From: Mate Kapovic
Message: 28879
Date: 2003-12-29
----- Original Message -----
From: "g" <george.st@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2003 12:45 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: etyma for Crãciun, RomanianforChristmas
> This word must've reached Southern Poland carried
> thither esp. by Romanians who emigrated from
> Transylvania, to which belongs the province of
> Maramuresh that's neighboring East Slovakia and
> South Poland. (Some say that Pope Wojtyla also
> stems from a village founded by mountain peasants
> of Romanian extraction, the so-called <góral>s.
> Such migrations reached Moravia and Bohemia;
> there, today's touristic spots called "Vlachia"
> or "Vala$ske" don't bear these names out of the
> blue.)
I think this loan must be older, already in Proto-Slavic (*wa:tra:). We have
it in Bulg vatra, Czech older and dial. vatra, Slovak vatra, Polish dial.
watra, Ukr. vatra and Croat vatra. But also there are Russian Church Slavic
obatriti seN "fire up", Russian vatrushka "roasted pasta or smth like that",
Ukr vatrity "to burn".
Some tend to connect it with IIr (like Avestan a:tarsh etc.) but it is not
so plausable as we would expect prothetic *j- here, not *w- (*v-). Also,
Albanian has votrë, votër.
Mate