Vistula

Learned borrowing from Latin Vistula.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈvɪst͡ʃʊlə/

Vistula

1. The longest river in Poland, which flows into the Baltic Sea.

• Vistla, Visula, Visla, Viscla (all in antiquity already)

In the form Visula and Visla at least sometimes directly acquired from Proto-Slavic *Visъla. The form Viscla resolves the /sl/ cluster like in Sclavus, uncommon in Latin, and in Germanic, via which it has sometimes been acquired.

Often explained as from the Proto-Indo-European root *weys- (“to flow”) as in Proto-Germanic *waisǭ (“mire”), although if of Slavic origin then *visěti (“to hang”) would afford a readier stem, suffixed +‎ *-lo +‎ *-a or +‎ *-sla, for which ever reason they would have called it the “hanging river” or “saggy stream”.

View of the river

Vistula f sg (genitive Vistulae); first declension

1. Vistula
   • 551, Jordanes, De origine actibusque Getarum‎, section V:

     Sclavini a Civitate Novidunensi (Mss. : Civitate Nova et Sclavino Rumunensi), et lacu qui appellatur Mursianus (var. : Musianus, Murianus), usque ad Danastrum, et in Boream Viscla tenus commorantur: hi paludes silvasque pro civitatibus habent.

     The Slavs abide from Noviodunum ad Istrum now known as Isákča and the Mursa lake to the Dniester, and farther north up to the Vistula: here they have the swamps and forests for municipalities.

First-declension noun, singular only.

• “Vistula”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Vistula in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “Vistula”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly