Kauba (Kaup)

Goods, wares, merchandise, due to street leading to Tallinn-Väike. A mongrel loanword to say the least. Earliest focal root is probably Lat. caupo (innkeeper or trader), synonymous or shared with copo (the female of which is copa, ±barmaid*), and seems to have spread northward with Roman soldiers, becoming *kaupa-n (to trade/trader) in West Germanic, evolving into the usual culprits of Ger. Kauf, Swedish köp, etc., as well as Old Eng. cīepa and cēap, ending up as ‘cheap’. It spread north-eastward to Dan. Copenhagen, København (±trading ‘haven’, but see Hobusepea) of earliest recorded name (11^th C ) Køpmannæhafn (Traders’/Merchants’ harbor). Further east again, it lent itself to Finnish for ‘city’, kaupunki (market place), via an archaic dialect or earlier Eastern Scandinavian *köupungR or Old Gutnish *kaupunger. Street previously called Frachtstraße / Waarenstraße (freight or goods, in Ger.), and Товарная (other than its smiling brotherly ‘Comrade’, Rus. Tovarich seems also to have meant someone with whom a sharing of goods or commodities, property or cattle, was involved).

* That Lat. cupa or cuppa (large wooden jar or barrel), generating Eng. cup, Fr. coupe, etc., is related is both very tempting but uncertain.

Keava (Keava)

Hamlet close to Kehtna in Raplamaa. One of the group of streets named for stations on the Tallinn-Türi Kitsarööpa line (it no longer is). The name Keava comes from a 15^th-C (or much earlier, sources uncertain) manor known as Kedenpäh, Kedempe (1410), etc., the earliest record of which is that of an uncertain attack by Izyaslav Yaroslavich, Grand Duke of Kiev and Novgorod in 1054, and a mishmash translation of осек Кедипив (osek Kedipiv), possibly suggesting a wooden defensive structure (осек) and confusing Кеди and пив for old Estonian words for ‘hand’ and ‘sun’. The Keava Hillfort predates this, with archaeological evidence identifying its use over at least the previous 500 years, constructed in 5 phases between the 5th and 11th centuries. It’s quieter now. See Lelle.

Kiisa (Kiisk)

Eurasian Ruffe, Gymnocephalus cernuus, member of the perch family. TT puts this in the raudteejaamade-nimeliste tänavate piirkonnas or, for those who still haven’t learned the language despite its obvious simplicity, the railway-station named street district, so he’s not confusing it with Raudkiisk (see Ogaliku), raud meaning ‘iron’ and kiiskama to glisten or sparkle as all trains should. But, as usual, he’s right, it is indeed one of the group of streets named for stations on the Tallinn-Türi Kitsarööpa line, 20-odd km to the south, so not a fish out of water. See Kohila.