matasovic - substratum words in balto-slavic

8/10/2019 Matasovic - SUBSTRATUM WORDS IN BALTO-SLAVIC

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UDK 811.16:811.17Izvorni znanstveni lanak

Primljen 5.XII.2013.Prihvaen za tisak 20.I.2014.

Ranko Matasovi

Odsjek za lingvistikuFilozofski fakultet Sveuilita u ZagrebuLuieva 3, HR-10000 [email protected]

SUBSTRATUM WORDS IN BALTO-SLAVIC

This paper presents an analysis of those words, attested in Balto-Slavic,that do not have a clear Indo-European etymology and that could havebeen borrowed from some substratum language. It is shown that Balto-Slavic shares most of those words with other Indo-European languag-es of Northern and Western Europe (especially with Germanic), whilelexical parallels in languages of Southern Europe (Greek and Albani-an) are much less numerous. Georg Holzers Temematic hypothesisis also discussed, and a number of alternatives to his etymologies aresuggested. It is argued that Balto-Slavic contains very few words bor-rowed from substratum languages that are not present in other branch-es of Indo-European.

Introduction

This could be a very short paper, indeed, since, as will become appar-ent, I will argue that there are no substratum words in Balto-Slavic. Hav-ing said that, I must make myself more precise: of course I dont meanthat there are no substratum words in Baltic and Slavic languages. Thereare certainly plenty of them, although, as we will see, discovering themis a very difficult matter. What I will claim is that there is no layer of sub-stratum words that can be posited for Proto-Balto-Slavic, and that is notshared by other branches of Indo-European, especially by Germanic, Celt-ic, and Italic.

Methodologically, it is very difficult to show that a set of loanwordsfrom some unknown source does notexist. This would be tantamount toshowing that a set of words in an Indo-European language, or group oflanguages, does not have a plausible Indo-European etymology, and that

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positing some unknown source is more probable. The problem lies in thedefinition of the concept plausible Indo-European etymology. There areso many PIE roots, and their reconstructed meanings are often very, verygeneral, so that it is nearly always possible to come up with a proposal tothe effect that any word in any language is derived from a PIE root, andthat there is a set of often complicated semantic changes by whichthe attested form is derivable from PIE. Take the following example.

PSl. *bra shallow water expanse (Croat. bra, Slov. dial. barj,Bulg.bra,Russ. CSl. bra,Ukr. bar wet area between two hills, Pol. barzyna,dial. barzwka, Cz. dial. bara, baina, Polabian poro mud, Vasmer I:53,Sawski I:191, ESSJa I:153, Matasovi2007). This word has been consid-ered a borrowing from Illyrian (Gluhak 125), but this is improbable in

the light of its attestations in West Slavic and in Ukrainian (not to men-tion the fact that we know next to nothing about Illyrian). It has alsobeen connected to Gr. brboros mud, mire, filth (Vasmer I:53), but this isformally difficult, since the Slavic forms are acute, as if from a laryngealroot. Moreover, Gr. brboros can be plausibly connected to Arm. kork dirt(Beekes 226f.). Rather, one is tempted to derive this Slavic word from PIE*bheh2-shine (LIV. s. v.), cf. Ved. bhti shines, Gr.phanshine. The de-verbal adjective from this root would have been *bheh2-ro-,and the collec-tive > feminine noun *bheh2reh2shiny stuff, from which we can derivePSl. *braquite regularly. But how convincing is this etymology from thesemantic point of view? There is no generally accepted method for judg-ing semantic acceptability, and the only way to avoid complete subjectiv-

ity is to point to cases of parallel semantic development. This is indeedpossible, in this case, as PIE *bholHto- white (Lith. bltas) yielded PSl.*blto mud, swamp (Croat. blto, Russ. bolto, Cz. blto, Pol. boto).But, tobe completely honest, I am not even convinced this etymology is as sol-id as usually assumed. So it is uncertain whether it can serve as a reliableparallel to the semantic development assumed for *bra.

Clearly, we need a method for establishing the likelihood that a givenword is not inherited from a proto-language. I do not believe I can pro-pose a generally acceptable method for this, but I believe that in discuss-ing possible loanwords from unknown sources one has to bear in mindthe following criteria (Matasovi2012):

a. Loanwords usually belong to semantic fields that are especiallyprone to borrowing (e.g. technological and cultural terminology,names of plants and animals)

b. The loanwords should be identifiable by their unusual phonolog-



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ical characteristics (i.e. unusual root structure, the presence of therare PIE vowel *a, etc.); they should be isolated in the lexicon andnot easily derivable from verbal roots.

c. We should avoid root etymologies. That is, reducing an attestedform to a PIE root does not amount to a sound etymology, unlesswe can also explain its word-formation and relate it to establishedIndo-European patterns. If this cannot be done persuasively, theword is suspect of being a borrowing from some substratum lan-guage.

None of these criteria is sufficient by itself. Schrijver (1997) plausiblyshows that in many cases we can posit a word in PIE even if some of thecriteria mentioned above are violated. However, it is the cumulative evi-

dence rather than an individual criterium that tips the balance (Schrijver1997:296). Even so, claiming that a word, or a set of words in an IE lan-guage, are borrowings from some unknown substratum, often amountsto little more than saying that we do not know their etymology. ThereforeSchrijver proposes an additional criterion, namely the identification ofsubstratum words by the fact that they show phonological and morpho-nological alternations which are regular in the sense that they recur inmore than one etymon according to a certain pattern but irregular in thesense that they cannot be explained, for some reason or other, on the ba-sis of Indo-European phonology and morphology (Schrijver 1997:297).In what follows, we will see that there are many words of unclear, possi-bly substratum origin in Baltic and Slavic, that some of these words mayindeed be attributable to Proto-Balto-Slavic, but that such words do notshare any sort of regularity that could point to a common substratum asa source.

Indo-European substratum in Balto-Slavic?

It is a priori not improbable that there were unknown Indo-Europe-an languages spoken between the Italic, Celtic and Germanic languag-es in the West, and Baltic and the Slavic languages in the East. These mayhave included Pannonian (Anreiter 2001), Venetic, Dacian, and severalothers about which we know next to nothing (Katii1976). It is not un-

likely, moreover, that there are loanwords from such languages in Balto--Slavic, and the only question is whether they can be recognized as such.A reasonable attempt at discovering these substratum words was madeby Georg Holzer (1989). He argued that there is a layer of Balto-Slavic vo-cabulary that had been borrowed from an unknown IE language, which



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he tentatively identifies with the language of the Cimmerians, a people ofunknown origin who invaded Greece in the 7thcentury BC. According toHolzer, this language was characterized by a series of sound laws, differ-ent from Balto-Slavic sound laws, that can be observed in 45 different ety-mons attested in Balto-Slavic languages. The most prominent of these pu-tative sound laws are the change of PIE mediae aspiratae into tenues, andthe change of the PIE tenues into mediae (hence the handy name of thesubstratum language, Temematic).

A number of Holzers Temematic etymologies appears very plausi-ble at first sight. Thus, Holzer derives PSl. *svobodfree, *svoboda free-dom from PIE *swe-poti, *swe-poteh2, with the first element *swe- fromthe root of the reflexive pronoun (cf., e.g., OCS svojown), and the sec-

ond element from PIE *poti- master, lord (Skr. pti-, Gr.psishusband,etc.). However, the Slavic words have a perfectly viable etymology thatdoes not resort to Temematic sound laws: we can derive *svobodfromPIE *swo-bho- (cf. OCS svobstvo person, OPr. subs -self, own, Asg. sub-ban, Goth. sibja kin, Latv. at-svabint set free) with the rare, but well at-tested, suffix *-oda (cf. e.g. OCS agoda fruit vs. Lith. ogaid., VasmerIII:596, Trautmann 291, or *lgoda lightness > Croat. lagoda, cf. *lgklight > Russ. lgkij).

Likewise, Holzer derives PSl. *tsto dough from PIE *dhoygh-to- byTemematic sound laws (cf. Eng. dough, Germ. Teig, Gr. tekhos wall,etc.), but there is no need for this, since the Slavic word is plausibly con-nected with Gr. stas flour of spelt mixed and made into dough, OIr. tisdough, W toes dough < PIE *teh2is-to-, cf. also OHG theismo dough(EDPC 374, Derksen 492f.).

In spite of the fact that his Temematic hypothesis has not met withmuch critical reception, not to speak of general acceptance,1it is our opin-ion that it cannot be dismissed out of hand. Holzer has offered a viablesolution to a number of Slavic (to a lesser extent also Baltic) etymologicalproblems, although it is difficult to accept his overall hypothesis of a sin-gle substratum language to which all of the etymologically difficult Bal-to-Slavic words discussed in his book should be ascribed. For our purpos-es it is important to note that only 11 out of the 45 Temematic roots he re-constructs have cognates in both Baltic and Slavic; this is under 25 % of

the total number. Another problem is that in all but one case (Tem. *key-1Generally speaking, Holzers hypothesis was better accepted among Slavic scho-

lars (e.g. Moszyski 1992, Brozovi1992) than among Indo-Europeanists (however,Kortlandt, who belongs both categories of scholars, reviewed Holzers work ratherpositively, see Kortlandt 2003).



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ro- orphan) the Baltic and Slavic reflexes of the Temematic roots do notgo back to a single prototype. This means that most of his etymologies areroot etymologies, which should not be admitted easily.

Let us review Holzer s Temematic etymologies of words that are at-tested in both Baltic and Slavic:

Tm. *berg-, *borg-: Lith. br, bi, birs, Latv. brze furrow, OCSbrazda, Russ. borozd, Croat. brzda, Cz. brzda, etc. from PIE *porko- (Lat.porca, Gall. rica, OHGfuruh). The Baltic and Slavic forms cannot be derivedfrom the same prototype, so the derivation from Temematic amounts toa root etymology. An alternative etymology (Vasmer I:109) relates theSlavic words to PIE *bhers- point (OHG burst bristle, OIr. barr top); PIE*bhors-dheh2would regularly yield PSl. *borzda, but in this case the Baltic

words must be unrelated. Smoczyski (612) derives them from the PIEword for birch (*bherHgh- > OCS brza, Germ. Birke, etc.). It would orig-inally have denoted a furrow delineated by birch branches, which is se-mantically difficult.

Tm. *delno- / *dolno- / *dolgo-: *doln palm of the hand (OCS dla-na, Russ. dial. doln, Croat. dln, Pol. do), Lith. dlna, dlnas, Latv. dna.This set of words is derived by Holzer from PIE *telH- (Skr. tla- plain,surface, OCS tlo ground, floor). However, a better etymology con-nects these words to PIE *del(h1)- hew, cut (e.g. Smoczyski 99, cf. alsoIEW 194, Lith. dlti, deli, Lat. dolo cut into shape, dolabra knife, OIr. delbform, EDPC 95, Alb. dalloj cut, perhaps also Lith. dalti divide). The

original meaning would have been carved, rasped surface. In Russiandialects, reflexes of *dolnmean also threshing-floor (ESSJa V:63642).Note, however, that OIr. points to a root without the laryngeal, which isdifficult to square with the accentuation of the BSl. forms, which wereacuted.

Tm. *gebi / *gobi: PSl. *zoboats (Croat. zb, Russ. zob, Pol. zb), Lith.ebk, bksack for cattle food, Latv. zebenieks id. These words arederived by Holzer from the same root as German Hafer, OHG habaro oats,apparently from PIE *kop- by Temematic sound laws. However, theGermanic words for oats can be plausibly connected with OIr. corca, Wceirch oats and derived from a proto-form *korkwro- (Kluge 347), and theBalto-Slavic words can be related to PSl. *zobati peck, Russ. dial. zobat,

OPol. zoba, Croat. zbati peck, eat grains, Lith. btieat dry substances,gobble (Derksen 547).

2 ESSJas etymology connecting these BSl. words with Gr. thnar palm of thehand, OHG tennarid. is far-fetched and formally very difficult.



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Tm. *key-ro-: PSl. *sir orphaned (Russ. sryj, Cz. sir), Lith. eirswidower, cf. Av. sa- orphaned, which points to PIE *key-. Smoczyski(628) and EWA II:615 adduces also Ved. ay- orphan < *keyu-. Holzer(134f.) relates these words to Skr. hyate is left, hni- lack, Gr. khros or-phaned, empty, khra widow, Lat. hrs heir. However, the PIE root canbe safely reconstructed as *gheh1-, and Skr. h- contains the reflex of the la-ryngeal in the interconsonantal position. The verbal root is Skr. h- leave.There is no evidence for PIE *i- in this root, so the etymology proposed byHolzer cannot be correct.

Tm. *ponto-, *pont/ *ponti-: PSl. *pto fetter (OCS pl.pta, Croat.pto,Russ. pto, Pol. pto, Derksen 417), Lith. pntis rope (for fettering hors-es),pniaid., OPr.panto fetter; Holzer derives this from PIE *bhendh-

bind (= Eng. bind, Skr. bandh-, etc.), but an alternative etymology is readilyavailable: these BSl. words come from PIE *(s)penH- stretch, spin, weave(Arm. henowmweave, Lith.pin attach, OHG spannan, Gr.pnomai gettired, IEW 988). The same root is attested in PSl. pta heel, OPr. pentisid., Lith.pntis back side of an axe (Smoczyski 450).

Tm. *proko- / *pirk: PSl. *prokremaining (ORuss.prokrest, OCSprok, OPol.prokny every, Derksen 421), Lith.pirki, pirki peasant house,cottage , dial.pirkitlarder, pantry; these words are derived by Holzerfrom PIE *bhrgho-keep, preserve (Russ. bereg). Again the Slavic and Bal-tic words do not match exactly, so we are dealing with a root etymology.A simpler solution within Slavic is to derive *prokfrom the preposition*pro- forward and a suffix *-kwhich is common in adjectives (Snoj 582).Cf. also Gr.prka immediately and Lat.procul far.

Tm. *swep-/ *sup-: PSl. *svepetmoving around, OCS svepiti smoveCz. svapato bee-hive (Derksen 475), Lith. sup, spti move with difficulty,to rock, cradle, PSl. *stbee-hive; these are derived by Holzer from PIE*webh- weave (OHG weban, Gr. hyphan, etc.). However, a rather plausi-ble etymology derives these words from PIE *sewp- to strew, to throw,cf. also Lat. supopour, strew, ORuss. spembankment, hill, OCS sutipour, strew. This hypothesis, admittedly, involves Schwebeablaut. PSl.*stcan be derived from *sup-to- (Vasmer II:702 thinks this etymology isuncertain).

Tm. *telcalf (PSl. *telcalf > Croat. tle, Russ. telnok, Pol. ciel), Latv.

tles, dial. te, Lith. dial. tlis, tlias); derived by Holzer from PIE *dheh1-l- sucking (Gr. thlys feminine). However, Snoj derives this from a rootnoun *tl, *tls from the root meaning to bear (Latv. iz-tilt bring, Lat.tollo, tollere pick up, Gr. tlnai bear, support, IEW 1060f.), but this is se-



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mantically difficult. A connection is possible with *toliti calm, soothe, butagain the semantic connection is weak. Most likely, this Slavic word is ofTurkic origin, cf. Tuvan tel calf, Kazakh tel, Yakut tl. Starostin (www.star-ling.ru) reconstructs Proto-Turkic *T.l- a kid or calf sucking two milch-ewes or cows. Since there are no direct Turkic loanwords in Baltic, it isprobable that the Baltic words for calf were borrowed from Slavic.

Tm. *trono-, *tronto- drone (Croat. trt, Russ. trten, Pol. obs. trt,Derksen 498), Lith. trnas, Latv. transvs. Germ. Drohneand Gr. thrnaks).These words indeed appear to be of substratum origin, since the initial *t-in BSl. cannot correspond regularly to Germanic *d- and Greek *th-. Note,however, that the Slavic and Baltic formations are not identical, so theymay have been borrowed from different sources, or through different in-

termediaries.Tm. *twer- / *tur- / *tworo-: Lith. tveri, tvrti take, hold, Latv. tvru,

tvrt, OPr. turei has, OCS za-tvoriti close, Lith. tvrtas stable. Holzer de-rives these words from PIE *dhwer- close (OCS dvorcourtyard, dvrdoor), but a perfectly viable PIE etymology is available, cf. Gr. sros urn,seirrope, cord (with a noose) (Smoczyski 698). LIV accepts this and re-constructs the root as *twerH- seize. Cf. also Lith. tvor fence, OCS tvarcreature, creation with the lengthened grade (PIE *twrH-, which mayhave been a root noun).

Tm. *twirdo- / *twirto- strong, firm, solid: PSl. *tvrd, Lith. tvr-tas, Latv. tvrts; Holzer derives these words from PIE *dhwer-to- having

doors, but they are quite obviously related to the preceding etymon. Thesemantic development was from seized to squeezed and firm, solid. Inany case, the Baltic and Slavic suffixes do not match.

Everything considered, Holzers hypothesis remains unproven, espe-cially if it is meant to show that his Temematic loanwords were bor-rowed during the Balto-Slavic period. It remains possible that both Slavicand Baltic borrowed independently from some unknown Indo-Europeanlanguage, which may or may not be identical with Holzers Temematic.

Other possible loanwords from Indo-European substratums in Balto-Slavic were sought in the words showing Palatalwechsel, where Baltic and/or Slavic show plain velars, while evidence from other Satem-languagesshows that a palatalized velar must be posited for PIE (Gob 1972, 1990).However, the examination of the evidence shows that in most cases regu-lar depalatalizations in Balto-Slavic can be posited, e.g. after *s-mobile, orbefore a resonant followed by a back vowel (Matasovi2005). In the few



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cases where phonological depalatalizations cannot be assumed,3 it is al-ways simpler to assume that a word was borrowed from a known groupof languages (especially Germanic and Celtic) than from some unknownsubstratum.

Non-Indo-European vocabulary in Balto-Slavic

Of all the language families in the world about which we have anyknowledge, Uralic is the only one that is a reasonable candidate for the do-nor of substratum vocabulary in Balto-Slavic. Today, nearly all Uralic lan-guages are spoken near the Slavic and/or Baltic speaking area, and Ural-ic, Baltic, and Slavic contacts certainly stretch back deep into prehistory.

However, although there are many Uralic loanwords in individual Balto-Slavic languages, especially in Russian and Latvian, there do not seem tobe any Uralic loanwords that could be attributed to Proto-Slavic, or to Bal-to-Slavic periods (Kallio 2005).

Of course, there may have been other, now extinct non-IE languagesand/or language families in Europe, and Balto-Slavic may have borrowedwords from any of them. It has long been known that Indo-European lan-guages spoken in Europe share many vocabulary items that do not havecognates in the Asian branches of Indo-European. Some of this vocabularymay have been preserved from Common PIE only in the west, but someis likely to have been borrowed from unknown substratum languages ofEurope. These languages may have been genetically related, if they were

all descended from the language of the first Neolithic farmers who had ar-rived in Europe from Asia Minor in the 7th and 6th millennium BC, butat least equally possible is that they belonged to different language fami-lies, some of which were perhaps related to Basque, while others were not.These languages, or language families, may ultimately have been spokenby the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who adopted agriculture from the set-tlers arriving in Europe from Asia Minor and the Middle East. The nextsections contain a list of words in Baltic and Slavic languages that havecognates only in European branches of IE.4

3E.g. in the Slavic word for goose (PSl. *gs> Russ.gus, Pol.gvs. Lith. ss,OPr. sansy, Latv. zoss), which might be from Germanic (cf. OHG gans), and in the

Slavic word for cow (PSl. *korva > Russ. korva, Croat. krva), cf. W carwdeer.4We will exclude words that have very limited distribution in Slavic, especiallythose that are limited to Russian, Baltic, and North Germanic, as there is no evidencethat such words go back to Proto-Slavic. A good example is Russ. sig a kind of salm-on, Coregonus lavaretus, which was presumably borrowed from the same unknownsource as Lith. sykis, Latv. ska, sga, and OIc. skr, Swedish sik(Orel 330, Vasmer II:621).



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The northwestern connectionsIn this section we will look at those words that Balto-Slavic shares with

Northwestern Indo-European dialects (especially Germanic, Celtic andItalic) that are suspect of having substratum origin.5

PSl. *olxa alder (Russ. olxa, Pol. olcha, Bulg. elx, ESSJa VI:2325.),Lith. aksnis, eksnis, dial. alksnis alder (Smoczyski 11); there are paral-lels in Germanic (OE alor, OHG elira < *alisa, Orel 15) and Latin (alnusal-der, de Vaan 3435). The variation in the Anlaut points to probable sub-stratum origin (thus Derksen 3701).

PSl. *bagno swamp (Russ. dial. bagn, Pol. bagno, Cz. bahno, ESSJaI:125127), Dutch bagger mud, OHG bahstream, OIc. bekkr brook, riv-

ulet, OE bece (< PGerm. *bakiz, Orel 33), perhaps MIr. bal flowing water(if from *boglo-). Long *a in Slavic could be due to Winters law, in whichcase this is a very early loan from some unknown source.

PSl. *balka ravine, pool (Pol. dial. baka pool, pond, Russ. dial. balkaravine, perhaps also Croat. dial. balka, bala Stipa pennata L, ESSJa I:149),Lith. bal swamp, Latv. bala woodless valley, OE pl pool, OHGpfuolid. < PGerm. *plaz (Orel 292). The derivation from PIE *bhelH- whiteor *bheh2- light (ESSJa) is impossible because of initial *p- in Germanic. Ifthese words are related, it is probably a substratum word6.

PSl. *belen, *bln henbane (Russ. dial. belen, OPol. ble, Cz. bln,Bulg. blen day-dream, ESSJa I:185187); these words are certainly relat-

ed to the Germanic words for henbane, e.g. OE beolone, OS bilene, perhapsGaul. belenountan (Asg.). In Germanic we also find forms with differentsuffixes that probably point to substratum origin (Schrijver 1999), cf. OHGbilisa(Germ. Bilsenkraut), Swedish Bolmrt, Kluge 111).

PSl. *bobbean (Russ. bob, Croat. bb, Pol. bb, ESSJa II:148), OPr. babobean (perhaps a Slavic loanword), OE bean, OHG bna (< PGerm. *baun< *bab-n), Lat. faba bean. The usual comparison with Gr. phaks len-til and Alb. bath Vicia fabadoes not lead anywhere (Demiraj 94, see alsoKuiper 1995).

PSl. *drgbar, pole (OCS drgy sticks, Pol. drg, Croat. drgrail),

5There are, of course, many other lexemes that Baltic, Slavic (or both) share with

Northwestern IE dialects, especially with Germanic (see Stang 1972), but there are noreasons to believe they are of substratum origin (according to the criteria sketched inthe Introduction).

6Smoczyski (42) separates Lith. bal from PSl. *balka and relates it to the Lith.adjective blas pale, white, which is presumably related to bltas white (in turnfrom the same root as PSl. *bolto mud, see above).



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Lith. dragas pole (used as a lever), ESSJa V:129130; OIc. drangr de-tached pillar of rock, OIc. drengrheavy stick; a variant with *-k- is PSl.*drk bar, pole (Russ. druk, Cz. drouk, Croat. druk), ESSJa V:130131.The alternation of voiced and voiceless root-final stops might point to thesubstratum origin (thus Derksen 121).

PSl. *golbpigeon (Croat.glb, OCSgolb, Russ.glub, Pol.gob,ESSJa VI:21517), is too similar to Lat. columba for the similarity to be ac-cidental; the forms may go back to *Kol-ombh-, with the suffix *-ombh-/*-embh- which is common in bird-names (see also Derksen 2000). Holzer(1989) considers the Slavic form a Temematic loanword. Baltic does notshow direct reflexes, but cf. Lith.gelumbblue cloth, OPr.golimban bluevs. Russ.golubj pale blue, OPr.goby greyish, blue-grey (ESSJa VI:217).

PSl. *grabrhornbeam (Croat.grb,Serb. dial.gbar, grbar, Sln.gber,grber, Russ. grab, Pol. grab, Cz. habr, ESSJa VII:99100). Cf. OPr. wosi-grabisEvonymus Europaeus. The appurtenance of Umbr. Grabovius(epithetof Jove on Iguvine Tablets) and Ancient Macedoniangrbin a kind of treeis uncertain. The comparison with Lith. skrblashornbeam (Smoczyski568), perhaps Lat.carpinusid.7shows that we may be dealing with a sub-stratum word, reconstructable as *(s)grp/bh-, a distinctively non-IE shape.

PSl. *grmd, *krmelj fester in the corners of the eyes, gramiae(Russ. CSgrmd, Croat. krmlj, Slov. krmlj, ESSJa VII:1589). The sim-ilarity with lat.grmiae, gramiae viscous humour, rheum in the corner ofthe eyes and Goth. qrammia moisture is too great to ignore, but these

words cannot be reduced to a single prototype, so they were probably bor-rowed from some non-IE source (thus also De Vaan 270).OLith. kasulas hunting spear, Lat. corulus hazel-tree < *kosulo-, OIr.

coll, W coll < PCelt. *koslo- hazeltree, OHG hasal, OIc. hasl < PGerm.*xaslaz id. (Orel 164). The alternation in the shape of the suffix (*-slo- /*-sulo-) points, perhaps, to non-IE origin.

PSl. *elbed, *olbdswan (Russ. lbed, Cz. labut, Croat. lbd, OPol.ab, Pol. abd, ESSja VI:19, XXXII:5051.), OHG albiz, elbiz, Lat. olor,OIr. elu, W alarch, pl. eleirch. The alternation of *e- and *o- in Slavic is aninstance of Rozwadowskis change, but still the vocalism of the differentwords for swan is difficult to square with a PIE prototype (De Vaan 427).Another trace of substratum origin could be the alternation of stem-final*-d and *-t. Celtic and Italic point to *el-, Germanic to *al- (*h2el-), andSlavic can be from both, but the acute on the root implies that the root end-

7De Vaan 94 relates this to Hitt. karpina- kind of fruit tree, Lith. skipstas elm andspeculates that the root is the same as in Lat. carpo pluck, gather (PIE *ker-p-).



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ed in a laryngeal. Perhaps the forms with *a- were influenced by *h2elbho-

white (> Lat. albus).PSl. *xvoja needles of a coniferous tree, (Pol. choja, Russ. xvja, Pol. cho-

ja, ESSJa VIII:125126), Lith. skuj, Latv. skuja (Smoczyski 568, doubtingthe etymology), OIr. sc, scad[Gsg.] thorn bush (PCelt. *skwiyat-, EDPC339). We may posit an original alternation *skwoy- / *skuy-, but the shapeof the root is distinctively non-Indo-European.

PSl. *klati kneel (OCS klta [Ndu part. pres. act.] kneeling, Pol.klcze, Croat. klati, ESSJa X:289), Lith. klnkiu walk with difficul-ty; Snoj (277) derives these words from PIE *kleng-, *klenk- (Lat. cling-ere, MHG lenken, MHGgelenke, OHG (h)lanca thigh, haunch, Kluge 310).Note, however, that the reflexes are attested only in the European branch-

es, where the alternation of *k and *g may point to substratum origin.PSl. *klenmaple (Russ. kln, Pol. klon, Croat. kln, Vasmer I:567), Lith.

klvas (Smoczyski 297), Latv. kavas, OE hln, OIc. hlynr < PGerm. *hlu-ni. W kelynholly, OCo. kelin, OIr. cuilenn (EDPC 213) come from PCelt.*kolino- and need not be related (likewise OE holegn holly, OHG hulis-boum). The connection with Macedonian klin(s)trokhos(Theophrastus) isalso doubtful.

PSl. *kobc, *kobuz, *kobz kite, hawk (Russ. kbec, , Pol. kobiec,Croat. kbac, Russ. dial. kbuz, Pol. kobuz, kobz, Vasmer I:5823), OHGhabuh kite, OE hafoc hawk, OIc. haukr < PGerm. *habukaz (Orel 138).The Slavic noun *kobcseems to be formed with the diminutive suffix

*-c, and the form *kobuzmay be directly comparable to the Germanicwords for hawk. However, a reconstruction *kobugo- does not look likea PIE word.

*PSl. *lntja lentil (CSl. lta, Russ. ljaa, Bulg. lta, Croat. la, Vas-mer II:84, ESSJa XV:6365), OHG linsa lentil (Kluge 521 claims that thisis not a Latin loanword), Lat. lnslentil (De Vaan 238). Gr. lthyrospulse,Vicia sativa is probably unrelated.8Since lentils were originally cultivatedin the Middle East and the Balkans, it seems probable that the word wasborrowed from some Mediterranean source, perhaps one of the lost non-IE languages of the Balkans.

Lith. mkas purse, PCelt. *makin (MW megin bellows, Co. mygen,EDPC 254), OHG mago belly, OE maga id. < PGerm. *magn, Orel 253.

8Lith. lis lentil is probably borrowed from Germ. Linse(Smoczyski 348).



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The vowel *a points to a non-IE origin.Lith. ntryn nettle, OPr. noatis, perhaps also PSl. *nat leafy top of

a root vegetable (Ukr. dial. nat, Pol. na, Croat. nt ESSJa XXIII:186f.),PGerm. *natn, *natiln(OE netele, OHG nazza, nezzila, Orel 281f.), PCelt.*ninati- (OIr. nenaid, MW dynat [pl], EDPC 290). The reflexes point to *nina-ti- and *nti-, a very non-Indo-European form.

PSl. *ovsoats (Russ. ovs, Pol. owies, Croat. vas, Derksen 384f.), Lith.avi, Latv. uza, OPr. wyse, Lat. avna< *aweksn; both the alternation ofthe voiced and voiceless palatalized velars in BSl. and the unusual shapeof the suffix (*-eKs- / *-iKs-) point to the substratum origin (Oettinger 2003.189).

PSl. *roghorn (OCS rog, Croat. rg, Russ. rog, Pol. rg, Derksen 438),Lith. rgas, Latv. rgs, OPr. ragis. Smoczyski 495 relates these words toLith. regti see, assuming a root *regh- to be visible, appear, Germ. sichregen. Snoj 627 also starts with the meaning to stick out and connects Lith.rogsti stick out, cf. also CS rogozbull-rush, sedge, Russ. rogz. LIV re-constructs the root as *regh-, but there seems to be also a variant *rek- inPGerm. *rahstick, pole (ON r sailyard pole, OHG raha shuttle, Orel293), Lith. rkls [pl.] scaffolding. If these words are related (which is byno means certain), they show the alterantion of voiced and voiceless stopsat the end of the first syllable, which might be indicative of substratum or-igin.

PSl. *ruxo clothes (Russ. rxo, Croat. rho, Pol. rucho) can be derived

from *ruk-s-o- and related to PGerm. *rukkaz (OHG rocko overcoat, OErocc upper garment, Orel 308), PCelt. ?rowkk- / *ruk- (MIr. rucht tunic,W rhuchfilm, layer, jerkin, coat, EDPC 315). The alternation betweenthe geminate and the simple *-k- (and *x in Slavic) looks non-IE.

Lith. serbent blackberry, redcurrant, dial. sarbent (Smoczyski 543),Russ. dial. sorbalna blackberry, Rubus fruticosus, serbalna, serbarnarose-hip, Byelorussian cerbaln blackberry (Vasmer II:697), Lat. sorbus service-tree (De Vaan 576), perhaps also Swedish sarv rudd, redeye, Leuciscus ery-hrophthalmus (a reddish fish). Since the Slavic reflexes are limited to Rus-sian dialects (and an isolated Byelorussian form), this might be a Balticloanword in Slavic. The verbal root seems to be attested in Lith. sibti rip-en (perhaps originally redden, since all of the berries denoted by this setof words are red).9

PSl. *srebrosilver(OCS srebro, Russ. serebr,Pol. srebro),Lith. sid-

9One is tempted to connect these words to OIr. suib strawberrry, W syfi< PCelt.*subi- (EDPC 358), which are without etymology.



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bras, Latv. sidrabs (Smoczyski 546, who claims that the Baltic forms wereborrowed from Slavic), Goth. silubr. The appurtenance of Celtib. ilapurisprobable, but not quite certain (EDPC 41).

OPr. spurglis sparrow, OE spearwa sparrow, PCelt. *sfrawo- crow(Bret.fraw, Co.frau, EDPC 334), perhaps Lat.parra a kind of bird, Gr. (He-sych) sparsion sparrow-like bird, cf. Schrijver 1997:304.

*(i)vlga oriole (CS vlga, Russ. volga, Pol. wilga, dial. wywioga, wi-wielga, Croat. vga, Bulg. avlga, ESSJa VIII:251252), Lith. volung ori-ole, Latv. vludze, MHG witewal oriole, Dutch wielewaal. Since wite- ofMHG witewal means wood, it has been claimed that the apparent prefix*i- in Slavic is from *iwo-, i.e. that *ivlga is from *ivo-vlga (Derksen 217),where *ivo- is the word for willow (Russ. va, Croat. va, Lith. eva bird-

cherry). However, even if this is accepted, one cannot reconstruct a Bal-to-Slavic proto-form for the word for oriole, so borrowing from a sub-stratum language and different adaptations in Baltic and Slavic seem verylikely.

This set of words contains many nouns referring to cultural items, flo-ra and fauna, that are readily borrowed in situations of intensive languagecontact. Otherwise, there are very few, if any, formal features that can begathered from this material. One thing worth mentioning is that the al-ternation of the suffixes *-is- and *-(e)n- can be observed in a number ofitems referring to plant and tree names, e.g. PSl. *bel(e)nhenbane andOE beolonevs. OHG bilisa, PSl. *klenmaple vs. OHG hulisboum, and per-

haps Lith. aksnis alder and Lat. alnus vs. PSl. *olxa, OHG elira.

The southern connections

The lexical items ascribable to a substratum and shared by Slavic and/or Baltic with the southern European languages (especially Greek andAlbanian) are much less numerous, and they are generally based on lessreliable etymologies:

PSl. *kolyba,*koliba hut (Slov.kolba, Cz. dial.kolibatent, Bulg. kolba),Gr. kalb; possibly related to PSl. *xalupa hut, cottage (Croat. halupa(Kastav), Slov.halpa, Russ. dial. xalpa, Pol.chaupa). PSl. kolyba may havebeen borrowed from Greek at a relatively late stage (after the Slavic mi-

grations), but this does not solve the problem of the ultimate origin of thisword.PSl. *kos blackbird (Croat. ks, Russ. kos) is usually related to Gr.

kpsikhos, kssyphos(also kttyphos, kssykos) id.; this is a very uncertain



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etymology, since the original form of the Greek word for blackbird is dif-ficult to ascertain. PSl. *koswould be derivable from *kopso-, but it couldjust as well be from PIE *kos-, from the root *kes- to scratch, to comb(OCS esati, etc.). The semantic development would have been from thescratcher to blackbird, and it is interesting to note that blackbirds do in-deed scratch the soil and litter to pull earthworms (admittedly, so do oth-er species of birds). A semantic parallel development can be observed inCroat. ljugar(goldfinch, Carduelis caruelis), which is derived from ealjcomb, from the same PIE root *kes- (Skok I:311f.).

PSl. *klp swan Pol. dial. kieb swan, Russ. dial. kolp spoonbill,Croat. dial. kp swan, ULus. kop. These words are certainly related toLatv.glbis, Lith.gub,gulbs (4), with initialg-, Derksen 261. The original

form hadg- to judge by OIr.gulban beak, sting, Wgylfin beak, snout, ifthis etymology is correct (EDPC 168169 does not accept it).PSl. *mrky carrot (Russ. morkv, Croat. mrkva, Pol. marchew), OHG

morha;often related to Gr. brkana[pl.] wild herbs (Vasmer II:158159).The connection with the Greek word is very dubious, as the meanings donot match, and there is no evidence that Greek br- is from *mr-; Beekes(235) considers it Pre-Greek and doubts the connection with the putativeSlavic and Germanic cognates. It is also possible that the Slavic word wasborrowed from Germanic, but this does not solve the question of its ulti-mate origin.

PSl. *trstreed, cane (OCS trst, Russ. trost, Pol. tre, Croat. trst),

Lith. triai, trus, Latv. trusis, Trautmann 330, Vasmer III:141. The connec-tion with Gr. thronreed, rush (IEW 1097, DELG 443) is possible only ifone assumes the development *truso- > *truho- > *thruso- in Greek, whichis dubious. The unusual Anlaut in Greek could also be used as an argu-ment for borrowing from some non-IE language.

Pan-European substratum words

In a few cases, the substratum words found in Slavic have cognatesboth in the South (usually in Greek) and in the North (usually in German-ic); good examples are:

PSl. *brglz finch (Russ. berglz, Croat. brglijez, Vasmer I:75), Gr.

phryglos, Lat. fringilla (Vasmer I:75). However, Beekes (1593) notes thatthe meaning of the Greek bird name is not completely certain (chaffinchis only one possibility). It is also possible that all of these words are inde-pendent, originally onomatopoetic formations.



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PSl. *emer Veratrum album, hellebore (Russ. dial. mer, Pol. dial.czemier, Croat. mrvenom, anger, ESSJa IV:5253), Lith. kmeras, OHGhemera id., Gr. kmaros.

PSl. *eremuxa, *ermxa, *serma ramson, bird cherry (Croat.srjemua, crjema, Russ. dial. ermuxa, Pol. trzemcha, Slov. rmha, ESS-JaIV:6668), Lith. dial. kermutip of a drill, ramson, Gr. krmyon, krmy-on onion, OIr. crem wild garlic, leek, W craf[Collective] garlic < PCelt.*kremu-, *kramu-(EDPC 222), OE hramsa ramson, ESSJa IV:6668. Theforms with initial *s- < *k in Slavic show that this is a very early loan, sinceit exhibits Palatalwechsel. The comparison with Greek and Celtic formsdoes not allow the reconstruction of a PIE prototype, so this word wasprobably borrowed from some non-IE source.

PSl. *esngarlic (Russ. esnk, Croat. san, Pol. czosnek, ESSJa IV:8990), PCelt. *kasningarlic (MIr. cainnenn, OW cennin[p] leeks, daffodils,OCo. kenin gl. allium, EDPC 193); the alternation *e/*a seems to point tosubstratum origin (Schrijver 1995:495), but the e-vocalism of Slavic maybe due to the influence of the verbal root *kes- to comb, (?) to peel (OCSesati).

PSl. *konop rope (Slov. konp,Bulg. konp, Russ. dial. konp, konpOPol. kono, ULus. konop, Vasmer I:615), OHG hanaf hemp, OE haenep< PGerm. *hanapa- (Kluge 354), Gr. knnabis. This is an old Wanderwort,perhaps of oriental origin, cf. Sumerian kunibu hemp.10

PSl. *klkhip (Russ. dial. kolk, Croat. kk, Bulg. klka, Vasmer I:600),

Lith. kulkns, ankle, OPr. culczi hip, Latv. kulksnis tarsal joint; the com-parison with Lat. calx heel, hoof (De Vaan 86) seems very probable, buta common prototype cannot be reconstructed. The distinctly non-IE formof the root *kVlk- points to non-IE origin.

PSl. *makpoppy (Russ. mak, Croat. mk, Pol. mak, ESSJa XVII:149151), Lith. dial. mguon, Latv. magune, OPr. moke. The Lithuanian andLatvian words were probably borrowed from Germanic, (Derksen 299300), cf. OHG magobesides mho, and the OPr. word may be a loanwordfrom Polish. The vowel alternation in Germanic is unclear, as the OHGforms point to *makn- and *mkn.11The comparison with Gr. mkon,Dor. mkon poppy shows that the proto-form of the root *meh2ko-, pe-haps alternating with *mh2k- is original. The vowel alternation in Ger-

10Herodotus (4.7475) claims that hemp was imported from Scythia. Lat. canna-bisis a Greek loanword.

11Boutkan (1998) notes that a similar alternation exists in PGerm. *maga- girl,maid and *mg- > Goth. megs son-in-law, which he also considers as loanwords fromsome non-IE source.



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manic might be due to different adaptations of the same foreign sound(?//) either as *a, or as *.

PSl. *rpa turnip (Russ. rpa, Croat. rpa, Cz. epa), Lith. rp, OHGruoba, ruoppa, Lat. rpum, Gr. rhpys, rhphys. The diverging vocalism of thewords for turnip in European languages suggests this is a loanword fromsome non-IE source (thus also De Vaan 14).

PSl. *roda heron (OCS roda, Croat. rda, Skok III:163), Gr. erdis,rhdis, Lat. ardea, perhaps also OIc. rta a kind of duck. The divergingvocalism of the words for heron cannot be reconciled with a PIE recon-struction. This word was probably as migratory as the bird it denotes.

PSl. *vers, *verskheather (Russ. vresk, Cz. ves, Croat. vrjes, Derk-sen 516), Lith. vris, Latv. vizis, vrsis; the Slavic form points to *werk-,and the Baltic forms to *wrk- or *wrg-. T. Pronk (p. c.) thinks that Baltic-- may be due to influence from Lith. verti string, tighten, squeeze< *uerh-. Undoubtedly related are Gr. erek(< *wer-eyk-o-), OIr. froech,Wgrug (< *wroyko-), but no common prototype can be posited (Snoj as-sumes *werk-, *wrg-, *wereyk-, *wroyk-). Everything considered, this isprobably a loanword from some Non-IE language (thus also Beekes 452).

Again, it should be noted that Baltic reflexes of words belonging to thisstratum of the lexicon are often missing. Words belonging to this layerappear to be Wanderworter, and their original source(s) and paths oftransmission are probably impossible to determine.

Words limited to Balto-SlavicFinally, there is a group of words that is attested only in Balto-Slavic,

and there are no plausible cognates elsewhere in Indo-European.12Hereis a tentative list:

BSl. *bauKura- > PSl. *bugor, *bugrhillock (Russ. and Ukr. bugr),Latv. bagursid., cf. perhaps also Lith. kab(u)ras hillock (with metathe-sis and unexplained k-); a connection with the PIE root *bhewgh- to bow,twist (Goth. biugan, Skr. bhuj-, ESSJa III:79) is formally difficult (because ofthe acute in Latvian) and semantically not particularly attractive. Since noreflexes are attested in W and S Slavic, the E Slavic words may have beenborrowed from Baltic.

12The source for this section is Trautmanns dictionary (1921); of course, it containsother lexemes that are limited (at least in terms of word-formation) to Balto-Slavic, butwe have collected those that are most likely to be loanwords from some substratumlanguage according to our criteria sketched in the Introduction to this paper.



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BSl. *Purna- > PSl. *brna snout (Slov. dial. bnacarnival mask depict-ing an animal, Croat. brna, Maced. brna nose-ring of animals, Lith. burn(3) mouth, face, but Latv.puns snout. The etymological connection withArm. beran mouth is conjectural (Derksen 69), as well as with the root*bherH- to bore (Lat. formen opening), not to speak of the connectionwith MIr. bern [f] gap, breach, pass.

BSl. *darga- > PSl. *dorgdear (Croat. drg, Russ. dorogj, Pol. drogy),Latv. d`rgs; Snoj (120) and SP IV, 121 tentatively relate this to the root*dhregh- hold (IEW 252, Av. draaite holds, Gr. drssomai hold, OCSdrati). The original meaning would have been powerful, (able to) hold.ESSJa V:77 claims that Latv. drgs is a Slavic loanword.

BSl.*e/a-mela- > PSl. *emela,*jmela mistletoe (Russ. omla, Pol.jemioa,

Croat. mela, dial. mela), Lith. malas, malas, Latv. amuols, amuls, OPr.emelno; cf. also (with Ablaut) Latv. muls, mulis id. Smoczyski (13) men-tions the traditional etymology which relates these words with the root*h1em- hold, take (Lat. emo, OCS imati, Lith. im, iti), because mistletoeis used in the production of glue. More likely, only Slavic forms with initial*j- (e.g. Croat. imela) were influenced by this root. Smoczyski also men-tions the allegedconnection with Lat. amrus bitter, but does not reallybelieve it. ESSJa V:26 compares Eng. mistel, OHG mistilbut offers no solu-tion. Kluge (535f.) derives the Germanic forms from *mihs-tlo- and relatesthem to Gr. ikss, Lat. viscum, perhaps also PSl. *vinja cherry, but the in-itial *m- is unexplained. Could this be an instance of the prefixation of *a-found in Northwest European loanwords?

BSl. *graSa- threatening > PSl. *groziti threaten (Russ. grozt, gro,Pol.grozi, Croat.grziti, ESSJa VII:143), *groza horror (OCSgroza, Russ.groz, Pol.groza, Croat.grza, ESSJa VII:141142), Lith.grati threaten,gras beautiful, OLatv. grzns beautiful, luxurious. With -s- we alsohave Lith. grasnti threaten, grass threatening. The connection withOIr.gargg wild, Gr. GorgGorgon,gorgs terrible (Snoj 193, IEW 353) isvery dubious. The alternation of Slavic *s and Lith might point to a sub-stratum origin, but ESSJa VII:141f. claims that the Lithuanian forms with-- were borrowed from Slavic and that the forms with *-s- are unrelated,which is probably true. Smoczyski (195f.) leaves Lith.gras without et-ymology.

BSl. *Kl(a)ua- > PSl. *gluxdeaf (OCSglux, Russ.glxyj, Croat.glh,Cz. hluch, ESSJa VI:146147), Lith.gluas dumb; Snoj (176) relates thisto PSl. *glupsilly and *glum, *gluma joke. Vasmer (I:277) comparesLith. glusns obedient, klusns id., dial. klsas dumbish. The alterna-



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tion of *k- and *g- may be a sign that these words are of substratum ori-gin. ESSJas (VI:147) derivation from PIE *klows- hear by expressivechange of *k to *g does not lead anywhere.

BSl. *Kraua- > PSl. *gra pear (Russ. gra, Cz. hruka, Pol. gru-sza), PSl. *krua (Bulg. kra, Croat. krka, dial. krva, Pol. dial. krusza,ULus. kruva, LLus. krua; in Baltic only with *k-, cf. Lith. kriu, OPr. [pl.]crausios, Vasmer I:314. ESSJa (VII:156) connects these words with the ver-bal root found in PSl. *gruiti / *kruiti crush, but this is hard to believeon semantic grounds.13

BSl. *ni- > PSl. *injhoar-frost (OCS inii, Russ. nej, Cz. jn, Croat.nje, ESSJa VIII. 2356), Lith. nis. These words might perhaps be relat-ed to Germ. Eis< Germ. *saz (Orel 204), which may be, in turn, from the

same root as Av. axa- cold, isu- icy. The problem is that we would ex-pect the cluster *-sn- to be preserved in Balto-Slavic. Snoj (202) considersthe possibility that the original form was *ivnje and compares Slov. vjehoar-frost, Russ. dial. ven id. ESSJa VIII:235 agrees with this and claimsthat Lith nis was borrowed from Slavic. According to ESSJa, *jvnjewould be derivable from *jva, *jvica edge, crust (Serb. ivica, Bulg. ivaedge of a cloth), but this is semantically doubtful. Moreover, the etymol-ogy of *jva, *jvica is just as unknown as the etymology of *inj.

BSl. *ledu- > PSl. *led ice, Lith. ldas, Latv. ldus, OPr. ladis; ESSJa14:912 leaves this word without an etymology. Vasmer (25) adduces MIr.ladg snow (MoIr. laogh), but this comparison is very uncertain. The MIr.

word is poorly attested and both stem formation and inflection are uncer-tain (G sg. ladga or laide according to DIL).BSl. *me/arGa- > PSl. *mera net, Lith. mrka sheet, table-cloth,

drag-net, Latv. magarailing, gallery; mgarailing, gallery, mrsna;Smoczyski (374) doubts the connection because Lith. -k- cannot cor-respond to Slav. --.Snoj (420) reconstructs PIE *merHgh- from the root*(s)mer- weave (Gr. mrms thread, Hitt. imeri-) and compares also Gr.brkhos sling, rope, noose, MIr. braige prisoner (quoted from IEW 733);actually the word is brga captive, prisoner, hostage, which DIL treatsas the development of OIr. brgae [f t] neck, throat. Beekes finds evi-dence that both Gr. mrms (932) and brkhos (243)are Pre-Greek. Pronk(p. c.) derives the BSl. words for net from PIE *merg- border, limit

13ESSJa points to a putative semantic parallel in Lat.pirumpear, which it derivesfrom *peys- to beat, to crush (OCS pxati, etc.), but this is improbable, as Gr. pionpear shows that these words are borrowed from some non-IE substratum (with themysterious prefix a-posited by Schrijver 1997?). Original PIE *piso- would be reflect-ed as *peru- in Latin (De Vaan:467), cf. sero sow < *sish1oh2.



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(OIr. mruig, Lat. marg, Goth. marka area, border, MoPers. marz region. Ifthe original meaning of the root is preserved in Hitt. mrk-i/mark- divide,separate, the meaning of net might be derivable from it. The acute inBSl. would be the result of Winters law. However, the Balto-Slavic formspoint to the root-final plain velar, while the words meaning border, re-gion show reflexes of a palatalized PIE guttural.

BSl. *pausta- > PSl. *pust empty, deserted (OCS pust, Russ. pustj,Pol.pusty, Croat.pst, Derksen 424), OPr.pausto; perhaps from *powH-dh-to- cleansed (LIV *pewH- (1), cf. Ved.punti, OHGfouwen sieve)?

BSl. *(a)rayHa- > PSl. *orxnut, walnut (Russ. orx, Pol. orzech, Croat.rah, Derksen 374), Lith. reutas, Latv. riksts, OPr. buccareisis beech-nuts;Snoj 476f. connects also Alb. arr, Gr. pl. rya. Smoczyski (515f.) com-

pares Gr. erekbreak, tear, rend, but Beekes (452f.) relates this to Lat. rixaquarell, Lith. rikti cut hay < PIE *h1reyk-. The alternation of initial *o-(< *a-) in Slavic and the vowelless form in Baltic is similar to the alterna-tion posited by Schrijver (1997) in words from NW European substratum.

BSl. *seyHl> PSl. *sila force (OCS sila, Russ. sla, Pol. sia, Croat. sla,Derksen 451), Lith. sela soul, OPr. seilin diligence; perhaps to *seh2i-bind, Lith. dial. sien, Latv. set, Skr. s-, Hitt. ihiya, cf. PCelt. *soyto-magic (MW hud, EDPC 352) and OIc. seir magic, charm from the sameroot. Snoj (655) compares OIr. sethar powerful, W hydr strong, bold, butthis must be from a different root without the laryngeal (*seydh-), and OIr.sethar probably does not exist (it is a ghost-word). The connection with

the root *seh2i- is possible only under the assumption that the Slavic andBaltic forms are not etymologically identical, as Slavic *sila must be from*sih2leh2, while Lith. sela must reflect *seh2ileh2. This is quite improba-ble, so it is better to consider BSl. *seyla loanword from some unknownsource.

BSl. *ama- > PSl. *somsheat-fish (Russ. som, Pol.sum, Croat.sm, Derk-sen 461), Lith. mas, Latv. sams; the usual connection with Gr. kamasnes akind of fish, [pl.] is doubtful. Snoj (682) thinks of a connection with Croat.smLucioperca sandra, Slov. sm, as well as Russ. sudkid., but this isdifficult. Smoczyski 624 connects these words to Gr. kmaks shaft, pole,but the semantic connection is to weak (? fish as long as a pole).

BSl. *tranTa- > PSl. *trdtree fungus, tinder (OCS trdillness, Pol.trd leprosy, Croat. trd, Lith. trands woodworm, moth, Latv. trdi[Npl.] mould (Derksen 4978). A variant with final voiceless stop seemsto be attested in Russ. trut tinder and Bulg. trt. Probably related to Lith.trndu be eaten by worms (Vasmer III:144145). The derivation from the



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root *terd- drill (Skr. tard-, thus in LIV) is possible only if one assumesSchwebeablaut, or that the BSl. root *trend- was abstracted from the stem ofthe nasal present *tr-n-d-, for which there is no evidence.

BSl. *traupa- > *trup dead body, log, OPr. trupis log; Snoj (789)compares Lith. trupti crumble and Gr. trpbore, pierce trough. Vas-mer (III:143144) adduces Latv. trupt rot, decay, Lith. trups crushed topieces, Latv. trupe soil, earth, Smoczyski 692693 accepts this and ad-duces forms with initial d-such as Latv. drupt crumble, Latv. dial. draptcrumble. Beekes (1513) doubts the appurtenance of Gr. trp and Gr.trp hole because these point to a laryngeal root, and there is no evi-dence for a laryngeal in BSl. Everything considered, it is safest to separatethe Balto-Slavic words from the putative Greek cognates, and the alterna-

tion between initial *t- and *d- in Baltic might point to substratum origin.BSl. *tuli- > PSl. *tlst thick (Russ. tlstyj, Pol. tusty, Croat. tst),

Lith. tuti, tult swell, perhaps Latv. tulzisgall, Lith. tuls (4)14, Traut-mann332, Vasmer III:117. The alternation between st and might pointto a substratum origin. There may be a connection to Germ. *tulguz firm,steadfast (Goth. tulgus, Orel 411) and *talgtallow (Germ. Talg, OIc. talg,Orel 400), if we start from a substratum *TolK- / *TlK-.

Balto-Slavic also has a number of verbal roots which do not appear tohave any cognates elsewhere. Apart from this fact, there is no reason toconsider them borrowings from some unknown substratum. Here is a ten-tative list:

BSl. *kauH- > PSl. *sovati shove (Russ. sovt, OCz. suvati, Slov. suvti,Derksen 462), Lith. uti shoot, Latv. at, dial. sat; Snoj (711) comparesSkr. suvti pushes, sets in motion, Hitt. uwi- push away (Kloekhorst797f.), but this does not explain Lith. -; Smoczyski 626627 does notconnect the BSl. words with PIE *sewH- but rather with *kewH- throw,which LIV reconstructs as BSl. only.

BSl. *pel-/ *pl- burn > PSl. *paliti burn (OCSpaliti, Croat.pliti, Pol.pali, Russ. palt, Derksen 390), *pepel ashes (Croat. ppeo, Russ. ppel,Pol.popi), Lith.pelenaashes, OPr.pelenne; LIV 805. Related is also *pelin(Snoj 504). The root does not seem to be attested outside Balto-Slavic, butwe think it might be derived by metathesis from PIE *leh2p- (> *lp- > BSl.*pl-), cf. Hitt. lpzi glows, Gr. lmp, OPr. lopis flame, OIr. lasaid burn(EDPC 235). In that case the words for ashes must be from a different root,perhaps PIE *pelH- chaff (OPr.pelwo, OCS [pl.]plvy, etc., IEW 802).

14Smoczyski 694 derives these words for gall bladder from *ulti- by metathe-sis.



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BSl. *sewt- be mad > PSl. *ut fool (Russ. ut), *ustr movable,handy (Russ. stryj, Vasmer III:439440), Lith. sisti, siunt be mad,Latv. ust, utu be angry, Vasmer III:439440, Trautmann 269. Per-haps related are the reflexes of PSl. *ustrquick, handy (Croat. star,Byelorussian ostry handy, Gluhak 714).

Looking at the set of words adduced in the previous section, we mustnow ask if they exhibit any sort of quasi-regular, but non-IE morpholog-ical or phonological patterns, which would point to their substratum ori-gin. Do they show any of the patterns typical of the North West Europeansubstratum established by the Leiden school Indo-Europeanists? These in-clude the alternation of voiced (and aspirated?) and voiceless stops at theend of the first syllable (Boutkan 2003), especially between *p, *b, *bb, *ff,

*pp and *mp, in Germanic (Kuiper 1995); the prefixing of a word-initial*a- and the reduction in the vocalism of the remainder of the word in Ital-ic, Celtic, and Germanic (Schrijver 1997), the presence of the non-IE vowel*-a- (Kuiper 1995, Beekes 1996, Boutkan 2003) and its alternation with *-ai-in Germanic (Schrijver 1997), as well as the clusters *kl- and *kn- in Ger-manic. Boutkan (2003) also mentions the typically disyllabic root-shape(CVCVC) with alternating vowels in the second syllable. None of thesefeatures are found in our material, except for the alternation of voiced andvoiceless stops and fricatives (and, in the case of the word for nut, per-haps the alternation of initial *a- with zero).15

Within Baltic, words with this alternation are quite common. A list canbe found in Endzeln 1971:7576. Here is a selection:

Lith. viskti / vizgti swing,Lith. virpti / virbti vibrateLatv. klpis armful, Lith. klbsLatv. drupas ruins and drubaa small pieces, fragments;Latv. knpt and knbt to peck,Lith. slstai trap, Latv. slazds,Latv. sniekt to give and sniegtLith. klusns obedient andglusns id.Lith. krianos handle of a knife andgrianosLith. kmbclothes peg andgmbLatv.pires sheeps dung and bires

Lith. trenti rot, moulder, Latv. trent, drentLith. kakaras hillock, high ground,gagarasid. cf. Croat. uka, ukaraLatv. kapana haystack andgabana15Of course, in Balto-Slavic, the vowel *a is not diagnostic, since PIE *o and *a >

BSl. *a.



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In some cases, words showing this alternation may be Uralic loan-words, or they may reflect the pronunciation of originally Baltic wordsby speakers of Uralic, who underwent language shift. However, it is cer-tainly not the case that all of these words must be loanwords from non-IElanguages. Moreover, the alternation of voiced and voiceless consonantsis sometimes also found in words with perfectly convincing PIE etymol-ogies:

PSl. *drab rag, cloth (ULus. draby clothes, Ukr. drab poor man,Slk. drabina side panel on a cart), Lith. drbcloth, Trautmann 61, ESS-Ja V:100101. This is plausibly connected with PSl. *drapati tear, scratch(Russ. drpat, Cz. drpati, Croat. drpati, ESSJa V:101102) < PIE *drep-(Gr. drppluck, perhaps also Ved. drp- mantle).

PSl. *dupa, *duplja hole, hollow (Russ. dial. dpa, Cz. arch. doupa hol-low, Slov. dpa hole, burrow, Croat. dplja hollow, Pol. dziupla hol-low) vs. Lith. daub ravine, hole, Goth. diups deep, OE dopdeep < PIE*dhewb-, ESSJa V:157158.16

PSl. *drzbold (OCS drz, Russ. dial. drzyj, Cz. drz) vs. OPr. dir-sos good, Lith. drss courageous, Gr. thrass bold, ESSJa V:208f. Slavic-z-is unexplained, but it must be old, since we would otherwise expect thechange of *s > *x by RUKI-rule.

PSl. *lupiti to peel, *lubpeel, Lith. lauptibreak, lptipeel, Latv.laupt peel, Lat. liber bark of a tree, book, Alb. lab rind, Lith. lobasbast, Latv. luobaspeel, OPr. lubbobast, plank, Lith. lub plank. LIV re-

constructs PIE *lewp- on the basis of BSl. alone and does not discuss therelationship to *lewbh-. The forms with *-p- could have been generalizedfrom the sigmatic aorist (*lewbh-s- > *lewp-s-), but there is no evidencethat this verbal root ever formed a sigmatic aorist.

PSl. *trt drone, Lith. trnas, Latv. trans, tranis; certainly relatedto Germ. Drohne, Gr. thrnaks, but details of development are unclear(Smoczyski 682). Holzer (1989) interprets this word as Temematic (seeabove), but the voiceless initial stop is the only argument for this hypoth-esis. In light of the overall uncertainty of the Temematic theory, it is bet-ter to simply acknowledge that we do not know the source and the origi-nal form of this word.

PSl. *tp- / *dp- to stamp: Pol. depta, Cz. deptati vs. Russ. toptt,Croat. tptati, topot; the original form had *t-, cf. Gr. tptbeat, Skr. tuptiid., Latv. staupe trampling (of horses), Vasmer III:122.

16Germanic *-p- might be explicable by Kluges law, as arising from *-b- in a na-sal stem.



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The causes of alternations of voiced and voiceless stops can often be ac-counted for within Indo-European. For example, the root-final voicelessstops in verbal roots can be the result of de-voicing before *-s- in the sig-matic aorist, and the root-final voiceless stop in a nominal form can be theresult of generalization of the de-voiced stop which was regular before thenominative singular ending *-s in a root noun (Matasovi2011). Thus, it ismethodically objectionable to derive all words in which Slavic and Baltichave unexpected articulation of stops from a non-IE substratum.

Here is, finally, a tentative list of Balto-Slavic words with no plausiblePIE etymology, which could have been borrowed from some substratum:

Probable: *(a)rayHu- nut, *bauKura- hillock, *e/amela- mistletoe,*graSa- terrible, , *Krawa- pear, *ledu- ice, *me/arG-ska- net, *ama-

sheat-fish, *Traupa- log, *tuli- thick, fat.Possible: *PurHna- snout, *ni- hoar-frost, *Klawa- deaf, dumb,

*seylforce, *tranTa- tree fungus.17

Most of these words belong to semantic fields that are easily prone toborrowing. However, they do not share any obvious features that wouldhelp us attribute them to a single substratum. The irregular vocalic alter-nations and the alternations between voiced and voiceless stops are notspecific enough, and we find similar alternations in the words belongingto the Northwest European layer of vocabulary in Celtic, Germanic, andItalic. Thus, we can conclude that there is no reason to assume that Balto-Slavic borrowed words from a single substratum.

Discussion and conclusionsThe examination of the list of words belonging to the European vo-

cabulary in Balto-Slavic presented in the last chapter allows us to make thefollowing observations:

Firstly, Baltic and Slavic share this European vocabulary much more of-ten with the western and northern European languages (Germanic, Italicand Celtic) than with the southern ones (Greek and Albanian), see TableI. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis, common among ar-chaeologists, that Baltic and Slavic, together with Germanic, and possiblyalso Celtic and Italic, arose on the territory of the Corded Ware Horizon ofthe late 4th and the 3rd millennium BC (Mallory 1989, Anthony 2007:344370). The Northwest European vocabulary was borrowed from substra-tum language(s) in the area occupied by the Corded Ware Horizon, which

17Capital letters indicate alternation between voiced and voiceless consonants, i. e.*S can be both *s and *z, *T can be both *d and *t, etc.



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was Indo-European, according to the communis opinio among archaeol-ogists.

Secondly, words attested only in European branches of IE, but lack-ing in Anatolian, Tocharian, Indo-Iranian and (somewhat less common-ly) in Armenian, are not often shared by both Baltic and Slavic groups oflanguages (see Table I). This can be explained in two ways. We might as-sume that substratum words from the Northwestern European substra-tums entered the ancestors of modern Baltic and Slavic languages after theBalto-Slavic period, when Baltic languages and Proto-Slavic were partsof a large dialect continuum stretching over much of Central and East-ern Europe. Only the extreme parts of that continuum were preserved un-til the present: the Eastern Baltic languages, and Proto-Slavic, which is

relatively shallow, since it was spoken in the 5th century AD. The subse-quent expansion of the Slavs covered much of the earlier dialect contin-uum, erasing many idioms previously spoken between the Proto-Slavicand the Eastern Baltic areas. During the time of the borrowing of non-IE loanwords, dialects belonging to different parts of this dialect continu-um borrowed words from rather different substratum or adstratum lan-guages. This would mean positing Proto-Balto-Slavic at a very early pe-riod, presumably before the Corded Ware Horizon in the third millenni-um BC. Considering how close the Balto-Slavic languages are from the di-alectal point of view, I am inclined to believe the other possible explana-tion: that loanwords belonged to semantic fields in which rates of lexicalreplacement are very high, so that the original non-IE loanwords usually

survived only in parts of the original Balto-Slavic area.Thirdly, the number of words that may be of substratum origin, and

that are preserved only in Balto-Slavic, is very limited (perhaps as fewas 14, but probably not more than 20). It is significantly smaller than thenumber of words of substratum origin that can be attributed to Proto-Celt-ic, or to Insular Celtic (see EDPC), and it is also much smaller than thenumber of substratum words in Greek, for example.18This is probablydue to the fact that, during the Balto-Slavic period, speakers of that pro-to-language were surrounded by speakers of other, more peripheral Indo--European dialects (especially Germanic and Celtic) that were exposed tomore intensive contacts with speakers of non-IE languages. Consequent-

ly, during the period when Balto-Slavic separated from the other NW Eu-ropean dialects as an individual idiom, borrowing from non-IE substratawas minimal.

18Apparently as much as 10 % of Greek words in Beekes recent etymological dic-tionary (2011) are of substratum origin.



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Words shared withNW European

Words shared withSE European

Words with cognates inmost European branchesof IE

26 (12 attested in bothBaltic and Slavic)



Table I: The distribution of possible Substratum words in Balto-Slavic

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Supstratne rijei u baltoslavenskim jezicimaSaetak

U ovom su lanku prikupljene i analizirane rijei posvjedoene u baltosla-venskim jezicima bez jasne indoeuropske etimologije, koje po jasno definira-nim kriterijima mogu biti posuenice iz nekoga supstratnog jezika (pripada-ju odreenim semantikim poljima, pokazuju neobine tvorbene osobitosti,itd.). Pokazuje se da veinu takvih rijei baltoslavenski jezici dijele s drugimindoeuropskim jezicima sjeverne i zapadne Europe (osobito s germanskima,u manjoj mjeri s keltskima i italskima), dok su znatno malobrojnije rijei sup-stratnog podrijetla koje usporednice imaju u jezicima june Europe (grki i al-banski). Raspravlja se i o pretpostavci Georga Holzera o postojanju niza rijei

koje su u baltoslavenski posuene iz iezloga indoeuropskog jezika koji onnaziva temematskim, no pokazuje se da je vrlo malo tih rijei posvjedoenoi u baltijskim i u slavenskim jezicima, te da one obino imaju uvjerljive indo-europske etimologije. Zakljuuje se da je u baltoslavenskome vrlo malo rije-i koje su posuene iz nekoga supstratnog jezika iz kojega istovremeno rijeinisu posuivane i u drugim granama indoeuropskih jezika.

Kljune rijei: etimologija, supstrat, pretpovijesni jezini dodiri, baltoslaven-ski, indoeuropski

Key words: etymology, substratum, prehistoric language contacts, Balto-Sla-vic, Proto-Indo-European

matasovic - substratum words in balto-slavic

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