Re: USAGE: East Slavic historical phonology (was: Questions and Impressions of Basque)

--- "Isaac A. Penzev" <isaacp@...> wrote:

>
> In this case (as in some others) _-pol_ originates
> from _pole_ 'field'. And
> according to a dead phonetic law it produced _-pil_
> in Mn Ukrainian. The
> same is true about _Ternopil'_ and _Myropil'_. By
> analogy some people
> pronounce _Symferopol'_ as *[sImfe"4Op;il;], but
> this is 100% wrong - it's
> indeed from Greek _polis_.
>
Oh ? Eto ja ne znal. Thought all names ending with
-pol were of same origin. I didn't wonder about
Simferopol, but I thought Sebastopol is still
pronounced Sebastopol because it's more a Russian town
than an Ukrainian one (don't hit me !)

I also found it very striking that some places in Krym
kept their Greek names without any notable change
(Evpatorija, Xerson, probably Feodosija too ?). How
old are these names ? And on the other side, you have
many Tatar names too (Baxchysaraj, Gurzuf...). As to
Inkerman, I guess it was somebody's name ? Krym is
really an interesting place for toponyms.



=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


		
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