# Lembola and Ohtajarvi



## Russianer

What is meaning of a word "Lembola" and a word "Ohta" in modern Finnish language\ or in old ancient Finnish language? 
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I know the old ancient finnish names of Lembola hill and a river Ohta (Ohtajoki) , close to my city, St-Petersbourg, Russia..
Ohta= a bear in Finnish? Or not?
Lembola= a demon, in Finnish? Or not?


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## DrWatson

I would say your assumptions are correct. _Ohta_ is probably related to one of the names for the bear in modern Finnish, _otso_._ Lempo_ is a devil or a fiend, and the_ -la_-ending is a suffix found in many place names.


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## sakvaka

_Ohta_ is also dialectal for "otsa", forehead.


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## akana

Would there be any relation to "Otava," as a part of the "Iso Karhu" (Great Bear) constellation? (I'm not sure if "Otava" itself means anything besides a name.)


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## hui

Russianer said:


> Ohta= a bear in Finnish? Or not?



_Ohta_ could be a variation of _ohto_ which is a variation of _otso_ which is the original(?) Finnish term for a bear. So one guess would be that Ohtajoki originally meant Bear River.

But since Ohtajoki is east of Finland and _ohta _is a variation of _otsa _(forehead) in the eastern dialects it is more likely it means just that. The steep side of a mountain or cliff could be called _otsa_.


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## DrWatson

hui said:


> _Ohta_ could be a variation of _ohto_ which is a variation of _otso_ which is the original(?) Finnish term for a bear.


Actually the original term is _oksi_ (inflected like _yksi_ or_ kaks_i; _oksi : ohden : ohta_.

"Joen nimi on itämerensuomalaista perua (_ohto_ ”karhu”)." http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohtajoki
Of course, I understand Wikipedia is not the most reliable source. Hence I'll try to dig up some more information tomorrow.


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## Hakro

I'd guess that _ohta_ in this case means bear, not forehead.

It's possible that _Lembola _is comes from _lempo_, devil, but it can as well come from the word _lempi_, love. I'd vote for the latter. (Compare to _Lempäälä_ in western part of Finland, _Lembois_ in Swedish; _lempeä = _tender.)

_Otava_ means a certain type of fishing net that was used hundreds (or thousands) of years ago, and the form of the constellation looks more like this net than a bear.


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