Home
Paljandi (Paljand)
Outcrop. See Martsa.
Lõuka (Lõugas)
1) Various meanings revolving around stoves and fireplaces: essentially, the opening and/or part of the hearthstone protruding in front. In Viljandi dialect: the space in front of an oven opening. Its mouth-related cognates – lõug (chin, jaws, ‘mug’, French gueule) and lõugas (little bay, bight or creek) – strengthen the ‘opening to an oven’ interpretation and, by metonymy, a fireplace, inglenook or stone ledge in front of the oven used as seat. Part of a fire, fire-making and fireplace group, see also Sädeme. There is also an erratic boulder called Lõuka kivi a couple of meters from the road at ///lost.dashes.dawn and the question is: which came first? Probably (certainly) the stone. The street naming proceeded essentially NNW with Lõuka in 1958 and Tulekivi in 1959. How the boulder got its name I do not know; 2) small bay or bight, see Pärnulõuka; 3) common gull or sea mew, Larus canus, of multiple appelations: kalakajakas (see Kalamehe and Kajaka), räimekull (Räime and Kulli, although the latter is going a bit too far), kudukajakas (Wut?! See Kudu), jääkajakas (ice gull), tuulekajakas (Tuule), and many, many more... For other erratic-themed locations, see Lükati.
Luisu (Luisk)
Whetstone for scythes. Even sounds like it. Part of a harvest street-name group. See Reha. Interesting cross-lingual pun here: haljad relvad (shining weapons) (see Haljas) translates (literally) into French as armes luisantes although they call ‘blades’ armes blanches (white weapons, pretty much the same). Pun over.
Nõgikikka (Nõgikikas)
Black woodpecker, Dryocopus martius (see Rähni). Another bird with more names than feathers. I spare you the details. Breeds in Estonia. Wiedemann gives Kampfhahn, Machetes pugnax which is the ruff (now referred to as Kampfläufer, Philomachus pugnax), with Schwarzspecht (black woodpecker), covering his perse with a question mark. Here, however, amid the assarting street-name area, it is the name of a sooty, fireplace/stove/chimney spirit, one seemingly attributed with positive qualities as seen in various Võro idioms such as one when somebody throws a child’s (hopefully milk) tooth onto or behind the stove, saying Nõgikikas, säh, sulle luuhammas, anna lapsele raudhammas (Hey, Nõgikikas, we're giving you a tooth of bone, give the child a tooth of iron). The name also seems interchangeable with Viruskikas, where virus is the top of a stove, and viruskikas (which can also be a cricket) back-translates from Võro to Estonian as kurukikas, ‘nook/cranny cock’ or, PCly, ‘nook/cranny rooster’.
