| TJanos: Re: Kiskinizs Family | Dear Adam,
As to the blazon for Kiskinizs: maybe due to the bad quality of your attachment, I cannot detect on it the objects you are referring to; I also tried the direct link, which produced the same pics. To clarify matters for details, I called up this morning the city council of Kiskinizs for information, but only tomorrow will they be available for my questions. I will revert on this to you. For the time being please have some info from the "Etymological Lexicon for Place Names" by Kiss Lajos, published in 1978 by Akadémiai Kiadó (in Hungarian) on the "Kiskinizs" entry: "Place in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, first written record in 1246 as "Kenys". In 1408: "Kynis". (N.B. In old Hungarian the "s" also stood for "zh", as testified by scores of traditionally written family names! So the name "Sidó" is pronounced as "zhidó" in modern Hungarian!)The "Kinizs" place name is of Slavic origin, Serbo-Croatian/Slovene/Czech: Kne, meaning "of prince/princely". The "Kis" prefix (meaning "Little")serves the same purpose as "Nagy" (meaning "Great"); see my previous message to you. The same Slavic root occurs in other place names throughout Hungary, such as:Balatonkenese, Nagykanizsa, etc.
Now as to the Vlachs in Hungary: first written records on them date from between 1180-1200, initially in the southernmost parts of Transylvania (presently in Romania) where they were grazing their flocks of sheep.In the following decades they gradually moved along the ridges of the Carpathian mountains, ultimately getting as far as southern Poland and eastern Moravia (now Czech Republic)in the far North. Place names in these areas testify to their early presence; however, as I showed to you, "Kiskinizs" is not one of them. Moreover,all such places bearing Vlach names are in alpine regions, as is becoming to the Valchs' earliest trade (sheep-breedeing), and the neighbourhood of "Kiskinizs" and "Nagykinizs" (gently sloping hills)is surely different geographically! And lastly: when the Hungarian tribes came to the Carpathian Basin (between 890 and 900 AD) they took over many place names from the already (sparsely)present Slavic populace; new settlements, however, were named invariably in Hungarian. So it follows that "Kiskinizs" (or rather its predecessor "Kinizs" as the "Kis" prefix is Hungarian!) was founded and named by Slavs before 890, at which time the Vlachs were still residing deep in the Southern/Central Balkans!
All in all: all applicable approaches to your question seem to refute your theory.
Regards, TJanos |
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