Etymology
The names of the Baltic Prussian tribes all reflected the theme of landscape. Most of the names were based on water, an understandable convention in a land dotted with thousands of lakes, streams, and swamps (the Masurian Lake District). Indeed, that landscape caused the very partial isolation that preserved the Baltic language group as the most archaic in Europe. To the south, the terrain runs into the Pripet Marshes at the headwaters of the Dnieper River; these have been an effective barrier over the millennia.
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History of Brandenburg and Prussia |
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| Northern March pre-12th century |
Old Prussians pre-13th century |
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| Margraviate of Brandenburg 1157–1618 (1806) |
Ordensstaat 1224–1525 |
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| Duchy of Prussia 1525–1618 |
Royal (Polish) Prussia 1466–1772 |
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| Brandenburg-Prussia 1618–1701 |
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| Kingdom in Prussia 1701–1772 |
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| Kingdom of Prussia 1772–1918 |
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| Free State of Prussia 1918–1933 |
Klaipėda Region 1920-39 / 1945-present |
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| Free State of Prussia 1933–1947 |
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| Brandenburg 1947–1952 / 1990–present |
Recovered Territories 1918/45-present |
Kaliningrad Oblast 1945-present |
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The original pre-Baltic settlers generally named their settlements after the streams, lakes, seas, or forests by which they settled. The clan or tribal entities into which they were organized then took the name of the settlement.
This root is perhaps the one used in the very name of Prusa (Prussia), for which an earlier Brus- is found in the map of the Bavarian Geographer. In Tacitus' Germania, the Lugii Buri are mentioned living within the eastern range of the Germans. Lugi may descend from Pokorny's *leug- (2), "black, swamp" (Page 686), while Buri is perhaps the "Prussian" root.
The name of Pameddi (Pomesania) tribe is derived from the words pa ("by" or "near") and meddin ("forest") or meddu ("honey"). Nadruvia and may be a compound of the words na ("by" or "on") and drawē ("wood") or na and the root *dhreu- ("flow" or "river"). The name of the Bartians, a Prussian tribe, and the name of the Bārta river in Latvia are possibly cognates.
In the 2nd century AD, the geographer Claudius Ptolemy listed some Borusci living in European Sarmatia (in his Eighth Map of Europe), which was separated from Germania by the Vistula Flumen. His map is very confused in that region, but the Borusci seem further east than the Prussians, which would have been under the Gythones (Goths) at the mouth of the Vistula. The Aesti (Easterners) recorded by Tacitus were recorded later by Jordanes as part of the Gothic Empire.
Folk etymology led to the belief that each Prussian tribe was named after a tribal leader or his wife, such as the mythical leader Warmo ruling the Warmians.
Read more about this topic: Old Prussians
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