On 9/8/04 12:01 PM, tgpedersen wrote:
> You mean the name 'Warszawa' is known in written sources from the
> 17th century on. What type of sources does it appear in first:
> official or 'unofficial'/private?
I'd have to do some checking to tell you that. At any rate, pre-17th
sources, formal and informal alike (and there're plenty of them,
covering chronologically three full centuries), give only
Warszowa/Warszewa (the vacillation is normal in this kind of name;
<-ewa> is the phonologically expected allomorph after <sz>, <-owa> is
analogical). Also in literary Polish: Jan Kochanowski, one of our best
poets of the 16th century and a native Mazovian, wrote an epigram
entitled "Na most warszewski" (On the Warszewa Bridge). There's no
indication anywhere of that <-awa> thing being archaic.
> Are there any other known cases of -owa > -awa in place names?
Again, some checking would be in order. I'll do it at my leisure, OK?
Piotr