Névtani Értesítő

Óvodás gyerekek névmodellje

Katalin Reszegi — 2023-12-29

Preschool children’s name model. Complex place name competence survey among school-age children

Onomastic research typically focuses on the place-name recognition of adult name users. Thus, little research has focused on the place name vocabulary and naming competences of children. This paper presents the results of a survey using a complex methodology to characterise children’s place-name knowledge in a comprehensive way. Comprehensive interviews were conducted with ten children aged 6–7 years, as part of which children’s place-name knowledge, place-name competence and mental maps were assessed. The results show that children’s place-name knowledge is much narrower and spatially more limited than adults’, essentially covering only the inner area of their own municipality. They also know the macrotoponyms of other places, but the conceptual representations of these names are rather schematic. Children’s travel descriptions and mental maps are based on an egocentric perspective. The results show that the methodology can be applied successfully and provides a comprehensive picture of children’s spatial knowledge and place perception.

Követéses helynévismereti vizsgálatok Tépén

Erzsébet Győrffy — 2023-12-29

Follow-up studies on toponymic knowledge in Tépe

Real-time studies are needed to provide empirical evidence for changes in toponymic knowledge. These studies can be completed by examining the relative toponymic knowledge of generations of the same age at different times: this is called a trend study. In a panel study, the data collection is repeated with the same individuals who participated in the first study. A combination of a panel and a trend study is the most efficient, which is why the author repeated their 2013 survey of toponymic knowledge in Tépe in 2023. As a first step in the more recent survey, interviews were conducted with 7% of the population in four generational groups. Here the research aimed to discern how the generational groups’ toponymic knowledge evolved in relation to each other. In addition, a panel study with 11 respondents was also completed. This study focused on changes in individual toponymic knowledge. Out of 11 respondents, only 2 individuals showed an increase in toponymic knowledge, while the other respondents exhibited a decrease to a lesser or greater extent. One important finding of the present study is that the change in toponymic knowledge is not a one-directional process: not only did new names appear on the mental maps of younger and middle-aged respondents, some also disappeared.

Helynév-szociológiai vizsgálatok Jablonca községben

Csilla Csobády — 2023-12-29

Sociological study of toponyms in the village of Silická Jablonica

The study presents the results of research into the use of toponyms in Jablonca (Silická Jablonica), a Hungarian settlement in Slovakia. According to the results of the 2021 census 91.76% of the population in this border village is of Hungarian nationality. The village community is characterised by Hungarian-Slovak bilingualism. Consequently, the place-name collection revealed both Hungarian and Slovak place names for some areas. The paper describes the sociological aspects of the research, which aimed to investigate the inhabitants’ knowledge of place names. The paper reviews the non-lingual factors that influence the knowledge of place names. Research was conducted via interviews, questionnaires and asking respondents to draw a mental map. The results showed that place of birth, ethnicity and mother tongue, as well as occupation and leisure activities, are the main factors that determine knowledge of place names. Hungarian dominates the residents’ place name use, with only a minority knowing place names in Slovak (i.e., those shown on a map). The study of place-name knowledge within the family shows the importance of family knowledge in the transmission of place-names.

Növénynevet tartalmazó településnevek

Éva Kovács — 2023-12-29

Names of settlements containing plant names

The paper examines the relationship between place names referring to the natural environment and plant names. It provides a comprehensive picture of the role of plant names in the formation of settlement names describing the natural environment: what form plant names take in early Old Hungarian settlement names, when and in what proportion they appear in early Old Hungarian sources, and what shifts in their frequency occurred over the centuries. The study also examines the spatial characteristics of the name type and the distribution of certain plant names. Summarising the results, it can be concluded that in the early Old Hungarian period, the settlement names derived from plant names were usually formed by adding suffixes to single words. Morphematic naming played the dominant role in the formation of these settlement names. A significant increase in the number of such settlement names can be seen from the beginning of the 13th century, and continued at a steady pace until the end of the early Old Hungarian period. Settlement names of botanical origin are relatively common and cover the whole Carpathian Basin. Settlement names also include names of various plants, but the frequency of certain plant names varies greatly.

Áltudományos szövegek eszközei a meggyőzés szolgálatában

Mariann Slíz — 2023-12-29

Methods of persuasion used in pseudoscientific texts. An empirical study of lay perceptions of the linguistic interpretation of place names

The aim of this paper, which presents research conducted within the Onomastics Students’ Workshop at ELTE, is to investigate the effectiveness of the persuasion techniques employed in pseudoscientific arguments (in this case, place-name interpretations). Two of these are commonly used in any pseudoscientific context (invoking non-scientific authority and the use of seemingly scientific terms), and two are specific to the study of language and onomastics (the effect of pseudoscientific theories on the language family of a language and mentioning the historical changes in the name). A questionnaire survey of high school students at four research sites nationwide seeks to discover the extent to which lay language users are influenced by each of these factors in determining the scientific validity of place-name etymologies. The results show that the use of seemingly scientific terms has an influential effect, but that the persuasive power of appeals to pseudoscientific (or even fictitious but apparently academic) authority is more significant. It has also been shown that the choice of a name interpretation associated with pseudoscientific theories of linguistic genealogy does not necessarily imply identification with the claims and ideology of these theories: many respondents chose these interpretations due to the influence of other factors. In connection to reflecting on changes in a name form, the results show that critical thinking is not enough, if not coupled with deep knowledge.

Vonatnevek Magyarországon

Imre Perger — 2023-12-29

Train names in Hungary

The study outlines the development of giving names to means of transport and describes the motivations behind the naming. It analyses in detail the development of train names. On the basis of an almost complete list of train names in Hungary, it examines domestic and international train names separately. The names discussed are divided into main groups and subgroups. The paper describes the characteristics of “good” and “bad” train names and outlines spelling and pronunciation problems. It also offers insight into informal train names and describes the background of the name giving. In addition to domestic examples, it also provides insight into the naming principles of railway companies in neighbouring countries. The paper concludes that naming practices in almost all countries give priority to geographical names (country, part of country, region, mountain, water). In addition, the names of famous people, historical figures, saints, artists (painters, sculptors, composers, writers, performers) have also been included in railway timetables, as have the names of landmarks (buildings, natural features), characters from novels and fairy tales. Latin names have also been given a prominent role in train names. The study also outlines the possibilities for further developments in the practice of naming trains.

Osztrák és magyar borterméknevek nyelvészeti vizsgálata

Anikó Szilágyi-Kósa — 2023-12-29

Linguistic analysis of names for Austrian and Hungarian wine products

The study presents the product-naming strategies of innovative wineries in Eastern Austria and Transdanubian Hungary that mainly produce natural wines. The dataset was compiled through an internet search of wine product names used in the early 2020s. The names were classified according to the linguistic elements and strategies found in the names. The names were then used to identify the linguistic-cultural contacts on both sides of the Hungarian-Austrian border. The wine product names contain many primary proper names (surnames, forenames, toponyms), but also abound in linguistic play and elements of foreign origin. All these can be explained by the general expectation of product names to attract the attention of the consumer, to be memorable and useful for advertising purposes.

Csoportnevek a Legere Irodalmi Versenyen

Anikó N. Tóth — 2023-12-29

Descriptive team names for the Legere Literary Competition

The paper presents the motives of the team names of the Legere Literary Competition for secondary school pupils at the University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra. The research, conducted over 11 years, used a questionnaire survey and the interview method to examine the 258-item descriptive group name data. Apart from a handful of names with unknown motivations, the corpus can be divided into two broad categories based on the motivation for naming: one broad category is made up of team names related to the spirit and theme of the competition, and the other category is made up of team names related to the individual competitors. In addition to a detailed description of the two categories, their subdivision, classification and illustration with examples, the paper also notes the diversity of naming methods and the linguistic and visual playfulness and humour of the team names.

„Átnevezett” középkor

Gábor Mikesy — 2023-12-29

„Renamed” Middle Ages. The book entitled A középkori Magyarország településatlasza [Settlement Atlas of Medieval Hungary] or the 21st-century source of medieval places and names

This article examines the historical and linguistic-onomastic aspects of the book entitled A középkori Magyarország településatlasza [Settlement Atlas of Medieval Hungary] (KMTA), large parts of which are freely accessible on the Internet. The motivation for the analysis is that the atlas deviates considerably from scientifically founded, generally accepted knowledge and the latest research results, both in terms of the visualized historical facts (processes) and the use of names. The authors point out the inadequacies of the KMTA’s data management and the historical perspective suggested by the maps, which is not sufficiently well-founded. A number of examples are used to show that the use of names in the KMTA does not correspond to the goal it has set itself (reconstruction of the medieval pronunciation of settlement names), whereas it contains an extremely high number of names that do not correspond to the sources.

A Bakonybéli összeírás mint nyelvtörténeti forrás

Katalin Pelczéder — 2023-12-29

Census of the Abbey of Bakonybél as source of language history. A summary of a habilitation dissertation

The dissertation presents a linguistic analysis of the Hungarian lexemes in the Bakonybél census (1086/11–12 or 12th century / +12–13 / +13). The Latin document dates back to the first century of Hungarian literacy and contains a significant number of Hungarian place names, personal names and common nouns, so it plays an important role in learning more about the Hungarian language of the era. The dissertation is the first complete linguistic-historical analysis of this source. The first chapter presents the circumstances of the creation of the diploma, discusses opinions on the dating and gives a philological evaluation of the four parts. The second chapter provides the text and translation of the diploma. The central chapter of the dissertation offers a detailed analysis of the Hungarian elements of seven hundred place names using the method of historical toponym reconstruction. In the fourth chapter, the lessons of linguistic history in linguistic memory are discussed: the linguistic usability of copied, false, and interpolated diplomas, and a historical analysis of the spelling and phonetics of lexemes. The last chapter is a summary of place names: the localisation characteristics, the taxonomic features of each type of place name and the layer of names of foreign origin are described.

Bewegte Eigennamen. Namenintegration und Namentranslation im Sprachenpaar Deutsch-Ungarisch [Mozgalmas nevek. Névintegráció és névközvetítés német–magyar nyelvpárban]

Anikó Szilágyi-Kósa — 2024-03-28

Moving proper names. Integration of names and German-Hungarian name translation. A summary of a habilitation dissertation

After a theoretical introduction, some processes of Hungarian-German (spontaneous) name integration are presented on the basis of German settlement names and microtoponyms in Hungary, and changes in Hungarian surnames in Germany and German surnames in Hungary. This is followed by a summary of the language policy principles and practices of German name use in Hungary. The second major chapter of the study presents the translatological issues of proper names on the basis of the Hungarian-German and German-Hungarian mediation of different types of names (personal names, toponyms, institutional names). Special focus is given to the translation strategies of proper names in literary works. The last major chapter of the study is devoted to the lexicographical presentation of proper names. In this section, the practices of general bilingual dictionaries and cultural dictionaries are presented, and dictionaries of the Hungarian-German language pair are described. The study provides a wide range of examples of how differently prototypical and peripheral proper nouns behave in translation tied to language contacts.