Re: Cities
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In reply to:
Cities
Dan Kussart 5/20/10
Dan,
There is a village named Potis^kiai in the Moletai district that I think might be the place you are looking for.
The spelling of Potesky and Cotiskey indicate an Anglicized Polish ending "-ski" that in Lithuanian would be "-ai" or "-as".Also, the "c" and the "p" appear to me to be simply mis-readings of the same letter, probably "p" since Lithuanian has only two letters "c", neither of which sound like "k" -- the only way Cotisky" could be pronounced in English.So I think these names are the same but have been mis-read on different documents, a very common problem in reading the handwriting of many years ago.
Just stripping out the Polish/English from these two village names as you present them leaves them looking something like Poteskai and Kotiskai.The vowel "o" in Polish often becomes "a" in Lithuanian, so the spelling might further be Lithuanianized as Pateskai and Katiskai.
A search of the online, interactive map of Lithuania shows no villages or towns beginning with Potesk-, Kotisk- Patesk-, or Katisk-, so I believe the most likely village is the one in Moletai.And I believe that
For clarification, the letter "c" in Lithuanian with a little mark over it (sometimes called "birdie" and typed "c^" on non-Lithuanian keyboards) is pronounced "tch" as in the English word "church" or "chew."The letter "c" without any mark over it is pronounced "ts" as in the English name "Vince" or the word "bits."Unlike English, Lithuanian uses only the letter "k" for the sound of "c" in the English word "cloud" or "cover.""c" in Lithuanian is never pronounced like "k".A name, therefore, like Cotisky, assuming the "c" has no mark over it, would be pronounced literally in Lithuanian as tso-TIS-ky, not koh-TIS-ky.If that initial "c" in the name had a birdie over it, it would be pronounced tcho-TIS-ky -- but in no circumstance would it be pronounced koh-TIS-ky.
Likewise the letter "s" in Lithuanian has two forms: one with a little birdie over it, pronounced "sh" as in the English word "shower."Without the birdie, "s" is pronounced like the "s" in the English word "sea" or "sell."
John Peters