A few Slovak genealogy questions

[Dennis Ragan]

For you Slovak genealogy experts out there, I have a few questions.  I'm helping a friend determine his grandfather's roots in Slovakia and was given a few documents that they are fairly certain are those of their ancestors.  A few things I noticed however.  One is the name -- anglicized to Pollack in the US.  In the Slovak records before WWI, the name is Polyak. Searching the online Slovak phone directory, I see very few instances of this name, whereas there are close to 1,300 instances of Polak and 300 instances of Poliak.  Is Polyak likely the Hungarian (magyarized) version, or might it be Rusyn?  The other question I have is in regard to what appears to be a second surname in the parents' column of the baptismal record of one of the ancestors. The father is listed as Polyak Sesztak Pal.  I know that this column at that time also includes occupation and religion of the parents and this entry also includes "gazda" for the father.  Might Sesztak be another surname, and would that not be unusual?  D'kaujem.    Dennis   

[Martin]

Is Polyak likely the Hungarian (magyarized) version

Yes, Dennis, but... (see later). The root for Poliak (Standard Slovak), Poľak, Poľan (regional and historical), "a Pole," has a soft/palatal -ľ- in Slovak, which was rendered as -ly- in Hungarian (BTW, the Hungarian pronunciation of -ly- is the same as that of the Slovak -j-, i.e., English -y-; not as the Slovak -ľ-). At the same time, the ethnic name, "a Pole," is Поляк in Rusyn, which would be transcribed as Polyak in Hungarian as well.

As to Sesztak, i.e., Šesták (originally, the name of a historical coin, Kreuzer in German), and B.J.'s query, it is what both of you assume. Some people may be able to post examples of their own experiences with finding "dual" last names in old records. It wasn't uncommon for a family's formally recorded last name to have switched from its historically older one to the distinguishing nickname/last name, which developed in the given village later in order to differentiate families with the same last name, or that records varied between the two.

[Dennis Ragan]

Thanks, Martin.  The second name thing is something I did not know about previously. Very interesting.  I did notice that soft l in Pol'ak in most of the directory listings.      

[svlasac]

Hi Dennis, ask your friend to review that baptismal record for any notation made by the priest as to the possibility that the Sesztak surname may be an alias. I've come upon instances while investigating Slovak baptismal records indicating an "alias" situation. I must admit though that I am not aware of why an alias may have been used. Secondly, perhaps you may already be aware of this, the Hungarian word "gazda" indicated the person was the head of the household. Hope this helps.

Steve Vlasac 

[Martin]

The second name thing is something I did not know about previously.

Yes, it's a frequent puzzle for those tracing their ancestry. A useful English label for such a "second" (or secondary) surname is: a by-name. There were two ways village communities spontaneously solved the growing number of identical last names, common in the distant past with low levels of spatial mobility among farmers. They either modified the last name to distinguish them or a family got a by-name, which sometimes alternated with the original last name so often that it eventually replaced it.

the Hungarian word "gazda" indicated the person was

More specifically, the head of a farming household. It was not used in formal records to indicate the heads of other kinds of households. The same word was also used for managers of noblemen's farms, even if they did not own a farm themselves.

The Slovak word gazda was, indeed, borrowed from Hungarian centuries ago. Interestingly, it was actually "re-borrowed." It was first borrowed by the nomadic Ugrics (some of whom developed into Hungarians) from the Slovak and other Slavic farmers when the Ugrics, originally Asian nomads, arrived in Central Europe around the year 900. The Old Slavic word was gospoď and meant "a farmer." The Ugrics learned to farm from the Slavs and, understandably, didn't have a word for "a farmer," so they borrowed it, modified it to gazda, and the Slovaks re-borrowed it later.

The root gospod- also remained in Slovak and developed into the current words like hospodárstvo, "the economy," traditionally also "a farm"; hospodárny, "frugal, economical"; hospodár, historically "a farmer," now more often "an economist [in certain contexts]," and a number of others.

[Julie Michutka]

Interesting, Martin. I thought that Slovak didn’t have the letter g in its alphabet/sound system, therefore words in Slovak that have a g must be loan words; other words substituted h for g. Your explanation might imply that Old Slavic had a g then lost it? What am I misunderstanding?

On the subject of dual last names, I have an instance in my own ancestry. A male Pavlik married a female Fjuri, and they and their children appear with a double surname (both Pavlik-Fiuri and Fiuri-Pavlik) in the Slovak church records and in some American records; as far as I can tell, the usage did not pass down to the subsequent generation. Two possible reasons for the double surname: there were (surprise surprise) other Pavlik families in the village and the adjoining village; one of those also had a double surname, the Kaszana-Pavlik family. As far as I can tell, those two Pavlik families were not closely related. The other reason I’ve heard is that in instances where a man married into a family with property/business but the family did not have a son to pass the property/business to, and the son-in-law stepped into that role but the wife’s surname was retained. (Source for that info is buried in my notes somewhere.) That might be the case for my family, too—the only Fiuri son had died before adulthood, and one elderly relative said that the family had a shop. I’ve also run into double surnames when doing client work; sometimes I can figure out that it came from another ancestral line, and sometimes I can’t discover within my contracted time how the double name came to be.

~ Julie

[Martin]

that Old Slavic had a g then lost it?

Yes, Old Slavic had a [g]. It changed to a [h] (or a sound that's fairly close) in a relatively narrow band of Slavic languages, from Sorbian (Lusatian) in the west, going east via Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, all the way to the southern dialects of Russian (its northern dialects and Standard Russian keep the original [g]) sometime during the 12th-13th centuries. The Slavic languages north of that narrow band (including Polish and northern Russian dialects) and those south of that band (including Slovenian and Croatian) retained the original [g].

For example, the word for "fire" is oheň in Slovak, but ogień in Polish and ogenj in Slovenian. The words for "a mountain" are hora, góra, gora, respectively, etc., etc.

There are words and place names that Hungarian borrowed before the change, and we see the difference today. E.g., the historical Novohrad County, based on the Slovak/Slavic nový, "new," and hrad, "fort, castle," is called Nógrád in Hungarian, an adaptation of Now Grad, which was how Slovaks used to say "a new castle" before the old [g]s changed to [h]s.

But while Slovak largely went along with the rest of the narrow west-east band in the [g] to [h] shift, it retained [g] in a very limited number of words that developed from Old Slavic. For instance, "brain" is mozog, "sap" is miazga (while, e.g., the corresponding Czech words, mozek and míza, lost the original [g]).

So yes, Julie, a -g- in a Slovak word mostly indicates that it came from another language, but not absolutely "always-always."

[Barry Atkins]

@Dennis.  

In addition to what Martin wrote, you and your friend may be interested in my experience of last summer.  The mother of my immigrant great-grandmother had Pollak/Polyak/Poľak as her maiden name.  Last summer I visited the old village and was warmly received in two different Poľak households.  The village is Kurimany and is located between Levoča and Spišská Nová Ves.  Perhaps I am related to your friend.

Regards,

Barry

[Dennis Ragan]

Thanks, Barry.  Delayed response here. When I typed in the name Polak into Slovakia's national online phone directory (http://telefonny.zoznam.sk), I came up with over 1,200 names.  I get less than 60 when I type in Polyak. So there are a lot of Polaks all over Slovakia, I gather.  Unfortunately, I found only three in the village of Nizny Hrabovec, which is a bit farther south of Levoca, I believe), so our work will be cut out for us in trying to find any relatives of my friend. However, as you say, you and the relatives of my friends may be somehow related.  You never know!   

[Dennis Ragan]

Martin, when I type in the name Polak into telefonny.zoznam.sk, the results I get are about 1,200 Polak names with and without the diacritics.  Interestingly, almost all are spelled with a hard “l” followed by a long a’.   Just a few have the soft l (l’). When I type in Poliak, I get about 320 names with that spelling.  I  got about 60 using the Hungarian Polyak spelling. I’m presuming that Pol’a’k and Pola’k are pronounced differently.  Do you think that most of these names evolved from the same origin -- or might they have different origins?        

On Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 8:26:36 PM UTC-4, Martin wrote:

[Martin]

that most of these names evolved from the same origin

Absolutely, Dennis. The origin is the same in Slovak, Polish, Czech, Croatian... as well as in a multitude of non-Slavic languages. As so many European words we think of as ethnic labels, it comes from the name of the country, Poland. The native Polish name for "a male Pole," Polak, alternated in English with a Pole from around the 16th century on, but it became a crude word in the U.S. and is now used only as such.

The versions of the last names that you found reflect regional variety and/or historical spelling, which didn't use -ľ-, etc. Standard Slovak and Central Slovak, on which Standard Slovak is based, has Poliak (the -l- is soft, [ľ], especially in rural pronunciation), it is Poľak, but commonly spelled Polak, in East Slovak, it is Polák or Poľák in West Slovak. Another Slovak version of the same ethnic name has been, historically, Poľan/Polan. You'll probably find last names like that too.

[Martin]

about 1,200 Polak names with and without the diacritics ... When I type in Poliak, I get about 320 names with that spelling

To highlight the difference between how English and Slovak work: from the Slovak perspective, it does not make the same sense in Slovak, as it might in English, to lump the spellings Polák and Polak together while keeping Poliak as a separate spelling. Polák and Polak are as different, or as similar, as Polák and Poliak, or as Polak and Poliak. The same applies to Polyak, Poljak, and other spellings of the same name. English speakers tend to see a difference in a letter as highly relevant, while it often isn't in Slovak, and English speakers tend to see differences in diacritics as something marginal.

It is different in Slovak. When Americans look for their ancestors whose last name is, e.g., Pollack in the U.S., all of the Slovak spellings, Poliak, Poljak, Polak, Polák, Polyak can be how that name was spelled in the past, and the spelling of their ancestors' last names could have varied among all of them not just from generation to generation but even with the same person. When English speakers trace their Slovak and Central European ancestry, they often err in their obsession with particular sequences of letters, in not seeing diacritics as at the same level of importance/unimportance as letters, and in their incomprehension of the key role of the pronunciation and essential meaning of the last name.

For instance, the last name meaning "a smith/blacksmith" can be spelled Kováč, Kovač, Kowacz, Kovács, Kowatsch... The Slovaks understand that they all are the same name, merely spelled in different ways (not "different names" as English speakers perceive the different spellings), and that the specific spelling is, historically, immaterial. And if someone with the last name Kováč moved to the Polish or Czech speaking areas, his last name could have become Koval or Kovář, and the Slovaks would still see no problem, would readily understand that it was still the same name, simply adjusted in the past to the words for "a blacksmith" in the given local languages.

[Barry Atkins]

@Dennis.  As Martin indicated, small spelling differences shouldn't necessarily be the deciding factor in genealogy.  There's more spelling "lock-in" in modern times with our computer-database-driven world; but names were even more mutable when your friend's ancestors came over.  Other research details (often circumstantial) are often needed to narrow the search 🤔.  I think you already know that the M/F gender of the individual can be reflected in an individual's surname (Pollák/Polláková, Hradiský/Hradiská, Hrič/ Hričová, Bartok/Bartková).  Phonics of different languages can also surprise (Hrič/Hricz/Hritz).

BTW, I don't know if you are in Pittsburgh, but in October the 2017 CGSI Genealogical & Cultural Conference will take place here.  For more details, go to:

http://www.cgsievents.com/

Regards,

Barry

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[Dennis Ragan]

Martin ... so when I read what you wrote here about English speakers not comprehending the key role of pronunciation and essential meaning of the last name, I took that to mean that pronunciation CAN possibly affect the meaning of a name.  That's why I originally questioned whether a soft "l" vs a hard "l" might make some kind of difference.  

By the way, in a conversation with a Slovak friend not too long ago, he used a noun that I knew but which was a completely different word (unknown to me). I wish I could remember the particular word, because I found it fascinating that something as hard to notice as a lengthened vowel in conversation (pretty sure that's what it was) could actually make the word a completely different one.  In any case, I am understanding now that with last names, actual name spelling can vary and that individuals from the same lineage may very well have different spellings of the name.        

 

(When English speakers trace their Slovak and Central European ancestry, they often err in their obsession with particular sequences of letters, in not seeing diacritics as at the same level of importance/unimportance as letters, and in their incomprehension of the key role of the pronunciation and essential meaning of the last name.)

[Kapitán Denis]

There's a word that comes to my mind:
tvar = shape
tvár = face

[Martin]

something as hard to notice as a lengthened vowel in conversation (pretty sure that's what it was) could actually make the word a completely different one.

Yes. We always have to keep in mind that differences in sounds "clear" to native speakers are often not to non-natives. For instance, nut and not sound the same to Slovaks especially in American pronunciation. Americans may be aware that many Europeans, including Slovaks, pronounce bet and bat the same, as [bet], etc., etc. All of that happens, because differences between some sounds in a language, so obvious to its native speakers, are "hard to notice," as you say, Dennis, to non-natives. That's universal.

To add a few examples to the one given by Denis, where the difference in length, initially difficult to notice to American learners of Slovak, is not only quite obvious to native speakers but also distinguishes different meanings: krik, "shouting" -- krík, "a small bush"; sud, "barrel" -- súd, "a court of law"; latka, "a plank" -- látka, "cloth, material"; vila, "a villa" -- víla, "a fairy".

Which vowel in a word is long can make a difference in the meaning, too: zastávka, "a stop" -- zástavka, "a small flag"; vinný, "guilty" -- vínny, "pertaining to wine".

Lengthcan also also distinguish forms of words, e.g., mame, "to Mother" -- máme, "we have"; pila, "she drank" -- píla, "a saw"; ruže, "roses" -- rúže, "lipsticks"; luky, "bows (to shoot arrows)" -- lúky, "meadows".

English speakers not comprehending the key role of pronunciation and essential meaning of the last name

 The misunderstood thing is that the pronunciation (and meaning, if identifiable) of someone's last name is primary. The pronunciation can be recorded in a variety of spelling systems, but it will still be the same name. How it is written is merely a historical (or other) coincidence. To use the Slovak parallel to the English last name Smith again: the last name is, to render it in English, [kovahtsh]. That, what you say, is the last name.

Now, if you wrote it the old-old Slovak way, you'd have written Kowáč; it is Kováč in Standard Slovak; if you are an East Slovak speaker and aren't that good at Standard Slovak, you'll write Kovač; you will spell it Kovács if you want to write it the Hungarian way; you will spell it Kowacz if you happen to write it in Polish; you will write it as Kowatsch if your chosen spelling system is German; you will write Ковач if you write it the Rusyn way.

But all of that is the same name, the Slovak (spoken) word for "a blacksmith". Spelling merely records that one and the same last name, [kovahtsh], in whatever Central European spelling system someone happened/chose to apply.

[curtb]

A cousin of mine who lives near Prešov, has a husband whose first name is Peter.  Once while speaking of him, I pronounced it like the American English Peter.  She stopped me immediately to inform me of its exact Slovak pronunciation with equal short e's and told me that it sounded dreadfulful the way I used it..

CB

[Martin]

A good example, Curt. The English Peter, [peet-r], would be Pítr in Slovak, but that's not what the Slovak name is. It's a common mistake, when American students of Slovak read a Slovak text, they will pronounce/read the Slovak names in it correctly, but they will all too often say [peet-r] for Peter. As you say, it sounds dreadful, an untoward blemish in someone's otherwise fine command of the language.

[Regina Haring]

Regarding the fact that films will no longer be available, I believe that the LDS is in the process of putting ever more records on line, and this is the reason for the discontinuation.

Most of my research is of my husband's early Dutch ancestors - they came to the U.S. about 350 years ago, and there are so many interesting records available in the NY/NJ area. 

If you sign up for Family Search, go to Search, then Catalog, you may find some records already available. Hope you will share if you do find any relating to Slovakia..

Regards,

Regina Rabatin Haring

Nanuet, NY

www.dutchdoorgenealogy.com