Calisia

The oldest confirmed city in all of Poland is thought to be Kalisz. The name is mentioned already in Ptolemy – as Calisia. According to Hans Krahe, the name is supposed to be “Illyrian.” Illyrian is an interesting language because it has never been actually recorded by anyone. It’s kind of a garbage can of linguistics – if it don’t anywhere else and predates the time of the Voelkerwanderungen, it must be “Illyrian.” Of course, Kalisz’s etymology is relatively certain – it is Suavic. Specifically, the word is likely to be cognate with kał meaning “a moist, wet place” or, if you will, a bog or marsh. Other place names in Poland feature a similar root: Kałek, Kaliska, Kaliszcze, Kaliszany, Kalsko. Or even, Kałuszyn from kałuża meaning “a puddle.” (Note that, for example, Theodor Kaluza was also Suavic). Similarly, water boots are called kalosze.

The Suavic etymology is very nicely confirmed by looking at another Kalisz, this time in Germany. Specifically, there is a Kalitz just East of Magdeburg (incidentally, near the area of Leitzkau – just NE of it). That Kalitz lies in the area of Möckern – originally Mokrianici – which means the exactly same thing – “a wet place.” (Compare this to the Polish – mokre).

But this creates a problem for history writing. If the name is Suavic then there must have been Suavs in the area before the Voelkerwanderung (Ptolemy wrote in the 2nd century and his reports were probably older). As mentioned, the name appears in Ptolemy as Calisia.

But it actually appears twice – the other time in the northern clime as Ascaucalis. This has been identified with Osielsko in the vicinity of Bydgoszcz. Since in Ptolemy the city immediately to the West is Scurgum, perhaps this is right as there is in that area the town of Skórka (dated back at least to the 1380s). This probably refers to “skin” but earlier meant “bark.”

Before WWII the name of that town was Schoenfelde so did the Poles change the German name after WWII? Well, yes, but the German name was not the original name, apparently, as shown in this 1875 publication:

So, in fact, it seems the Poles changed it back after WWII. The fact that Scurgum may have been Polish is acknowledged already in the 18th century:

To the West of Ascaucalis was Rugium.

It is also interesting that Ascaucalis sounds so very “Lithuanian”.

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