Re: [tied] Iranic in Slavic

-----Original Message-----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski [mailto:gpiotr@...]
Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 6:35 PM
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [tied] Iranic in Slavic

(1) Middle Iranian vowel changes (monophthongisations and raisings): *ai > *e: > *i:, *au > *o: > *u:. Possible example: Russian irej (kraj) [~ vyrej ~ vyraj] 'fabulous land in the south' < *irIjI (from *i:rya- < *airya-). Such changes occurred parallelly in different dialects and are hard to date accurately, but suggest borrowing after ca. 300 BC.

Trubachev offers another etymology for irej-words: < *jI-rIj-I, *rIj- being another apophonic grade of *re^(j)- 'flow' (> *re^ka 'river', *re^jati 'flow') and probably *rajI 'paradise', the semantics being like 'a place beyond a big water-body (river), where departed spirits belong to'.

 

Sergei