Re: [tied] Fw: Sorok i devianosto

--- Sergejus Tarasovas <S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

> There's also a subversion of this etymology,
> explaining ORuss _sorokU_
> eventually from the Proto-Slavic root-nest *sork-
> 'shirt; any sack-like
> object' (cf. ORuss _soroc^IkU_ '40 skins' < 'sack of
> 40 skins' < 'sack',
> but _soroc^ica_ 'shirt').
>
> Sergei

*****GK: This is worth discussing further. Maybe Piotr
can come up with additional information on Friday. I
take it that *sork is otherwise unattested. Is there
in fact any evidence that soroc#IkU was used as simply
"sack"? That would be important. I don't have enough
resources at hand to check if it has survived in this
sense to our days in any Slavic language. Soroc#ica
'shirt' (known from Novgorodian birch bark letters)
could be a borrowing from the Danish term mentioned by
Torsten.******

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: george knysh [mailto:gknysh@...]
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 2:19 AM
> > To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [tied] Fw: Sorok i devianosto
> >
> > > What is the source of this SOROK ?
> >
> > *****GK: It apparently derives (for all East
> Slavic
> > languages) from mediaeval Byzantine-Rus'
> commercial
> > contacts. One Byzantine litra (a unit of account
> found
> > in the earliest treaties between Kyiv and
> > Constantinople) was the equivalent of 40 marten
> skins.
> > And so Greek "tessarokonta" --> sorokonta -->
> sorokont
> > --> SOROK replaced the basic Slavic "chotyry
> desjat'".
> > There is a good account in O. Nazarenko's
> > "Proizkhozhdenie drevnerusskogo denezhno-vesovogo
> > scheta", published as pp. 5-79 of the 1996 issue
> of
> > DREVNEISHIE GOSUDARSTVA VOSTOCHNOI YEVROPI.*****
> >
>
>

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