From: Sergejus Tarasovas
Message: 10107
Date: 2001-10-10
--- In cybalist@..., "Christopher Gwinn" <sonno3@...> wrote:
I already know the Old Church Slavonic month
> names - but do we have anything earlier?
> - Chris Gwinn
I don't have Sadnik-Aitzetmüller or Trubachev's Slavic etymological
dictionaries at hand and thus can't provide you with a full inventory
of reconstructed Proto-Slavic month names (I guess that's the only
way we can speak of something "earlier" than OCS). Instead, I'll
enumerate what can be reconstructed for pre-East Slavic, and compare
that with Lithuanian.
*prosinIcI 'January' (not 'December' as in OCS), < (?) *si- as in
*sijati 'to shine', thus 'a month when days start to become longer' <
(some variant of?) PIE *sk^ei- .
*se^c^InU:*se^c^In(j)I 'February; January' < *se^k- as in *se^kti 'to
cut', 'a month when trees are hewed down' < *se:k- .
*ljutU(jI) 'February', lit. 'cruel' (of weather) < ?
*suxU(jI) 'March', lit. 'dry' < *saus-.
*travInU:*travIn(j)I 'April; May', lit. 'grassy' < *trava 'grass' <
*tro:u-:*tre:u- < (?) *ter- 'to rub'.
*berzozolU 'April', < *berz- as in *be'rza 'birch' < [we all know
what] + *zol-, akin of *zelInU 'green' < *g^Hel- 'yellow; green,
blue, gray', thus 'a month when birch leaves are putting forth'.
*izokU < (?) *jIzokU 'June', lit. 'grasshopper' < (??) *jIz- 'out;
from' + *oko 'eye' ('popeyed').
*c^IrvIcI:*c^IrvenU:*c^IrvenI 'June; July' < *c^Irv- 'worm;
cochineal; red' as in *c^IrvI 'worm; bee grub' < *kWrm-i-, thus (??)
'a month when queen bee deposits her eggs'.
*lipIn(j)I 'July', lit. 'of lime trees' < *lipa 'lime tree' < ?
*zarevU 'August', < (?) *za- 'prefix, here with "initialization"
meaning' + *rev- as in *reve^ti 'roar' < *reu-, thus (?) 'a season of
sexual heat'.
*sIrpIn(j)I 'August' lit. 'of sickle', < *sIrpU 'sickle'.
*z^InivIn(j)I 'August', < *z^e,ti 'to cut grain' < *z^In- *gWHen-
'cut, strike etc.'
*rjujenU:*rjujenI 'September', < (?) *rju- < *reu-:*rou- akin to
*rev- in *zarevU, the same semntics as *zarevU.
*versInI 'September', lit. 'heathy' < *versU 'heath' < ?
*listopadU 'October; November', lit. 'the fall of the leaf' < *listU
'leaf', -*padU 'a fall' < *padati 'to fall'.
*z^IltInI 'October', lit. 'a yellow one' < *z^IltU 'yellow'.
*kostric^InikU 'October', lit. 'of shove, scutch' < *kostra 'shove,
scutch', thus 'a season of flax-processing', probably a later carbon
copy of a Baltic name, cf. the Lithuanian name for October.
*grudIn(j)I 'November; December', < *gruda 'clod etc' < *gHrou-d- <
(?) gHer- 'rub', thus 'a month of clods frozen together'.
*studInU:*studIn(j)I 'December', lit. 'a cold one' < *studinU 'cold'
< ?
Lithuanian month names are etymologically transparent:
sau~sis 'January', lit. 'dry', cf. *suxU(jI).
vasa~ris 'February', lit. 'summerish, a month with summer tendency',
cf. va~sara 'summer', pava~saris 'spring' < *wes- 'spring; warmy
season'.
ko'vas 'March', lit. 'a rook'.
balan~dis 'April', lit. 'pigeon'.
geguz^e.~ 'May', lit. 'a cuckoo'.
birz^e~lis 'June', lit. 'of birches' < be'rz^as 'birch', cf.
*berzozolU.
lie~pa 'July', lit. 'lime tree', cf. *lipIn(j)I, cf. *lipIn(j)I.
rugse.'jis 'August', lit. '(a month when winter) rye (is) sown' <
rugy~s 'rye' + se.'ti 'to sow'.
rugpju_'tis 'September', lit. '(a month when ) rye (is) reaped' <
rugy~s 'rye' + pju_- akin to pja'uti 'to reap', cf. *sIrpIn(j)I,
z^InivIn(j)I.
spa~lis 'October', lit. 'shove, scutch', cf. *kostric^InikU.
la~kritis 'November', lit. 'the fall of the leaf', cf. *listopadU.
gruo'dis 'December', lit. 'of frozen mud' < gru'odas 'frozen mud',
cf. *grudIn(j)I.
Some similarities between the Baltic and Slavic forms could result
from the substrate influence or general interferention (not from the
common origin only).
Sergei