship, but

from the 13th century appears as a trading ship. In the 15th century the word busse takes on another meaning, that of a small freight ship, a yacht for envoys and a fishing boat used specially for catching

herring in the North Sea.27 This boat was put to good use by the Dutch

(Du. buis, whence the R. word bujs recorded at the time of Peter). R. busa is from MLG buse, busse.2S According to Gardiner the word

has also entered White Russian.29 The fact that Fenne and one

example from K. E. Nap'yersky, Russko-Livonskiye akty, St Petersburg, 1868 (hereafter cited as RLA), no. 369, have schute as the LG equiva? lent of R. busa is not strange, since from the 16th century onwards

MLG busse designated a different ship, namely the three-masted

fishing boat of the Dutch, and the only other usual word left in MLG

for coastal craft was schute. This suggests that busa was loaned in

Russian in the 15th century and became deep-rooted, even after the

word was no longer used to designate a coastal craft by Hanseatic

seamen. By the 17th century the word was being used on the Caspian Sea, but it has not been preserved in modern Russian.

There exists too in Old Russian, if it is not a simple error of

copying, the form buca.30 Thornqvist suggests that this is of Byzantine

origin, from MLat. bucca, bucia?1 There is a possibility, however, that

it represents the MLG form butse with the confusion of c and c to be

found in certain NW Russian dialects.

galeja This word is attested in:

Novgorod I: 6712 korable ichu i galeje ichu stojachu nazade . . .

Sreznevsky32 has a further example from the Hypatian Chronicle

24 Thornqvist, op. cit., p. 143. 25 Vogel, op. cit., p. 503. 26 The etymology of this word is disputed. 27 Heinsius, op. cit., pp. 207-8. 28 K. Schiller and A. Liibben, Mittelniederdeutsches Worterbuch, Bremen, 1875-81 (hereafter cited as Schiller-Lubben), I, p. 458; Lasch-Borchling I, p. 376. 29 Gardiner, op. cit., p. 72. 30 I. I. Sreznevsky, Materialy dlya slovarya drevne-russkogo yazyka po pis'mennym pamyat- nikam, St Petersburg, 1893-1909 (hereafter cited as Sreznevsky), I, p. 195. 31 Thornqvist, op. cit., p. 145. 32 Sreznevsky I, p. 509.



178 GEORGE THOMAS

under the year 6690. Other examples from the late 16th century

appertaining to the Baltic area are listed by Gardiner.33

Vasmer says the word is from Gr. yaXea or Latin galea.u Gardiner

refutes Vasmer's etymology on the grounds that the word is found in

texts relating to the Baltic. At this time, she says, Russian contact

with Livonia was important, and one should compare the names of

other vessels arising from this contact?busa, skuta, jachta. The

diphthong ie in MLG is the most likely source for the ending. Hence

she derives the R. word from MLG galee, galie, possibly but not

necessarily through Polish.35 In MLG the word does not designate a

Hanseatic but a Mediterranean ship.36 Thus it seems improbable that

this is the source of the Russian word. This adds weight to the claim

for a Mediterranean source of the word (i.e. from Latin galea or Gr.

yaXea), but on the other hand attestation in the Novgorod Chronicle

and subsequent examples referring only to the Baltic make one less

ready to discount the possibility of MLG origin. Indeed, the evidence

of this word in Russian as a loan from MLG may induce scholars of

German lexicology to recognise the word as one used of domestic

craft.

koca

This word is attested first with reference to Siberia, and the only

subsequent example of the word in the 17th century is found in

Archangel: G. F. Miller, Istoriya Sibiri, Moscow-Leningrad, 1937-41, vol. 1, p.

394: zdelali cetyre koci morskich (1601); vol. 2, pp. 232-3: sdelav

koli, posli na promysel v reku v pesidu ... a volokom itti i koci

taskati versty s poltory a perevoloksi s voloku spustitsja kocami v

zelenuju reku (1616).37 R. James p. 146 (p. 43, 18) 'koche?a little sort

of boat with which they goe from Arxang. to Mangazi over manie

lakes and rivers, these botes they do manie times drawe over some

parts of the land.'

In modern Russian the word is preserved in the forms koca, koc', kaca in the dialects as a two- and three-masted boat used in Siberia on

rivers38 and in Archangel as a one-masted, sea-going sailing vessel.39

Vasmer alone appears to have treated the etymology of this

Russian word.40 He says that it is a new formation on *koka, *kocka,*1 33 Gardiner, op. cit., p. 82. 34 Vasmer I, p. 253. 35 Gardiner, op. cit., p. 82. 36 Lasch-Borchling I, pt. 2, Hamburg, 1933, p. 4. The MLG word is naturally loaned

from Latin. 37 I am indebted to O. I. Smirnova of the Institute of the Russian Language of the

Soviet Academy of Sciences for supplying me with this information. 38 Dal' 11:461; N. A. Bestuzhev, Opyt istorii rossiyskogo flota, Leningrad, 1961 edition,

p. 168. There is a model of the vessel on p. 54. 39 A. Podvysotsky, Slovar' oblastnogo arkhangel'skogo narechiya, St Petersburg, 1885, p. 73. 40 Vasmer I, p. 648. 41 This form is attested in Dal' as the diminutive of koca.




a loan from the root?MLG kogge, MHG kocke, OHG kocko, Du. kog,

kogge etc. He adds that the route of this loan is difficult to ascertain.

The kogge was the great ship of the Hanseatic merchant fleet with

a revolutionary design which allowed considerable space for the

carrying of merchandise. It was probably the first ship to be equipped with a rudder at the stern.42 Towards the end of the 15th century,

however, the kogge was replaced by the hulk, and the name kogge

quickly became a designation of smaller boats. By the 16th century the

word had almost entirely disappeared,43 apart from historical usage. Therefore it seems likely that a word, which could be loaned from

LG through Hanseatic trade for example in English and Icelandic,44 would be expected in Russian too, since the Novgorodians trading on

the Baltic coast in the Livonian cities must surely have known it. The

word koca is not attested outside Siberia and the White Sea area, and

for this reason one might accept the theory of a loan in the late 16th

century from Du. kog, kogge through trading links with the White

Sea area. Yet it is surely unlikely that a word, already obsolete in

W. Europe at that time, should have become so established that it is

still recorded 300 years later without any significant change in form.

In view of this one must agree with Yelizarovsky's theory, that koca, koc' as a small sailing boat on the White Sea is an example of Nov?

gorod influence on the vocabulary of the area.45 The semantic

development to criver boat' is to be expected and is in keeping with

the normal trend of semantic developments in ships, which tend

from a designation of large to small ships. The expression could then

have entered Russian at the height of Russo-Hanseatic trade in the

14th and 15th centuries from MLG kogge, kog.iQ The word must have

then taken on the diminutive endings as suggested by Vasmer. The

etymology of the German word is disputed, some claiming that it is

from OHG ?0^0 < MLatin cocca for concha < Gr. Koyyy)?mussel-

shell,47 while others derive it from Old Germanic *kuggon, *kukkon <

I.E. gu.**

skuta

This word is not recorded in Russian texts before 1651, when there is the following first example:

42 For a detailed description of the kogge see Heinsius, op. cit., pp. 76, 113, 120-2. 43 H. Winter, Das Hanseschiff im ausgehenden 15. Jahrhundert. {Die letzte Hansekogge),

Rostock, 1961, p. 13. 44 J. H. Bense, A Dictionary of the Low Dutch element in the English Vocabulary, The Hague, 1939, p. 50- 45 I. A. Yelizarovsky, Leksika belomorskikh aktov xvi-xvii vv., Archangel, 1958, p. 77. 46 Schiller-Liibben II, p. 513; Lasch-Borchling II, Neumunster, 1965, p. 607. 47 F. Seiler, Die Entwicklung der deutschen Kultur im Spiegel des deutschen Lehnworts, Halle, 1923-4, II, p. 200.

48 Heinsius, op. cit., pp. 69-76 sums up the relevant arguments and states the earliest evidence of the word in German.



l8o GEORGE THOMAS

ARA, no. 136: polozilii ch tomu predipomjanutomu jur'ju na skutu

. . . gotovii ja bylu i samu jechati na toj skute (to Reval, 1651).

According to Reytsak,49 there are a further fourteen examples before 1700. She derives the word from Sw. skuta (>R. skuta) to

which was later added the pronunciation sk>sk, after the Dutch, where sch>K. schi or s. She states elsewhere however that Du. sch > R. sk.50 In point of fact ARA no. 81 has the form schuit which is

clearly a representation of Du. schuit. This is a personal name, but is

still evidence that Russians heard Du. sch as sch. Hence one should

expect a loan from Du. here in the form * schuit. This word is recorded

in the Vitebsk dialect,51 and Gardiner gives one example from

Vitebsk.52 Only the form skuta is found before Peter the Great,

designating a small river boat. The later forms skut, schut and skot are

probably from Du. schuit.? Gardiner derives the old form from

MLG schute, through Pol. szkuta, or independently, and it was

probably known in Novgorod and on the Baltic seaboard much

earlier. She adds that the word may have entered the language via

White Russian, but not necessarily from Polish.54

It seems unlikely that Polish would furnish a naval term in

Russian, but see below under the word styr'. Therefore MLG schute

is the most likely source of the Russian word. Since the word is

recorded in White Russian in 1500, it is quite possible that the word

was known in the Novgorod area at the same time.

Meka

This word is attested only in northern Russia or in the chronicles

based on those of Novgorod and Pskov:

Novgorod I: 6650: vu to ze leto prichodi sv'iskei knjaz' su jepiskop-

pomu vu 60 sneku na gost' ize izamor'ja sli vtiz lod'jachu.

6672: prisli bo bjachu vu polu sestad'sjatu sneku izmasa

43 sneku. The Novgorod Primary Chronicle also has examples of the

word for the years 6698, 6792, 6927. The examples from Pskov are

somewhat later:

Pskov I: 6927: togo ze leta ne na dolze vremeni nemcy echavse u

Snekachu {snekachu) i v lodijachu vo puskovskuju zemlju v norovu

reku . . .

6971: i po tomu vremeni minuvsi nedeli i nemcy priechavse v snekachu {snekachu) i v lodijachu . . .

6988: i pskovicamii bogu pomogase i sneku bojevuju u nemec

49 A. K. Reytsak, Germanizmy v leksike pamyatnikov russkoy delovoy pis'mennosti xv-xvii vv., Leningrad, 1963 (Kandidatskaya dissertatsiya at Leningrad State University), p. 238. 50 Ibid., p. 310. 51 Yu. Yu. Trusman, Etimologiya mestnykh nazvaniy vitebskoy gubernii, Revel', 1897, see s.v.

52 Gardiner, op. cit., p. 243. 53 Vasmer III, p. 407. 54 Gardiner, op. cit., p. 243.



RUSSIAN NAVAL TERMS FROM GERMAN l8l

otnjasa a nemcy proc' pobegosa i inuju sneku izsekosa pskovici pod

svjatym spasomu nadolbina monastyrja a nemec v toi v sneke izsekosa

30 celoveku . . .

'Zhitiye Knyaza Aleksandra Nevskogo'55: sej naechavse nasnjaku videvu . . . (probably written at the end of the 13th century or the

beginning of the 14th century and preserved in a copy of the 16th

century). R. James p. 199 (p. 73, 15) snake a ship boate.

The form snjaka is very common in the 17th century and at the time

of Peter the Great. In modern Russian the word is preserved as a

trading boat or a one- or two-masted fishing boat found in the White

Sea.56 As shown earlier, it first entered Russian as a warship in which

the Scandinavians attacked the North Russians. The later examples

(i.e. in the Pskov Chronicles) refer to the warships of the Teutonic

Order.

Most scholars derive the word from a Scandinavian source?ON

snekkja, Sw. sndcke, OSw. snoekkja.57 Thornqvist says that the palatal? isation of Norw, kkj could scarcely have remained without a Russian

reflex. Perhaps the ja is an anticipation of this. In any case e >ja is

attested in North Russian, and the most likely source of the word is

Norwegian dialect snecke. meka is to be derived from the same source, the two forms being borrowed at different times.58

The early examples from the Novgorod Chronicle show that the

word must be from a Scandinavian source, since reference is made to

the Swedes, and German infiltration to the eastern end of the Baltic

was scarcely beginning in the middle of the 12th century. The

Archangel snjaka was probably an older loan, because of the form

and because it represented a rowing boat. The later Novgorod forms

and Pskov forms are a direct continuation of the Scandinavian

loan, but, as often happens, the meaning of the word has been in?

fluenced externally, in this case by MLG snicke 'small warship' and

'small sailing boat'.59 It remains unclear whether the sn form found

in Pskov has been influenced by the pronunciation of the MLG word

or whether internal phonetic factors are involved.

55 N. K. Gudzy, Khrestomatiya po drevney russkoy literature xi-xvii vekov, Moscow, 1962, p. 158. 56 Akad. XVII: 1494; Dal' IV: 1459; F. G. Fadeyev, op. cit., 11:395; I. M. Durov, M. Vinogradov, 'Opyt terminologicheskogo slovarya rybolovnogo promysla pomor'ya solovki' [Obshchestvo krayevedeniya, Vyp. 19, 1929), p. 174. 57 Vasmer III, p. 417; L. Wanstrat, Beitrage zur Charakteristik des russischen Wortschatzes (Veroffentlichungen des slavischen Instituts an der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Berlin, Leipzig, 1933), p. 47; I. I. Ohiyenko, Inozemnyye elementy v russkom yazyke: istoriya proniknoveniya zaimstvovannykh slov v russkiy yazyk, Kiev, 1915, p. 42. 58 Thornqvist, op. cit., pp. 89-90 and 159-61.

69 Schiller-Liibben IV, p. 274; Lasch-Borchling III Neumunster, 1965, p. 310. The MLG word is itself borrowed from Norse. For more information on this and the nature of the Hanseatic vessel see P. Heinsius, op. cit., p. 206 and Vogel, op. cit., p. 504.



l82 GEORGE THOMAS

jachta The earliest examples of this word belong to the Baltic: ARA, no.

21: ichu vasi ljudi pobili ijachty i puski i piscali u nichu poimali... i vy

by jachti i puski i piscali narnu poddavali (Ivangorod/Reval, 1527). Fenne p. 107: jachty for Jacht.

'Pamyatniki diplomaticheskikh snosheniy Rossii so Shvetsiyey'

{Sbornik russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, vol. 139, St Petersburg,

1910), p. 59: eto bylo nedrugi nemcy izu livonskije zemli sobralisja vu odno mesto i s karobljami i s' jachtami i takimu delomii eto oni

choteli uciniti (1559). In modern Russian this word designates a sailing boat used for

sporting or recreational purposes,60 but it is not recorded as the

name of a Russian boat until 1667-8.61 Reytsak derives the word

from T)u. jacht or NHG Jacht {schiff). She says that the gender of the

word was first masculine, but then it became feminine by analogy with lodka, barka, skuta etc.62 However in view of the 16th-century evidence of the word in Livonia, the word was almost certainly loaned from MLG jacht? which is also the source of the Dutch word.

Since only the plural forms are shown in the earliest example, it is

not possible to distinguish the gender of the Russian word with any

certainty, though the form jachtami points to an <z-stem. In any case it

was always probable that analogy with the endings of other boat

names would affect the ultimate gender of this word.64

II

The Personnel of Hanseatic vessels

Botnik and busnik are Russian neologisms based on the MLG loan?

words bot and busa. They refer presumably to the men in charge of

these vessels.

busman

This word is recorded in only one text.

Sbornik russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, vol. 38, pt. 6, p. 225: a eto

davalu najemu karabelnomu pisarju i busmanomu kotoryje zimovali

na karable. . . i eto davalu busmanomu liska (1588). The form

bocman dates from Peter the Great only?it is possible however that

the word was quite well known throughout NW and N Russia in the

16th century. Gardiner65 considers it to be a loan from LG bdsman

eo Dal' IV, p. 1587; Akad. XVII, p. 2117. 61 Gardiner, op. cit., pp. 257-8. 62 Reytsak, op. cit., p. 240. 63 Schiller-Lubben II, p. 395. 64 In addition to those mentioned by Reytsak, cf. busa, sneka, loiva. 65 Gardiner, op. cit., p. 73.




(from bootsman) with LG close 6 rendered by R. w.66 This etymology is fully justified in view of the close links that existed between the

Hanseatic sailors and Russia. Further the form bosman is the usual

spelling in MLG, the forms hotsman and botesman being less common.67

The Russian word, like the MLG word, seems to designate a member

of a ship's or boat's crew without any specialised function being involved.

locman

As far as the present writer can establish, this word is not extant

in texts before the 18th century, apart from one example cited by

Reytsak from 1683.68 The situation is complicated however by the

citation by some scholars of an example of this word from 1270 in a

Novgorod text. Some of these scholars do not name this text or quote from it.69 Louise Wanstrat70 also mentions this example from 1270 and gives as her source I. Andrey evsky, 0 do govore Novagoroda s

nemetskimi gorodami i Gotlandom zoklyuchonnom v 12JO godu, St Peters?

burg, 1855, p. 24. This is however an account of a German text,

possibly a version or translation of a Russian original, but there is no

trace of the Russian text.71 The LG text has: '. . . unde dhe lodienman, dhe gewunen is toter nu unde wedher up, dhe schal haebben vor

sine spise 5 marc cunen ofte enen baken...'72 This LG word

lodienman is from R. lodja. There is no indication from the text that

Russian had the word locman at this time. Filin goes so far as to state

that this word, appearing in the 13th and 14th centuries, never left

the boundaries of the North West Russian dialects and is therefore

from MLG lotsman, itself loaned from Eng. loadsman.73 In the absence

of any concrete examples one cannot but be sceptical about the

existence of this word in medieval Russian. It is true that one

would have expected the word to have been borrowed by Russian, and its absence can only be explained by the existence in Russian of a

word close to it phonetically and semantically (but not etymologi?

cally)?lodejnik.

66 Further examples of the correspondence MLG o/R. u are to be found in loden/K. ludit', MLG snor/R. snur. In any case MLG 6 and o were closer than R. o.

67 Schiller-Lubben I, p. 403; Lasch-Borchling I, p. 331. 68 Reytsak, op. cit., p. 303. 69 Filin, 'Leksika russkogo literaturnogo yazyka drevnekiyevskoy epokhi (po materi- alam letopisey)' (Uchonyye zapiski leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo instituta imeni A. I. Gertsena, LXXX), p. 267; B. L. Bogorodsky, 'Termin machta i yego sinonimy' (Ibid., GXLIV, pp. 191-220), p. 201.

70 Wanstrat, op. cit., pp. 93-4. 71 RLA, no. 31. The present writer has seen this text in Riga. There is no sign of the Russian original. 72 Gramoty velikogo Novgoroda i Pskova, S. N. Valk ed., Leningrad, 1949, no. 31. In a modern Russian translation accompanying this text lodienman is rendered as locman.

73 Filin, op. cit., p. 267.



184 GEORGE THOMAS

As a loan from the end of the 17th century it is most probably from

Du. loodsman or LG lotsman.

stjurman This word is only recorded in one text before the time of Peter the

Great:

ARA no. 78: izu gollanskije zemli karabi' a skiperu dej na tomu

karable bylii kornilesu petrovu da stjurmanii vulfertu lutmanu ... a

prikazalu dej timofej rnejeru sturmanu vulfertu lutmanu . . .

(Rugodiv/Reval, 1566). Since the time of Peter there has appeared in Russian another form

of this word {sturman) under the influence of NHG.74 In modern

Russian this word means 'navigator, captain's assistant'.

Reytsak and Gardiner derive the earlier form from Du. stuurman or LG sturman.1 b The latter states that st- in a word from LG is rare

(but cf. staV, stamed from LG) and ju points to MDu. ue rather than to

MLG u. However as she admits, the different articulation of MLG

dentals could have led to their being represented as soft in Russian.

One could compare here for instance the realisation of MLG voget as

R.fogot', tuck as tjuk, muschaten as moskot'.

It is probable that the examples above do not represent the first

use of the word in Russian. It may have been known for some con?

siderable time before this to Russians trading at the coastal ports or

travelling on Hanseatic ships. The fact that the ship mentioned in the text came from Holland is inconclusive. In view of the numerical

superiority of the Germans in Livonia, the word is probably from MLG sturman? rather than from Du. stuerman, stuurman.

skiper This word is first attested in 1566 and in further examples from

ARA, nos. 81, 84, 87, 93: ARA, p. 77: a skiperemu s lavrencomii na bojarki (Russian traders from Copenhagen to Ivangorod, 1566). ARA, p. 78: ... v gorodu v rugodivii izu gollanskije zemli karabi' a

skiperu dej na tomu karable bylu kornelisu petrovu da stjurmanu vulfertu lutmanu . . . (Rugodiv/Reval, 1566).

The majority of scholars have accepted Du. schipper as the source of this word in Russian.77 Reytsak, however, claims that it was borrowed from Old Norse skipari, Sw. skeppare, since Sw. ski-

74 Reytsak, op. cit., p. 233. 75 Ibid.', S. G. Gardiner, op. cit., p. 233. 76 Schiller-Lubben IV, p. 454. 77 Ohiyenko, op. cit., p. 84; N. A. Smirnov, 'Zapadnoye vliyaniye na russkiy yazyk v petrovskuyu epokhu' (Sbornik otdeleniya russkogo yazyka i slovesnosti imperatorskoy akademii




regularly gives R. ski-, whereas Du. sch at the beginning of a word is

pronounced in Russian as schi.78

The facts do not support a loan from a Scandinavian source. It is

clear from the earliest examples that the word was borrowed as a re?

sult of trade in the Livonian cities. As noted above, with reference to

skuta, ARA no. 81 contains a transliteration of the Dutch name with

sch as schuit. Hence one would expect a loan from Du. here in the

form *schiper. The source of the word on phonetic and on historical

grounds is MLG schipper.79 The LG word has the meaning of captain- owner of a ship.80

Gardiner, who also favours Livonian origin for this word, suggests that it may not have been known elsewhere than in the regions near

the Baltic coast.81 The word was reborrowed at the time of Peter the

Great from Dutch or LG. This word has the fluctuation of -er and

-er' typical of loans from LG, though the latter form was eventually

superseded by the former.

III

Parts of Ships

raja This word is attested in only one example in Old Russian:

Novgorod 1: 6712: i zamyslisa jakoze i preze na korablichu rajami na

s'glachu na inychu ze korablichu isiicinisa poroky i lestvicja . . .

The forms raino and rejno, under the influence of Du. ree, appear in

later redactions of the chronicles. Thornqvist says that this word is an

old Novgorod sea term, and consequently one should seek its source

in Norse, cf. Old West Norse rd, Old Swedish ra. She admits, too, the

possibility of the influence of MLG rd.82 Chronologically there is

nothing against a loan from MLG since the Germans are attested as

being in Novgorod in the second half of the 12 th century. Nor does a

knowledge of naval architecture help much in deciding the origin of

this word in Russian, since at this period both Scandinavian and

German ships in the Baltic had square sails fixed to a single yard, which was lashed to and pivoted on the mast. The context affords

little help either, as the Novgorodians would be likely to confuse

Germans and Scandinavians at this stage. However, the evidence of the word Pgla appearing alongside raja is fairly conclusive, because

nauk, LXXXVIII, pt. 2, St Petersburg, 1910), p. 329; R. van der der Meulen, De hollandsche zee- en scheepstermen in het Russisch, Amsterdam, 1909, p. 181; A. I. Sobolevsky, Russkiye zaim- stvovaniya, St Petersburg, 1891 (lithographed offprints of handwritten notes of a course of lectures), pp. 136-7. 78 Reytsak, op. cit., p. 231. 79 Schiller-Lubben IV, p. 101.

80 A detailed description of his function is given in Heinsius, op. cit., p. 231, and Vogel, op. cit., p. 377. 81 Gardiner, op. cit., p. 241. 82 Thornqvist, op. cit., pp. 152-5.



l86 GEORGE THOMAS

the former must be from ON sigla?a mast. The word which exists

in MHG as segelboum is absent from MLG. It would be more logical to derive both Fgla and raja from the same source, namely Old

Norse.

snur

This word was probably well established from the end of the

16th century though there is evidence of its existence only from

dictionaries of Russian composed by foreigners: R. James p. 176 (p. 59, 18) snuiroke?a lin, a stringe.

Fenne, p. 55: snur for Lunte.

Gardiner gives examples of snur and snurok in the second half of the

17th century.83 The modern forms of this word are normally snur,

snurok, which date from the 18th century only and are from Pol.

sznur, sznurek from MHG snuor.84: The word in modern Russian

covers the meanings of'string, cord, twine'.85

Van der Meulen says: 'Wegen de s zal man hier aan het ndl.

willen denken; Vasmer 2, p. 683: noemt mnd. snor, doch so oud is russ,

snur niet'.86 In fact the evidence of the foreign sources is sufficient to

date the word from the 16th century, and this leads one to derive the

word from MLG snor. It seems probable, though it must be admitted

that this is not certain, that the word entered Russian as a naval term.

The Baltic seaboard was rich in materials for boat-building, in?

cluding hemp. Samuel Pepys mentions Riga twine in his diary, where he is considering what to recommend for the English Navy. This word once more shows the correspondence of MLG 0/R. u. It is

of interest however that the form snor is also recorded once from the

17th century.87

sty/

According to Sreznevsky this word is recorded from the end of the

16th century in one example.88 Otherwise evidence of the word is

from the 17th century:

Fenne, p. 106 sty/?mast. Chudesa ?osimy i Savvatiya v pripiske 1624, p. 212: slomisja i sty ru na lodii nasej.

The meaning of the word in Old Russian is not entirely clear. It

was probably a tiller or steering oar on a boat or ship. Vasmer

derives it from ON styri, MLG sture.89 Van der Meulen says that R.

83 Gardiner, op. cit., pp. 193-4. 84 Vasmer III, p. 417. 85 Dal7 IV, p. 459. 86 R. van der Meulen, 'De nederlandsche woorden in het Russisch' (an offprint from Jaarboek der Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschapen, Amsterdam, 1944), p. 87. 87 Reytsak, op. cit., p. 374. 88 Sreznevsky III, p. 583. 89 Vasmer III, p. 36.




styr, sty/, styr is from Du. stuur.90 However a derivation from MLG

sture or Du. stuur must be dismissed on the grounds that, on the basis

of stjurman from MLG sturman, Du. stuurman, one would expect R.

*stjurjstjura from a Dutch or Low German source. Indeed Latvian

does have this form (Latv. sture), which is doubtless from MLG.

Furthermore, to derive the word from a Scandinavian source is to

ignore the chronological aspect. The source of this word must be

sought in Pol. styr, a form which still existed in the 16th century

although ster was more common.91 The term probably entered

Russian and Polish and White Russian along the river waterways.

tros

This is a seafaring word found in Archangel and Olonets dialects.

It is a rope going from running tackle. It has developed its meanings to incorporate cord and steel wire.92 It is attested from the second

quarter of the 17th century93, but in view of the fact that MLG has

only the form trosse, trotzeM which would give R. *trosa, the word

must be attributed to Du. influence in the White Sea and be derived

from Du. tros.95

IV

Ship-building terms

In the sphere of boat-building MLG has furnished no certain loans.

Konopatit' appears from the second half of the 16th century, but the

source of this word is obscured by its form which is influenced by

folk-etymology with konoplja?hemp.95 Attempts to derive beliza

'caulking-iron' from MLG vilisen have been dismissed by Thorn?

qvist.96

V

Conclusion

These loanwords form an important part of the contribution of

Middle Low German to the Russian vocabulary. They include the

names of most of the main ships used by the Hanseatic League

90 van der Meulen, 'De nederlandsche woorden . . .', p. 95. 91 G. Korbut, 'Wyrazy niemieckie w jezyku polskim pod wzgledem jezykowym i ciwilizacyjnym, (Prace filologiczne wydawane przez J. Baudouin de Courtenay, IV. Warsaw, 1893), p. 488. 92 Dal' IV, p. 848; Akad. XV, p. 1008.

93 V. I. Sreznevsky, Opisaniye rukopisey i knig, sobrannykh dlya imp. Akademii nauk v olonetskom kraye, St Petersburg, 1913, p. 487. 94 Schiller-Liibben IV, p. 616.

95 Vasmer III, p. 141; R. van der Meulen, Dehollandsche zee- en scheepstermen . . ., p. 217; I. Smorgonsky, Korablestroitel'nyye i nekotoryye morskiye terminy nerusskogo proiskhozhdeniya, Moscow-Leningrad, 1936, p. 116.

96 Thornqvist, 'Old Barge-builders' terms from the Volga area' (The Slavonic and East European Review, xxxii, 1953), pp. 141-5.



l88 GEORGE THOMAS

{barka, bot, busa, koca, skuta and jachta). Galeja, a Mediterranean craft, could also be from this source, and meka {sneka) may have been

influenced in the later examples by MLG. It is symptomatic of the

fact that the Russians ventured so little on the seas that the only word

which they borrowed for sea-going craft was koca.

The MLG words for the crews of these Hanseatic vessels are well

represented in Russian: as well as the loanwords skiper, stjurman and

busman, there are the Russian neologisms botnik and busnik. The

absence of locman is surprising and must be due to the similarity with

lodejnik. The lack of words from MLG designating parts of vessels demon?

strates that the Russians developed little knowledge concerning the

parts of ships from the Hanseatics. These words are more often from

Norse {raja, Fgla) and Greek {pams). The later loans are from Pol.

{sty/, macta) but more usually direct from Du. (e.g. skot etc.). If snur

is a naval word, this would form the only exception in this section.

It is clear from what has been said above that the contribution of

MLG to Russian naval vocabulary has not been as large as might have been expected, and this reflects the superficial nature of the

Russians' contact with seafaring through trade with the Hanseatic

merchants.



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Russian Naval Terms from Middle Low German

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