Dialektologins bidrag till ortnamnsforskningen och omvänt

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Abstract

This paper is based on a lecture delivered by the author for admission as a docent at the Faculty of Languages at Uppsala University in November 2024. Drawing mostly on his own research into South Swedish place-names, the author aims to illustrate how the linguistic subdisciplines of dialectology and place-name research complement and enrich each other, and how the interplay between them manifests itself in scholarly material. The settlement name Ramlösa and the creek name Rammebäck are given as examples of how words that exist exclusively in dialects and are absent from the standard languages, such as the South Swedish noun ramm ‘marsh(land), morass’ may be of crucial importance in interpreting place-names. The author’s work on the mill name Ledåsa is related as a case where a specific form of the name in the local dialect played a pivotal role in finding the way to the correct interpretation. The farmstead name Plågan, with its peculiar dialect form /ˈplavan/, deviating conspicuously from its appellative equivalent plåga /ˈploɡa/ ‘torment, agony’, invites a discussion on the development of the Old Danish sequence -ā̆gh- in Scanian dialects. Four croft names, Bökeberg(a), Bökhult, Hökatorp(et) and Höghult, reveal a farther eastward extension of a Southwest Scanian phonological development (the palatalisation and approximantisation of Old Danish k into [j, ɥ] after front vowels) than suggested by the recorded non-proprial dialect material, illustrating the importance of looking at toponomastic material in connection with dialect geographical issues. The paper concludes with some reflections on the continued interrelations between historical dialectology and onomastics.