Podlasie w badaniach onomastycznych w przekroju historycznym – stan obecny, zadania i potrzeby

Abstract

The article discusses the extensive scholarly output of linguists investigating the onomastic inventory of Podlasie region: namely, the onomasticians working at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Bialystok. The abundance and variety of the works published so far make them be a considerable input towards the development of Slavic onomastics and a valuable asset to the study of Polish eastern frontier’s history and culture. The publications are indicative of systematically conducted onomastic investigations marked by regionalism presented from an all-Poland, if not a wider, Slavic perspective. This feature seems to be the primary value of the studies in question. Regional onomastic research combine investigation methods of synchronic and diachronic linguistics. They require comprehensive use of historical sources and a close collaboration between linguists (onomasticians), dialectologists and historians, i.e. an excellent knowledge of political, social and cultural history of the region, as well as of the languages spoken by people who have settled and lived there.