Pikk (Adj.)

Among the oldest streets in Tallinn, first known as strantstrate (1362), beach street (whither it led); followed by longa rega (1367), then beach street again: strant platea (1369); lange / longa strate and longa platea, or long main road (all late 14th); and platea stagnali (1375). Later names (1732) include Ger. Langstraße with its old Est./Ru. pitk ulits, later dropping the Russian ulits, and retranslated into Russian with Морская ул. (marine, 1907) and Длинная ул. (long, 1920?). It is the platea stagnali which poses the problem. The first idea that came to mind was its present-day cognate of ‘stagnant’, a perfect euphemism for any pools of waste that may have collected at its lowest points, but no matter how well it fits into stereotypes of medieval cities, it doesn’t stand scrutiny. Whereas in classical Latin stagnalis referred more to standing-water, i.e. non-flowing, as in pools, ponds and even baths, sluggish water and all the way to ‘bottom of the sea’, its use in medieval Tallinn seems more limited. And while source records such as Nottbeck II’s: ortum, prope mare situm, “garden located close to the sea”, make no horticultural sense, his appendix does: “mare (see stagnum)” and “stagnum (see mare)”: mare and stagnum mean the same thing. But do they mean ‘sea’? In classical Latin, mare did mean sea, but in MLG the hybrid mare, mār, maer had already forked into meaning Meer (sea), See (lake) and Wassergraben (moat), which does lead somewhere. In 1345, Danish king Valdemar IV granted the city the right to bring water and create mills along the SE quarter of the city walls, creating a partial moat around the city. Doing so involved dykes and resulted in 3 reservoirs: one W of Harjuvärava, one SW of Karjavärava, and one S of Viru värav. It seems pretty clear that the stagnum/stagna refer to these, and having gardens nearby now make sense. Which means there’s an error somewhere. Pikk is nowhere near a stagnum implied in Nottbeck’s first reference to platea stagnali on 1375-01-13 when Albert Hundebeke bequeathed property there. The error is more likely in the original manuscript than on his part, because of the detailed nature of his transcription, notes and all, and because he states that one year later, Hundebeke bequeaths further property sitam in platea, que dicitur leemstrate, located in the street called leemstrate, or Viru tänav. Obviously, he could have multiple properties in various locations, but given the meaning and locations of the stagna, platea stagnali cannot refer to Pikk. The next oddity is rega. It occurs again in brevis rega iuxta forum so it’s not a typo but is limited to Pikk and Mündi. Despite being used in the middle of a Latin formulation, it does not seem to occur in classical Latin, first found in Bede (±672-735) as riga, meaning line, ray or furrow. By the 13th C, the Occitans were also using the riga spelling for row (e.g. of vines) or furrow, as did later medieval French, rege, row of vines (mod. Fr. raie, also the parting in your hair) or even unit of land area, evolving into the lines drawn on manuscripts for neat copywriting, and/or stripes. German cognates include MLG reghe, ryge, rege(n), etc, for a string of onions, garlic and so on , so a sense of linearity seems clear. Here, it looks like a dog-Latin back-translation of MLG rēge, reige, reghe, rē, meaning, other than line or row (cf. mod. German Reihe), narrow passageway, which fits for Mündi but less so Pikk. Perhaps it was just yet another word for street, as implied in Nottbeck... The next bit might be completely wrong, but let’s see (feedback welcome). Since Pikk could hardly be described as either narrow or a passageway (although Pikk Jalg could, especially the part wheezing asthmatically up the hill from Nunne), MLG rēge, etc., related to MLG rēgen, to rain, also meant Rinne (borrowed into Estonian as renn, see Veerenni), channel / gutter to which, along with MLG rīde, stream or watercourse, it is loosely related etymologically. Given the date of naming, could this refer to the aqueduct? The route – from Kullaseppa, across Raekoja plats, through Mündi and onto Pikk – suggests it was, but since the aqueduct was built from 1420-23, and both brevis and longa rega precede this by 50 years, it cannot refer to the aqueduct itself. At this time, water was transported by both professionals (acqueductore, 1337) and certain taxable city residents (vattervorer, watervorer, 1360, see Salminen) and while this may have satisfied human consumption, it may have been too costly for other uses (manufacturing, washing, horses, etc.). My suspicion is that the aqueduct was to up-grade an already-existing water channel, a banked-up ditch, flume or similar, and the names were thus long and short ditch street or whatnot. I do not, however, have a shred of evidence. Former occupants of Pikk have included a Soviet phone-tapping center at No.20, and a KGB interrogation center and jail at No.59. According to an old Estonian joke, this was the tallest building in town: you could see Siberia from its cellars.