Võru nime päritolust
On the Origin of the Name Võru

Summary/Abstract: The estate name Võru ~ Võro has lent its name to a town, county, and – via the latter – also to the võro language, which is the best known new literary language of South Estonia. The estate name originates in the name of a brook. The first mention of the brook of Forro ~ Farro dates back to 1438, which is earlier than that of the estate. The brook name Võro can be regarded as having the same ancestor word as the modern derivatives võreng and võrendik, basically meaning’ ’pool (in a river)’, rarely also ’stony place in a field’. But the name certainly also associates with the name of Verijärv, which is a lake passed through by the brook of Võro. Lake Verijärv is conspicuous for its curved shape that makes it unique in the region. However, the etymology *Vääräjärvi ’curved lake’ presents a few phonetic problems. Those problems do not arise with the etymology associating the lake name * Vºerojärvi with the word *vºero Gen. -u ’slope, scree’, which also goes well with the geographical image of the place. In this case the brook name could be considered a regular secondary name of the lake. a third possibility is that the brook name Võro may originally have belonged to the family of viru-hydronyms. The latest known meaning of the word viru used to be ’whirl’.

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