ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2657 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2657 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 2 Aug 2003 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for information about the history of the Czech feminine name , where the caret represents a hacek (inverted caret) over the preceding letter and the slash represents an acute accent mark over the preceding letter. Here is what we have found. Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the time it has taken to finish this report. A heroic character named appears in Czech legend, but we have not found evidence that the name was used by real people before modern times. It is certainly a common name in modern Czech [1]. There is also a modern surname which apparently derives from a place of the same name [2]. It may be that the legendary character was the personification of this place, and that the modern use of her name was prompted by a nationalist revival. The surname may well have been used in our period, but we haven't found an example. The name was popular among Czech Jews; we have examples from the 14th century on [3, 4] The name or was commonly used as a diminutive of in much of Eastern Europe in the last centuries of our period, though it may actually not originally have derived from . Examples include [4]: Serke, Sirke 1332, 1347 in Brandenburg 1561 in Lublin Serke 1630 in Prague Serkhe 1644-1768 in Prague These names were pronounced \SAIR-k@\ and \SEAR-k@\ respectively, where \@\ represents the sound of the in . We did not find any variant of starting with . Since the shift from to produces a significant change in pronunciation - -- \sh\ rather than \s\ -- we don't recommend using it without historical support. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Julie Stampnitzky, Walraven van Nijmegen, Ursula Georges, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, and Galiana de Baiona. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 2 Aug 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] "S^a/rka" (WWW: privately published; accessed 8 May 2003) http://www.fi.muni.cz/~xbejrova/sarka.html.windows-1250 [2] Svoboda, Jan, _Staroc^eska/ Osobni/ Jme/na a Nas^e Pr^i/jmeni/_, (Praha: Nakladatelstvi/ C^eskoslovenske/ Akademie Ve^d, 1964). p. 185, section 823. This section is page of a chapter titled "Pr^i/jmi/ pode druhu*". The Czech text reads: Nema/lo pr^i/jmi/ vzniklo ze jmen mi/stni/ch, a to vlastni/ch nebo obecny/ch. U feuda/lni/ch drz^itelu* pu*dy jsou to na/zvy podle si/del, statku*. Pr^itom, jake uka/zal A. Sedla/c^ek (SF VII, 45- 48), by/vaji/ pr^i tvor^eni/ pr^i/jmi/ c^asto bra/na za za/klad MJ bez svy/ch pr^i/pon: z Kos^etic, podle Holes^ic, ba ne^kdy souvisi/ pr^i/jmi/ se za/kladem MJ jen zcela volne^, kdyz^ napr^. podle vsi Kac^ice je pojmenova/n . Na rozdi/l od stereotypni/ch pr^i/jmi/ polsky/ch se zakonc^eni/m <-ski> jsou c^eska/ tvarem velmi rozmanitia/. Nezr^i/dka by/va/ pr^i/jmi/m mi/stni/ jme/no samo bez derivace; vedle pr^i/jmi/ najdeme tedy i pr^i/jmi/ ; podobne^ jsou doloz^ena pr^i/jmi/ , , , , . Ani u nearistokraticky/ch pr^i/jmi/ neby/va/ za/kladem odvozova/ni/ pr^esna/ forma MJ, jak sve^dc^i napr^. jm. de Havra/ne^, z Dubc^e, podle MJ Husinec. [3] Muneles, Otto, _Epitaphs from the Ancient Jewish Cemetery of Prague_ (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1988), p.118. The name was also spelled , , and , but these may be modernized spellings. [4] Beider, Alexander, _A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names: Their Origins, Structure, Pronunciation, and Migrations (Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu, 2000), p.576. The spellings we've given are Beider's transliterations from Hebrew. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Addendum, Aryanhwy, 3 Sep 2004: An example of recorded in 1411, possibly a pet form of , is listed by Jo/zef Bubak, _Ksie,ga naszych imion_ (Wrocl/aw: Zakl/ad Narodowy Im. Ossolin/skich Wydawnictwo, 1993) s.n. Sara.