Appendix talk:Proto-Slavic nouns/Animals

The meaning of *kavornъ (<< *kavo-vornъ) was really bad, as you supposed. In 2 czech etymological dictionaries is assumed, that originally existed also word *kavъ, which represented both raven and jackdaw.

I'm not sure, if the south slavic word "patka" comes really from the root *pta. It could be derived also from the baltoslavic *a(n)t- >> *at- and the "P" on the beginning is only prothetic consonant. For example in the north slavic languages are expressions for duck "kačka, kacka" (<< katka) and in slovenian "raca" (<< rata). This is only my opinion, I don't have this substantiated. H.patera 18:12, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I’m not certain that this has the same root, but Russian, which does not have "patka", does have куропатка (partridge), which is like Czech koroptev, from *kuropъty. It would seem to indicate that "patka", at least in this case, does come from *pta. —Stephen 18:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I've grouped them all as various dialectal **pъta derivations just like Derksen becase that seemeed the most reasonable thing to do. *pъtakъ, *pъtica, *pъtъka seem to me very intimately related, and could well be continuations of Balto-Slavic *put- (whence Latvian putns (“bird”) and Lithuanian putytis (“young bird”). And 'u' gave 'ъ' in Slavic, so **pъt is what you'd expect, right?

There are Lithuanian/Latvian kovarnis (“rook”)/kovārnis (“jackdaw”) in addition to varna (“crow”)/vārna (“crow”) so the **kov/kav- prefix might as well date back to Balto-Slavic period, where it could come from who-knows-what source and we can only highly speculate on it's meaning. Unless the books are obviously wrong (which is sometimes very true), we shouldn't do any guesswork based on unsbstantied research because that would be original research and we're not supposed to do that ^_^. But most linguistic research is never fully conclusive by definition, and we should present all the possible theories (indicating, of course, what is "mainstream" and most-probable). Some day, inside Appendix:Proto-Slavic *gavornъ when we have time--Ivan Štambuk 18:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course, I don't want to do there any unsubstantiated research. I'm just hungry for your opinions guys, when I see there something strange. I may only try to find another hypothesis in some trustworthy book. I fully agree with Stephen in the sake of *kuropъty. I found today, that existed old iranian word *ati, with meaning "(wild) duck". So maybe a loanword? I don't know, I'll try to verify it. H.patera 23:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes mulъ is from latin mūlus. Patka is really from pъta and "kačka, kaca.." is borrowed from old iranian, cognate to *katišče - place on the bank of river, but i haven't found it's exact form. H.patera 00:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, -ka is a common suffix for bird names, which are usually feminine, and vocalized strong yor in *pъt- would regularly give *pat- in South Slavic. One should be very careful when explaining away etymologies by speculative borrowings; lots of lexemes that were attributed to Iranian or Germanic sources by 19th century German "ethnoarchaeologists" are known to be nonsense nowadays. --Ivan Štambuk 10:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, so this was written in a 2007 slovak etymological dictionary. Other versions I'have found were unknown etymology and etymology form the sound of duck "kač", which was by the way trustworthy refuted in that 2007 dictionary. It talks also about sanskrit words kacca, kicca, xacca with meaning of animals living on the bank of river/swamp or directly on the swamp. And in Trubačov (IX-163) is the term *katišče with meaning written above. H.patera 11:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Multilingual Animal Glossary of Unveiled Synonyms

[1] - has also Slavic part, and covers all Slavic languages ! Created by academicians, so no copyright (as if someone could prove you used just that specific page on the whole Internet for reference :P) --Ivan Štambuk 13:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

*krabъ

Source please. I didn't find this word in ЭССЯ, Vasmer, Černyx and Derksen. Moreover Vasmer says Russian word is borrowing from Dutch or German; Černyx says Russian word is known since the end of the 18th century. —Игорь Телкачь 00:14, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

That seems likely. The Lower Sorbian word kraba, at least, cannot come from Proto-Slavic *krabъ or *kraba, because those would have given *kšab(a) in Lower Sorbian. If the word does go all the way back to PSl, it would still have to be a loanword from PGmc, since Grimm's Law precludes them being cognates. However, a comment on this talk page is unlikely to be seen by many people. I'd recommend taking it up at the Etymology scriptorium for wider discussion. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Since nobody gave opposite proof i'm gonna remove row with "*krab". —Игорь Телкачь 09:46, 20 February 2015 (UTC)