On the toponym Bapče/Bapča and the origin of Turopolje toponyms ending in -če

Abstract

This paper explores the etymology of the toponym Bapče/Bapča, which serves as the name of both a village and a former stream. Additionally, it examines other oikonyms ending in -če within the broader Turopolje region of northern Croatia. First, is provides a concise introduction to the topic, including the geographical setting and the current sociolinguistic context of this traditionally Kajkavian-speaking area. Then, based on historical sources and field research, it is concluded that the present-day village of Bapča was originally called Prudnica and that, for reasons that are still unknown, at the beginning of the 19th century it took on the name of a now-vanished nearby village, which is recorded in historical documents as Babcha. Furthermore, it establishes that the -če ending in Bapče is original, akin to other Turopolje oikonyms such as Kuče, Hrašće, and Čiče. This suffix was derived from the Proto-Slavic nominative plural suffix *-ję, which replaced the widespread -jane by analogy with the ja-stems locative, which was *-jaxъ, just like for nouns formed with *-jane. Such a generalisation can be found in numerous oikonyms in Slovenian territory. It was affixed to the appellative bapka through the following process: (*baba >) *babъka > *babъčane > *babъčę > Bapče. The paper considers several semantic meanings of bapka as a potential source of the toponym, ultimately favouring the meaning »pit, hole, cavity«, which, while largely lost in Croatian, persists in Serbian and Bulgarian dialects. Finally, it argues that the variant Bapča, as seen in the name of the stream, represents a secondary development from the original Bapče. A parallel to this can also be found in Slovenian, where the name of the stream Volarja, for formal reasons, must be derived from the name of the place Volarje. Finally, it is explained that there are several reasons for the two forms Bapče/Bapča, and similar fluctuations in grammatical gender and number can be observed in other microtoponyms in different places in Turopolje.