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Sauna (Saun)
Bath-house, sauna. Street thus-named since the 15th C at least: bastouenstrate (1419) and (the slightly less Scandinavian- and more MLG-sounding) stovenstrate (1420). Word also means small farm or cottage, but this was long before the shift towards steamier haunts. EES suggests an early German origin for the word, *stakka-, giving English stack as in hay and chimneys, which seems vaguely possible, the ‘t’ could disappear, but ‘k’ to ‘n’? Also, Swedish has its own word for sauna, bastu, from bad, bath, and stuga, small house, related to English stove, from early Germanic stubā and stupā, so although the idea of chimneys and smoke may be tempting, an st- start to the word is probably a red (unsmoked) herring. Another EES possibility is its originating in an early Germanic ‘*sāpna-’ for soap (or *saipôn), originally deriving from a term referring to the red substance warriors colored their hair with (presumably to make them look more ferocious rather than alluring) which also gave the Finnish word for soap saippua, but this seems too remote (see Seebi). What appears to be the safest clue is – other than its Finnish, Livonian, Votic, etc. cognates deriving from early Proto-Finnic *sakńa meaning sauna in the broad sense (see above) – its use in Sami languages: suovdnji, hole dug in the snow (by birds, such as the willow grouse) and suodji, shelter, and historical Karelian soakna for “winter dwelling, a pit dug into snow for temporary shelter”, the commonality being a constructed shelter providing warmth. Case still open.
Sulevimägi (Sulevimägi)
Sulev’s mountain or hill. Prolongs Olevimägi, with a similar history revolving around nearby Brookusplats. Began its career as de Iseren Doer (1471), tor Iseren Doren (1481), de Iseren Dore (1529) from MLG iser(n) or isen, iron, and could refer to a hypothetical portcullis in an unnamed and no-longer extant tower near the old Russian church (torn vana vene kiriku juures) located some 15 m NNW of where Aia meets Uus. Moving on a century or so, it was renamed auf Thabor (1599) and auf dem Taborsberge (±1700) in reference to the Mount Tabor in Galilee where Jesus got a transfiguration job, then Brockussackgasse (Brockus cul-de-sac, end 18th C), then Kleine Strandstraße (end 18th C), Kleiner Brockusberg or Brokusberg (1907), and diverse permutations of Little Brockus Hill around Väike Brookusmägi in the 1920s until its current renaming in 1935. Interestingly, while German Sackgasse (first recorded early 18th C) may have been influenced by French cul-de-sac, the earliest record of French sac (1307) is some 500 years after old German sac, and although some linguists trace the French back to a possible Arabic زق, zq (wineskin, or impasse), the consensus for both Fr. and Ger. sac and Eng. sack is through Latin saccus and Greek σάκκος (sakkos) along with a Semitic ancestry going all the way back to Akkadian 𒆭𒊓 (saqqu), sack or penitent sackcloth. We are more interconnected than we think.
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