Re: Odp: Odp: Proto-Slavic "bear"

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 925
Date: 2000-01-14

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Gene Kalutskiy
To: cybalist@eGroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 5:46 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Odp: Proto-Slavic "bear"

"piotr gasiorowski" <gpiot-@...> wrote: 
original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/cybalist/?start=917
>PIE *xrtkos > *rtk'os > *irtsu > *jIrsU (I, U = yers, i.e.
reduced vowels). But the sequence *rtk is so uncommon that it's
difficult to say what its "regular" development should be (moreover, it
was prone to metathesis). The initial syllabic *r is another problem.
An alternative development would have given *urtsu > *wUrsU. I'd
predict hypothetical Polish *jars/wars, Russian *jors/vors, etc.
Suspiciously similar to Latin ursus, in fact.
> 
>         Piotr

Gene replied:
So you think that the [t] for sure would be dropped? The reconstruction
for Proto-Celtic is sth. like *artos, is it not?  If I wanted to
hypothesize  something like PIE *xrtkos > *r@...'os > PS *rUtsU,  or
maybe *r@... > *rUtU 
for P-S, would I be completely off the mark?
The only analogous case I can think of is the "woodworking" word-family based on the root traditionally reconstructed as PIE *tek'θ- (e.g. Greek tekto:n, Skt. takšan- 'carpenter'; cf. arktos, rkšas). In Slavic this root appears as *tes- (*tesati 'dress [timber]', *teslo 'adze', *teslja 'carpenter'). This may or may not represent an original *tetk-, but in any event strengthens my confidence in the correspondence Gk -kt- = Skt -kš- = Slavic -s-. The Celtic reflexes of the BEAR word are indeed Old Irish art, Welsh arth, etc. It may have developed from metathesised *xrkt- (as in Greek) > *arkt- > *arxt- > art-. This doesn't work for Slavic, where *k't > st.
 
In PS clusters it was the first element that was deleted or modified, so neither of the forms you propose would have yielded *rUtU (and there would be problems with the development *xrt- > *r@...- > *rUt-; syllabic *r was vocalised as *ir/ur in Balto-Slavic). And if it had, *rUtU would have changed into Russian *rot (*rt- before a vowel-initial suffix or inflection), not into *rut (see below).
The thing is, a few years ago  I met some old people in the Urals in
Russia who, while foraging for berries and mushrooms in the forest,
used the word "rUtik" as an affectionate nickname for their grandchild,
. When asked what they meant by this word they said: "Look at him, how
he finds all those mushrooms where we've already looked, he's like a
bear cub". But when asked if "rUtik" meant a bear cub they only
shrugged.
It's a pity they weren't more talkative. If Alexander is reading this, he might be able to tell us if there is a dialectal equivalent of mishka that sounds like "rutik". BTW, what do you mean by capital U in rUtik? The reduced vowels of PS have been either lost or fallen together with e/o in Russian. Modern Russian "yers" (the "soft mark" and the "hard mark") are just orthographic devices, not distinct vowels (as I'm sure I needn't tell you that, but there are Cybalist members who know nothing about Russian spelling or phonetics). Wasn't it simply Russian /u/? If so, it can't go back to an original yer.
 
Of course -ik can't have been anything else but a diminutive suffix, but rut- is a mystery as far as I'm concerned. I doubt if it could be a surviving reflex of the BEAR word, but I've no idea what to propose instead. Let's wait and see if our Russian friends can offer a clue.
 
Piotr