Aha!

The Germanic languages claim the river names with the suffix -ava or -awa.  We have the following words for water:

ahwa (Gothic), and

aha (Old High German and Old Saxon)

but some people think that these as well as the Latin aqua do not hearken back to old Indo European language (assuming there was one).  Here is a cite from a linguistics professor:

“A full discussion would not change the bottom line: *akʷā (or any laryngeally revamped version thereof) is not a valid PIE reconstruction.  The words we find in Germanic and Latin are regional, not common Indo-European… [previously noting that] [p]ossible traces of a Celtic word reconstructible as *akʷā are few and hardly substantial.”

The professor then concludes dourly:

“Their pedigree is uncertain; they may be loans from an unidentified pre-IE substrate (in which case their deeper history is unknowable for lack of data).”

We lack the learning to agree or disagree with the above.

That said, we are not as pessimistic.

Regatas

In Spanish, the river name is rio but there are other names for smaller rivulets, e.g., arroyos.  On the Iberian peninsula you will also find:

regata (for a small stream)  or regato

reguero

or

rego or

rega such as the following regas (among others) in Asturia, Spain:

• Rega do Calvario,
• Rega As Penas,
• Rega Da Cuba,
• Rega Da Cal

which you can see at the approximate location here (next to, curiously, Lugo):

whereas rega refers to a “sprinkling, watering or rain” in Portuguese.

In fact, it is likely that the English “rain” has the same wet origin.

What is curious, however, is that the Online Etymology Dictionary gives the following origin of  regatta:

“regatta – (n.) 1650s, name of a boat race among gondoliers held on the Grand Canal in Venice, from Italian (Venetian dialect) regatta, literally “contention for mastery,” from rigattare “to compete, haggle, sell at retail.” [Klein’s sources, however, suggest a source in Italian riga “row, rank,” from a Germanic source and related to English row (v.).] The general meaning of “boat race, yacht race” is usually considered to have begun with a race on the Thames by that name June 23, 1775 (see OED), but there is evidence that it was used as early as 1768.”

and from Dictionary.com:

“regatta – 645-55; < Upper Italian (Venetian) regatta, regata, perhaps ≪ Vulgar Latin *recaptāre to contend, equivalent to *re- re- + *captāre to try to seize; see catch”

The slightly more trustworthy Collins gives this:

“regatta – First use: 17th century; Origin: from obsolete Italian (Venetian dialect) rigatta contest, of obscure origin”

Webster give the following:

“regatta – Italian (Venetian) regata, gondola race, literally , a striving for mastery ; from rigattare, to compete, wrangle ; from ri- (; from Classical Latin re-, re-) + grattare, to scratch ; from Germanic an unverified form kratton from source German kratzen.”

Finally, the American Heritage Dictionary has this:

“regatta – Italian dialectal, a contention, regatta, from regattare, to contend, perhaps from recatare, to sell again, compete, from Vulgar Latin *recaptare, to contend : Latin re-, re- + Latin captare, to seek to catch, frequentative of capere, to seize; see catch.”

It is curious that this word appears in the Venetian dialect but maybe not so much if that is where the races took place?  But while it may well have later meant a “competition” what is the obscure origin of the word?

To state the obvious, If rega means “river” then “regata” could simply mean a “river race”.

But we know that rega means river… after all we have the:

• Czech – řeka
• Slovak – rieka
• Russian – река,
• Croatian – rijeka, or
• Polish – rzeka

(and others).  The only thing that need be explained is the g > k.

As for the -ta, there are certain other interesting possibilities.  While the suffix is present in a number of forms in Latin, in certain participal nouns/substantives, it is present too in noun forms, e.g., in modern Italian (Crociata) but also, in the same unaltered form in Slavic languages both in the form of participial nouns and in adjectives (of the female gender, e.g., rogata), and in nouns (whose participal nature may have been forgotten) – there sometimes being replaced by the suffix –tka:

Most modern Romance languages have variations of this suffix (although which are derivative and which are natural evolutions is debatable).

Rekas and their -Avas

What if this is just a misunderstanding?  What if the Latin and Germanic settlers did in fact hear the various -avas or -awas from the mouths of someone else and concluded that these must refer to water?

What if, those -avas or -awas had nothing (directly) to do with water?

Note that:

• they do not appear as part of the names of bodies of water other than rivers, and

•  they do appear as part of other non “hydro” names, such as town names.

(Admittedly, as to the latter, the sifting process is a bit difficult because cities back in the old days were almost uniformly founded at river banks for obvious practical reasons; nevertheless, where a city name differs from the name of the given river, it may be tentatively concluded that it is a separate -ava name, not having to do with the river).

What if these suffixes simply represent adjectives (descriptive or possessory adjectives)?  How can that be?  Well, what if in the “substrate” language the underlying noun is of the singular feminine gender necessitating an -va ending for the accompanying noun?

Thus, for example, we have Soława/Souava (salty? sunny?) river or the Polish capital city of Warszawa can be an adjective describing the river Vistula (at that point, presumably) or it can, in fact derive from the owners of the local village (or wieś is feminine too) the alleged Varshovtzi family of Bohemia or some other Warsz.  (In this way we also dispense with the need for Wars’ companion, Sawa, as per local legend).  

Of course, if this were true, then we would expect the first part of the adjective to fulfill its descriptive function – an examination is in order.

This is particularly true for Germania since many of its rivers originally did have -a or -ava endings but they do not anymore (some still do) and such river endings are very rare in Scandinavia – the homeland of the Nordics.

The fact that these are possessory is also indicated by the suffix -owa in those situations where possession not description is meant as, appropriately, we see with the peninsula (previously an island?) of Suabowa.

We also note that this does not, of course, mean (though it could!) that every place that has -avas is one where Slavs lived previously but it does suggest that, perhaps, people speaking a language similar to the later Slavic (Venetic?) were somehow present in such parts.

Food for Thought

Several other possibilities arise:

• that the reason a river is called rega or reka is because it is similar to an arm (Slavic reka).

• that the ruler reigns is because the early “kingdoms” were necessarily along river beds.

• that the Slavic term for ruler/leader, i.e., wodz comes also from “water”.

• that the Slavic wodit (i.e., to lead but also to lead about) is therefore related to the Germanic wend, i.e., as a river meanders/wends itself (though, as noted, wend also has Prussian and Slavic aquatic meanings, e.g., wędka (wendka) (fishing rod) or wędzić (wendzić) (to smoke, i.e., remove water from, fish). (note here how the Polish ę is a likely result of an earlier -en). 

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