After presenting the history of the problem, the present author focuses on three main underdiscussed or unsolved issues: (1) can Old Russian and Old Czech spellings sug­gesting a voiced spirant be reasonably explained away as secondary? (2) can a (near-)homonymous and potentially motivating appellative be found in the Polish or Slavic lexical traditions? (3) and why was the prince named in such way? The answer to the first question is negative, while the second one cannot for the moment be answered with certainty and needs further scrutiny. The author concludes that the name was *Mьžьka (as previously supposed by Fenikowski, Bańkowski, Mańczak, Sucharski and Witczak) and originated probably as a protective name aiming at preventing the child from ominous vision problems.

Traditions of Carannog, a Welsh saint of about the year 550, appear in his vita prima written in the twelfth century and surviving in a copy of the thirteenth (his vita secunda, a mere fragment, is not discussed here). The vita prima is best known for what it says on Arthur. Carannog leaves Wales, encounters King Arthur in south-west Britain, even­tually gains his support, and is given lands near Arthur’s stronghold of Din Draithou. The location of that fortress has been obscure, but it must have been famous, because it figures in the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, as also the Glossary of Cormac (d. 908), bishop-king of Cashel in south-west Ireland.

The article presents a brief overview of the achievements of Bulgarian onomastics in the contemporary age, from the turn of the century until the present day. It reviews the most significant works in toponymy and anthroponymy, the field’s two main branches, as well as disciplines that are less developed in the country, such as astronomy. Particular focus has been placed on the new research uncovering the traces left by the Thracian language in modern Bulgarian onomastics. The work presents some conclusions concerning the contributions of onomastic science in Bulgaria in the past few years.

Place-name research seems to be dominated by etymological questions. But other per­spectives are important as well, as is demonstrated in one particular case: the convic­tion Thietmar of Merseburg manifests in his chronicle in the early 11th century that the place of his bishopric seat was named after Mars, the Roman god of war. This was not just his personal belief, but rather it fully corresponds with the then prevailing beliefs used in explaining the world and names at that time. And, seemingly, this prominent etymology raised the importance and prestige of the place and its imperial palace, as it is outlined in the present article.

This paper presents a series of addenda to Stanisław Stachowski’s Historisches Wörter­buch der Bildungen auf -cı // -ıcı im Osmanisch-Türkischen (1996). The data are taken from transcription texts prior to Meninski (1680) ‒ comprising both lexicographical and documentary texts ‒ and listed in chronological order, according to the pattern I have already followed in previous papers of mine intended to supplement Stachowski’s other historical-lexicographical works.

In this article, I analyze the use and absence of the augment in the 3rd singular forms ἔθηκε(ν) and θῆκε(ν) in the Iliad and try to determine the value of the transmitted forms. In doing so I first analyze the forms by checking permitted elisions and by applying metrical laws, bridges and caesurae. The forms that can be analyzed by those criteria are of type A (metrically secure). I then proceed to the forms whose value cannot be established by these metrical criteria and check if an “internal reconstruction” can solve the issue. The method I use is based on Barrett’s metrical and morphological analyses of the augment in Euripides and Taida’s analyses on the augment in the Homeric Hymns. This method analyzes the metrically insecure forms by looking at their position in the verse, the passages in which they appear, and by comparing them to the metrically se­cure forms in the same paradigm. The forms that can be analyzed by this method are catalogued type B; the forms that cannot are of type C. The forms of type A and type B will be the basis for subsequent syntactic and semantic analyses of the augment use in these forms in the Iliad (elsewhere in this journal).

The article was made possible by a fellowship BOF.PDO.2016.0006.19 of the research council of the Universiteit Gent (BOF, Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds), by a travel grant V426317N for a research stay in Oxford (provided by the FWO Vlaanderen, Fonds voor Wetenschappe­lijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, Science Foundation Flanders) and by a postdoctoral fellowship 12V1518N, granted by the FWO Vlaanderen.

The miscellanea deals with the use of the title of / address to Imāms, Āhōng (阿訇), among China’s Hui Muslims. The title/address of Persian origin is used by different groups of speakers in various ways of pronounciation.