# Utus, a river name that means simply "water"?



## rbrunner

Several sources say that there is a Thracian river name _utus_ that derives from PIE roots/words _*udos_ or _*udes-_ "water", e.g. this one. The ultimate source might be a book that has an online copy here.

The etymology seems ok to me, with a sound shift *d > t from PIE to Thracian that works for at least one more attested word, however few there are for Thracian.

But does this really work out from a common sense point of view? I would understand a river with a name like _black water_ or _wild water_, but simply _water_ without any further qualifier? Isn't that like e.g. a mountain in England with a name of _height_, _rock_, or even simply _mountain_?

Does anyone have a good hypothetical scenario how such a name could have developed, or know better attested and more recent similar examples?


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## CapnPrep

rbrunner said:


> Does anyone have a good hypothetical scenario how such a name could have developed, or know better attested and more recent similar examples?


I think it is quite common for river names to trace back to a word  meaning simply "water" or "river".  I mean, if that's where you get your  water, and you say things like "go to the water", "put such and such in the water", etc., it doesn't seem that surprising for the place to end up being called "the water".

Just looking at this Wikipedia article, it looks like the names of the rivers Axe, Exe, and Usk in England and Wales just mean "water", and the name of the river Avon just means "river".


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## ancalimon

Maybe the name is related with Turkic üçüz (triplet) if the river is joined by three smaller rivers and the ancestors of those Bulgars or some people speaking Turkic among the migrating PIE people gave its name?

That is of course if there are three rivers joining it. What is the name of the river today?

Or maybe uç su (us< su)
uç: fizzing, ebullient, spraying
uç: frontier, border, boundary
uç: cold
su: water

Another similar river name is Oxus. (Oq Su?)


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## Ben Jamin

In Norwegian a lake is called simply "vann" (water) as a generic name.


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## berndf

rbrunner said:


> Isn't that like e.g. a mountain in England with a name of _height_, _rock_, or even simply _mountain_?


You have the famous _Pendle Hill _in Lancashire in England the name of which means _hill-hill-hill_ in different languages: _Pen_ is Cumbric for _hill_, the Anglo Saxons added_ hyll = hill _and when _pen hyll > pennul/penhul_ became opaque, another _hill _was added which eventually produced _Pendle Hill_.



rbrunner said:


> Does anyone have a good hypothetical scenario how such a name could have  developed, or know better attested and more recent similar  examples?


The most likely scenario is that a name is adopted speakers of a different language and they shorten it being unaware or simply ignoring that what is left has a different meaning (two examples cross my mind: _Whisky <__ uisge beatha_ literally also just means _water_; in colloquial French, a _duty free shop_ is sometimes abbreviated to _free shop_ which of cause means something completely different) or a colloquial reference to a place being adopted as its official name in another language (example: Constantinople was colloquially simply referred to as _ἡ Πόλις = the city_ and the modern name Istanbul is probably derived from the phrase _εις την Πόλιν = to the city_).


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## Treaty

In case of city of Medina in Arabia, it is even in the same language, just abridged from _madīnat al-nabī_ (=the city of the Prophet) to simply _madīnah _(=city).
As for the rivers, probably Indus is the most famous one. It simply means "river" (_*hindhu_ in Old Iranian, _sindhu _in Sanskrit).


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## fdb

The name of the river Don is generally assumed to be from the Alanic ancestor of Ossetic /don/ “water, river”, the regular reflex of Indo-Iranian *dānu-.


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## gburtonio

rbrunner said:


> Several sources say that there is a Thracian river name _utus_ that derives from PIE roots/words _*udos_ or _*udes-_ "water", e.g. this one. The ultimate source might be a book that has an online copy here.
> 
> The etymology seems ok to me, with a sound shift *d > t from PIE to Thracian that works for at least one more attested word, however few there are for Thracian.
> 
> But does this really work out from a common sense point of view? I would understand a river with a name like _black water_ or _wild water_, but simply _water_ without any further qualifier? Isn't that like e.g. a mountain in England with a name of _height_, _rock_, or even simply _mountain_?
> 
> Does anyone have a good hypothetical scenario how such a name could have developed, or know better attested and more recent similar examples?



Well, the name Rhine ultimately goes back (as does 'river') to *rey- from PIE, meaning 'flow' (same root as the final two syllables of 'diarrhoea', incidentally …). There's also a river in Italy called the 'Reno'. So I don't think it's that unusual.


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## origumi

The Hebrew name for the Nile is Ha-Yeor = _The River_ (most likely of foreign origin, maybe Egyptian) as demonstrated in Job 28:10, 2 Kings 19:24, Isaiah 37:25.


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## inib

And there's a River _Fluviá _in Catalonia.


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## Maroseika

Volga, the biggest river of the European part of Russia, is one more example, or better say three with a half examples at once:

1st. The name Volga most likely refers to the ancient Baltic name of its upper reach - *valka - forest rivulet*.
2nd. Its lower reach was mentioned by Ptolomaeus as *Ra*, usually compared with Sanscrit *srava - a flow*.
3rd. Later Turks called its middle and lower reach *Itil'*, cognate of Tatar *idel' - big river.*
1/2nd of the example is Volga < Slavic *vlaga (wet)*, the version which is not recongized anymore by most part of scholars.


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## Ihsiin

berndf said:


> You have the famous _Pendle Hill _in Lancashire in England the name of which means _hill-hill-hill_ in different languages: _Pen_ is Cumbric for _hill_, the Anglo Saxons added_ hyll = hill _and when _pen hyll > pennul/penhul_ became opaque, another _hill _was added which eventually produced _Pendle Hill_.



There's also Torpenhow Hill in Cumbria, which is hill-hill-hill-hill.



Treaty said:


> In case of city of Medina in Arabia, it is even in the same language, just abridged from _madīnat al-nabī_ (=the city of the Prophet) to simply _madīnah _(=city).



Surely abridged from المدينة المنورة, rather than from مدينتة النبي.


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## rbrunner

Ihsiin said:


> There's also Torpenhow Hill in Cumbria, which is hill-hill-hill-hill.



Thanks for this hilarious example, but unfortunately it seems to go one hill too far, i.e. may well be an urban legend of linguistics: See The debunking of Torpenhow Hill


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## Anja.Ann

Hi, Rbrunner 

Actually, the ancient "Utus" has become the "Vit" (Вит) which means "winding".


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## rbrunner

Anja.Ann said:


> Actually, the ancient "Utus" has become the "Vit" (Вит) which means "winding".



Interesting. Is this a coincidence? Until now I assumed that over the course of the last 2000 years the name/word _utus_ developed into _vit_ so that the etymology of the river name would be different from the (Bulgarian) common word _vit_, although of course this makes a wonderful folk etymology.


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## Anja.Ann

Hello again, Rbrunner 

Yes, a very intruiguing case.

In my opinion, it's quite difficult to say whether the name of this river "Vit" developed from the ancient name (Utus) or was later changed because of its winding, sinuous course across the Balkans; incidentally, it flows into the Danube  next to a town (village?) called Somo*vit.

*


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