29-12-03 12:54, Mate Kapovic wrote:
> 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.
The prothetic /v-/ is of Albanian origin: pre-Albanian *a:tra: > *otrë >
Geg votër, Tosk vatër (a regular development) --> Romanian vatrã
(whether substratal or borrowed more recently). There can be little
doubt that the word spread throughout the Carpathian thanks to
Daco-Romanian speakers (Polish dialectal <watra> is found _only_ in the
mountains). <ob-atriti se~> might be a separate case (perhaps an
isolated survival of an inherited word -- at any rate it calls for
separate examination). As for *a:tra: 'hearth, a fire'), it reflects the
old instrumental noun *h2ah1-trom from *h2ah1- 'burn' (femininised in
pre-Albanian). Iranian shows reflexes derivatives of the related
masculine agent noun *h2áh1-to:r 'he that burns' --> 'sacred fire' (Av.
a:tar-/a:þr-, etc.).
Piotr