Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/sǫbota

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

Borrowed from Latin (either Medieval Latin sabbatum or Vulgar Latin *sambatum), from Ancient Greek σάββᾱτον (sábbāton), from Hebrew שַׁבָּת (šabbāṯ, “sabbath”).

Noun

*sǫbota f

1. Saturday

Declension

Declension of *sǫbota (hard a-stem)

	singular	dual	plural
nominative	*sǫbota	*sǫbotě	*sǫboty
genitive	*sǫboty	*sǫbotu	*sǫbotъ
dative	*sǫbotě	*sǫbotama	*sǫbotamъ
accusative	*sǫbotǫ	*sǫbotě	*sǫboty
instrumental	*sǫbotojǫ, *sǫbotǫ**	*sǫbotama	*sǫbotami
locative	*sǫbotě	*sǫbotu	*sǫbotasъ, *sǫbotaxъ*
vocative	*sǫboto	*sǫbotě	*sǫboty

^* -asъ is the expected Balto-Slavic form but is found only in some Old Czech documents; -axъ is found everywhere else and is formed by analogy with other locative plurals in -xъ.
^** 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

The East and South Slavic languages have a form that derives from a nasal variant *sǫbota. The West Slavic forms have no nasal, *sobota.

• East Slavic:
  • Old East Slavic: субота (subota)
    • Belarusian: субо́та (subóta)
    • Russian: суббо́та (subbóta)
    • Carpathian Rusyn: субо́та (subóta)
    • Ukrainian: субо́та (subóta)
    • → Karelian: suovatta
      • → Kildin Sami: сӯвведҍ (sūvvjed’)
• South Slavic:
  • Old Church Slavonic:

    Old Cyrillic script: сѫбота (sǫbota), собота (sobota)

    Glagolitic script: ⱄⱘⰱⱁⱅⰰ (sǫbota), ⱄⱆⰱⱁⱅⰰ (subota)

  • Bulgarian: съ́бота (sǎ́bota), съ́мбута (sǎ́mbuta) (dialectal)
  • Macedonian: сабота (sabota)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: су̀бота

    Latin script: sùbota

  • Slovene: sobọ́ta (tonal orthography)
• West Slavic:
  • Old Czech: sobota
    • Czech: sobota
  • Old Polish: sobota
    • Polish: sobota
    • Silesian: sobota
  • Slovak: sobota
  • Polabian: sübötă
  • Pomeranian:
    • Kashubian: sobòta
    • Slovincian: sôbôta
  • Sorbian:
    • Lower Sorbian: sobota
    • Upper Sorbian: sobota

• Non-Slavic languages:
  • → Hungarian: szombat

Further reading

• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “суббо́та”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress