The Homeland of Slavs in the Light of Names of Trees (And Fish)

Stefan Stojanović (University of Toronto)

The homeland of Slavs in the light of names of trees (and fish)[1]

This paper will test two hypothetical homelands, the generally accepted Middle Dnepr / West Ukrainian and the less likely Pannonian / Danubian homeland, against new evidences coming from names for trees (and, to a lesser extent, fish), usually not considered diagnostic and, thus, not discussed. The Vistula-Oder hypothesis of Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński[2] will not be considered since it contradicts all the evidence on the possible homeland of Slavs coming from dendronymy.

Such an approach is hardly new. The first to present this kind of evidence was Józef Rostafiński[3]. Later, the correlation between distribution of tree species and the origin of their Slavic names became some of the most important evidences for the Middle Dnepr hypothesis, finding its best interpretation in Moszyński (1957)[4]. A similar attempt, this time for Proto-Indo-European homeland, was made by Paul Friedrich[5].

It will be shown that Slavs knew of only one species of oak, namely the common European oak, pointing to area east of the Carpathians[6], had words for spruce and fir which do not occur in Pannonia, knew of just one species of pine, which pushes them to the north or east, knew of just one species of ash (in Pannonia, three species of ash occur).

The paper will also use the evidence coming from three fish species (eel, originally occurring only in the Baltic watershed, wels and the common carp, originally only in the Black, Caspian and Azov See watersheds) and their areals, placing the homeland of Slavs between the Black and Baltic Sea watersheds, namely in the present-day Belarus.

The distribution of fir will then limit the potential homeland to the western Belarus.

[1] This paper was done as a course paper in Slavic Historical Linguistics at the University of Alberta; instructor Elena Bratishenko, University of Calgary.

[2] Lehr-Sławiński, Tadeusz (1946). O pochodzeniu i praojchyźnie Słowian. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Institutu zachodniego.

[3] Rostafiński, Józef (1908). O pierwotnych siedzibach i gospodarstwie Słowian w przedhistorycznych czasach. Kraków.

[4] Moszyński, Kazimierz (1957). Pierwotny zasiąg języka prasłowiańskiego. Wrocław- Kraków: Zakład Narodowy imienia Ossolińskich.

[5] Friedrich, Paul (1970). Proto-Indo-European trees: the arboreal system of prehistoric people. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[6] For the exact areals of species considered, many sources were consulted.