Reexamining Latvian lake names ending in -eris, -ēris, and -ieris

This article discusses Latvian lake names ending in -eris, -ēris, and -ieris as names of possible Finnic origin. The article is an inventory of limnonyms — names of lakes and ponds — ending in -eris, -ēris, and -ieris, i.e. lake names in Latvia already earlier noted by linguists to be connected with Courland Livonian jāra/jōra (LiV järu) ’lake’ or Estonian järv ’id.’. Limnonyms not mentioned in other studies in this context are also compiled and analysed. In analysing the latter, an effort was made to separate words with a clear alternative origin (usually Latvian, but sometimes also, for example, German) from those that hypothetically could be connected with Livonian or Estonian lake names. The article concludes that not all earlier etymologies are plausible, because 1) some of these etymo- logies were provided by linguists lacking knowledge of Finnic languages, and 2) the origin of the first component of the place name has not been identified in all cases. The limnonyms and place names with existing etymologies, but for which Finnic etymologies are proposed for the first time in this article, form a fairly uniform area — Vidzeme, Latgale, and to a lesser extent Sēlija — and only rarely occur in Courland. The infrequency of this limnonym type in Courland may be a result of two parallel place name systems existing due to long-term bilingualism.