The First Finnic Text Revisited

[The Ripper]

I found an interesting article dealing with the Novgorodian Birch Bark letters in a Finnic-Cyrillic script and their interpretations. There is even a short snippet in English at the end about birch bark letter 292, which is considered the oldest complete Finnic text.

http://www.kotikielenseura.fi/virittaja/hakemistot/jutut/vir99laakso.pdf
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[The Ripper]

THE FIRST FINNIC TEXT REVISITED

Many of the mediaeval Russian birch bark documents that have been found in archaeological excavations contain some Finnic material (e. g. names of places and people, possible loanwords from Finnic). Two of these docu- ments, however, are of particular interest: Novgorod 403, the lower half of which Helimski (1988) has shown to be a Finnic-Russian »glossary», and Novgorod 292, dating from the middle of the 13th century, which is indis- putably the oldest existing complete text in a Finnic language. The latter text consists of ca. 50 Cyrillic characters, drawn clumsily (or possibly in haste) but ordered neatly in three straight lines (see illustration on page 532).
The conventional interpretation of Novgorod 292 given by Eliseev (Je- lisejev 1959, 1966) and Haavio (1964), is that the text is a »Karelian charm against lightning». Some small but significant corrections to Eliseev’s inter- pretation have since been proposed by Helimski (1986), and a detailed analysis of birch bark documents containing Finnic material has been under- taken by Vermeer (1991) from a Slavistic-palaeographic viewpoint. Vermeer points out that »God’s arrow» (jumolanuoli) at the beginning of the text does not necessarily refer to lightning and that the spelling ‹uo› in the word nuoli ‘arrow’, so far unanimously accepted as a (typically Finno-Karelian) dipht- hong, is simply a mirror reversal of the Old Russian digraph ‹ou› = [u] (which can correspond to almost any descendant of Proto-Finnic *o5 ) and thus does not help in determining the Finnic dialect in question. Most recently, Winkler (1998) has made some remarks on Vermeer’s interpretations.

Although it is not possible to arrive at a complete, detailed and cohe- rent reading for the text of Novgorod 292, some details of previous inter- pretations can at least be firmly discarded.

1) Vermeer has presented some strong arguments against Eliseev’s read- ing of ‹ïnimizV i› (the end of the first line) as ‘10 (of) your names’ (»you have tennames»or»tennamesofyours»).Haavio’sinterpretati on(*in(h)imizV e(n) or *ine(h)mizV e(n) ‘human being + Gsg’) appears more acceptable, although Vermeer’s suggestion also deserves consideration: i nimezV i ‘[O God, (your) arrow] and your name’. (An alternative reading for the first line could be ‘O God, your name (is) also (like) an arrow’.) The Vz sound, however, ma- kes Haavio’s interpretation more probable; the beginning of the text would thus be ‘God’s arrow, man’s / arrow’.

2) Helimski’s interpretation of the second part of line 2 (‹noliomobu›) as ‘arrow, shoot!’ is insightful and convincing, but the reading of the first part(‹nuliseV ha›)as‘arrow,shine!’cannolongerbeaccepted;Vermeer’ scriti- cism can here be supported with Finnic etymological data. Haavio’s and Eliseev’s interpretations of line 2 as a whole are even less credible. How- ever, *sehän (‘it’ + emphatic clitic) as proposed by Eliseev is still a viable interpretation; other possibilities are *si(j)ahan ‘to the place, instead’ or *si(i)hen (the illative form of se ‘it’). Alternatively, following Vermeer’s suggestion,thex-likecharactercouldbeinterpretedasa‹l›,giving‹seV la›,which could be analysed as the adessive form of se.

3) The third line remains an enigma. Some characters, as Vermeer points out, are obscure and could represent several sounds. For the beginning of line 3, there are at least two possible interpretations. That *xumala should represent Finnic kummalla (relative pronoun + adessive) is syntactically very appealing. Analysing the (possible) pronoun on line 2 as its head, the whole text could be given a coherent reading, revealing it to be a healing charm: ‘[Be it] God’s arrow [or] man’s / arrow [i.e. the »Krankheitsprojektil» – cf. Honko 1959 – which has caused this illness], to that (person), O arrow, shoot (back), / who has...’. However, the substitution of Finnic k with Russian x would be unusual (although not the only occurrence); the traditional read- ing as jumala ‘God’ is perhaps still a viable alternative. The characters that follow (‹sudь(ni)›) have so far been identified with the Russian stem sud- ‘judgment; to judge’ or its derivatives (thus giving e.g. *Jumala sudnyj ‘God of Judgment’). Vermeer’s arguments against these interpretations are, again, convincing, but his alternative suggestions are very tentative; the most at- tractive is perhaps sydän ‘heart’. The writer considers some other possible interpretations, too, but the final answer must await further studies in Finnic folklore and mythology. For the last part of line 3, Vermeer’s reading as *pahovi (a verb derivative of the root paha ‘bad’) is well-founded and ap- pealing.

Considering the tentative character of these interpretations, the lack of background information and the distorting effect of Old Russian pronun- ciation and orthographic conventions (also illustrated by Novgorod 403), it is still impossible to determine the Finnic dialect represented in Novgo- rod 292, although some characteristics point towards the Olonetsian–Lu- dian–Vepsian area, or, perhaps, a hypothetical East Finnic koine used in or near Old Novgorod. Further searches for parallels in Finnic folklore are still needed.