Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/gǫsli

This Proto-Slavic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Slavic

Etymology

From *gǫsti +‎ *-slь. Compare Lithuanian kañklės pl (“kanklės?”) and also Finnish kannel, kantele, Karelian kandelen, Veps kandel, Livonian kandla.

Noun

*gǫ̀sli f pl

1. gusle, gusli (a type of violin-like stringed musical instrument)

Inflection

Declension of *gǫsli (i-stem, plural only)

	plural
nominative	*gǫsli
genitive	*gǫslьjь, *gǫsli*
dative	*gǫslьmъ
accusative	*gǫsli
instrumental	*gǫslьmi
locative	*gǫslьxъ
vocative	*gǫsli

^* The second form occurs in languages that contract early across /j/ (e.g. Czech), while the first form occurs in languages that do not (e.g. Russian).

Descendants

• East Slavic:
  • Old East Slavic: гусли (gusli)
    • Belarusian: гу́слі (húsli)
    • Russian: гу́сли (gúsli)
    • Carpathian Rusyn: гу́слї (húslji)
    • Ukrainian: гу́слі (húsli)
• South Slavic:
  • Old Church Slavonic: гѫсли (gǫsli)
  • Bulgarian: гу́сла (gúsla)
  • Macedonian: гусла (gusla)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: гу̏сле

    Latin script: gȕsle

    • → Slovene: gȗsle (tonal orthography)
• West Slavic:
  • Czech: housle
  • Polish: gęśle
  • Slovak: husle

Further reading

• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “гусли”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress
• Chernykh, P. Ja. (1993) “гусли”, in Историко-этимологический словарь русского языка [Historical-Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), 3rd edition, volume 1 (а – пантомима), Moscow: Russian Lang., →ISBN, page 228
• Trubachyov, Oleg, editor (1980), “*gǫslь”, in Этимологический словарь славянских языков [Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages] (in Russian), numbers 7 (*golvačь – *gyžati), Moscow: Nauka, page 84
• Šanskij, N. M. (2004) “гусли”, in Školʹnyj etimologičeskij slovarʹ russkovo jazyka [School Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Drofa