Danube Bulgar Тутхонь (a place either identical or near to Ankhialo(s)/Pomorie, Bulgaria)

Abstract

Тутхонь (i.e., Tutkhon’ = Tuthon’ = Tutxon’) was the name (obviously not Slavic) found in some medieval Slavic texts for the coastal city known in Greek as Ἀγχίαλος or some place very near it. We can identify it as a Turkic (specifically, Danube Bu­lgar) translation of the Greek, composed of *tur- ‘salt’ + t(e) g-Vm/n ‘reaching’ + -i ‘of/its’ ( izafet). Several of the details are impossible to be sure of at the present time, but most of the morphemes as well as the loss of r before another consonant and the syncope are obvious.