On the use of Frigyes Pesty’s place-name collection of Nógrád County from the perspectives of historical dialectology and sociolinguistics

Abstract

On the use of Frigyes Pesty’s place-name collection of Nógrád County from the perspectives of historical dialectology and sociolinguistics

This paper examines the historical dialectological and sociolinguistic use of the Nógrád County place-name compilation collected between 1863 and 1865 at Frigyes Pesty’s initiative. Frigyes Pesty, a pioneer in historical name geography, toponomastics and name etymologies, organised a collection of place names covering all settlements of Hungary. This manuscript of names constitutes a particularly rich database of geographical names of mid-19th-century Hungary. Hungarian National Toponym Registry Programme researchers have started publishing the manuscript based on standardised principles. During the philological work on the press publication of the place names of Nógrád County, a microlinguistic analysis was conducted. The results of this analysis are presented in this paper. On the one hand, the author discusses the connection of the scriptors to the Palóc dialect area and the possibility of reconstructing the former colloquial language use with the help of the registered toponyms. On the other hand, the author explores the bilingualism of the multi-ethnic (mostly Hungarian-Slovakian) villages of Nógrád County, as reflected in the place names.